cubanmiamiboy

(I hope someone will have the curiosity to read this now that we are so immersed in the whole Filin/Dmitrichenko/Tsikaridze/Womack-Bolshoi zaga!) The question is simple...does anybody knows as how the Douberval characters got to be named Lissette and Colin in Cuba vs.Lise and Colas as in everywhere else...? Thanks!

What a mess. (Is she a good dancer, BTW...has anybody seen videos of her..?)

I haven't kept track of this whole drama, but...re: the previously unnamed source who suggested Womack to pay for a part or to get a sponsor to do so. Has he been publicly identified already...? According to the above article, it was Filin. "Last week, Izvestia reported that Joy Womack, one of the first American ballerinas to graduate from the Bolshoi Academy, in 2012, and formerly a soloist at the Bolshoi Ballet, said that Filin told her to find a wealthy sponsor or pay $10,000 herself to perform on stage..."

Footage of Youskevitch is really scarse on the web. Much appreciated..!

I give that title to Principal Reyneris Reyes...

Easy...? AT THE BOLSHOI?! With all that has happened lately the place looks to me like a living nightmare. I just can't imagine how worse things can get there. Im telling you...I was dying of curiosity to take a live view of such troupe when I went to London.

Some glimpses from the Cuban production...

Volochkova has talked extensively about this...and I'm pro believing it.

I wonder if Feijoo still dances the role. I think the last time I saw her dancing was like 20 years ago, but never in Giselle. She never danced the role in Cuba for what I remember.

Oh, I'm planning to be three or four days maybe. I'm almost decided to go for Giselle. I've been trying to watch some different Cinderellas, and I can't never seem to endure the whole thing. Prokofiev is not "champagne" enough for my ballet viewing pleasure, to be honest.

Thank you very much Pherank! I'm certainly ALWAYS in the mood for Giselle. No matter what, every time she shows up in her cottage door, it feels as if I'm watching it for the first time. I'm not too familiar with Cinderella-(that is with Prokofiev score). The Cuban production uses the Strauss', and so I'm curious too about it. I will read the thread you provided. Thanks again!

I'm planning an early 2014 ballet trip to SF, and so I would love to get a piece of advise. Should I go for their "Giselle"or Wheeldon's "Cinderella"..? Merci bien..!

Oh ...I WANT to read that...

It always amazed me that, given the contemporary flavour of Bejart's ballets, he decided to preserve the Ivanov choreo intact for the Fee Dragee PDD...

I suspect they used the PDD in the form it is presented in Wright's or all those derived from Fedorova's staging. In that case, that is a major view at the original, and something that doesn't need too much digging, given that it has been beautifully preserved all this years. I would like to see also what did they do with the Snow scene and Waltz of the flowers, although even if not fallowing the notations, just presenting the original costume designs is more than enough to honor this ballet's past. One thing I feel curious about about Nutcracker treatment is the way stagers try to give solution to the big problem of how to make sense of the absence of its main dancers from the 90 % of the duration of the production. It looks like here Burlaka decided to be faithful to the original-(just as Balanchine, Wright and Fedorova)-by using the main ballerina just for the PDD and presenting another girl as Clara-(although I notice from the pictures that this is a "dancing Clara" as with Wright's and Alonso, a teen on pointes instead of the demi character little Balanchine's heroine). The one element similar to Vainonen's vision is, for what I read there, the fact that little Clara BECOMES the Fee Dragee, which is not a Fee anymore, but instead Princess Sugar Plum. Good news...Prince Coqueluche is back! Yaay! (Would this be the very first production either in the XX or XXI Century in which this character' s original name reappears...?)

OMG...OMG...OMG...!!! Now...THAT is something I've been waiting a lifetime of ballet viewing for it to happen...! I had no idea that the Nutcracker had been reconstructed..! I might need to go to Berlin at one point I guess to see this little jewel then... Bravo!!!!

Unfortunately Ballet Arizona isn't doing T&V in this year's "All Balanchine" program -- It would had been interesting to see the newly appointed Martin doing the ballerina role. T&V got a recent restaging in Cuba, while she was still dancing there. She was not a principal, but I'm sure she knows about the role and the way it is performed there.

A fairy tale for Miss Martin... Congrats!! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151980654694938&set=pb.24757179937.-2207520000.1383681727.&type=3&theater

Yesterday I attended both the matinée and the evening performances. T&V is a hard ballet that screams for two very strong technicians to be able to give proper treatment to the super choreo. Both Simkin and Stearns struggled at large in Youskevitch role during the solos, Simkin during the first one with the pirouettes to ronde de jambe-(I though at one pointe he would fall)- and Stearns with the second one-(tours en l'air). Additionally the pairing of Simkin with Boylston was an unfortunate one. He struggled to lift her at times-(she's a compact bodied dancer). Boylston wasn't also up to this role. Her petite allegro so required for the demanding footwork of Alonso's role wasn't sparkling enough, and she slowed down considerably the diagonal of chainee turns of her second variation. Semionova was the better act of the day, if not overwhelmingly good, at least way better than Boylston-(WHY is this girl-[isabella]- being given such role...?). The tempo honored the quickness of B's original conception for this ballet, although toward the devilish ending Simkin again struggled to catch up with the men on his back. Yes, Semionova is a beautiful woman with a wonderful, long limbs, but she needed a better partner to shine. There was no rapport between her and Stearns-(or Boylston and Simkin for that matter). Additionally, yesterday curiosity about Britten's orchestration took me to the pit where I engaged some orchestra members in a conversation on the subject. Just as I had suspected, they all agreed, by comparing their previous experiences with the score with this one, that this version had "more substance"-(violin lady), although the percussion guy complained that "now we don't do nothing...he-(Britten)-took out 80 % of our work..!!". He also told me that the previous orchestrations were heavier and darker, and that he used to make much more used of the cymbals compared to their current almost non existent usage. "This orchestration is clearer...well, of course, it comes from Britten, he was British, you know..?"-(violin lady again) "The Tempest" was a bore...

What I noticed the most about this orchestration was, as I said, the use of the brass section. Sometimes the flute had its nice shining moments, and in general the treatment seems to be based in sounding less bombastic, more simple than overly symphonic arrangements that tend to be the norm. The timpani use was particularly interesting though. Yes, Helene. I will be there to see Part in the role! The grayish pseudo-gothic ruins backdrop was not the best choice I've seen for this ballet. The programme claims it to be after the original ones by Benois. That Gong thing was particularly dreadful when it went silent-( contemporary choreography sans music is just in the very bottom of my list). I closed my eyes and nicely fall asleep. I needed some rest though...

11/01 I'm in the city just to see Chopiniana. I LOVE this ballet...it is engraved in my heart and soul perhaps just as Giselle, although I have been deprived of its live viewing for a long time now. It was the very last ballet from the very last program/season I saw in Cuba before my departure, and now it is the very first time I see it in America, after 12 years. I usually don't cry at the ballet except to the drama of our Silesian heroin, but tonight while watching Fokine's masterpiece again I visited the common places that, just as with Adam's work, make up for the essential body of aesthetic canons my taste for the art form comes from. This is BALLET for me, and even if I'm able to highly enjoy pancake tutus and fouettes, it is in the fluffy crinolines and romantic vocabulary where I find my comfort zone. I can't say this production is the pinnacle of the ballet, but then I have seen Sylphides in many other incarnations, some better than others. It doesn't matter...it is always wonderful to see. I particularly liked Seo and Forster in the PDD. (I have seen her in other roles, and I think she's better suited for the adagio spectrum). It was also great to see the familiar costumes that I remembered very well from the Cuban production-(the upper bodices with the little muslin sleeves, instead of the very copied Russian fluffy arm pieces). Britten's orchestration emphasized the brass section and the harp. I liked that. Will return tomorrow for more. The other two pieces bored me to death.

That makes two of us... Anybody else...?

I always do my little two questions test with any musical product I want to test in its likeness-(let's leave the XXI Century marvels of this particular production aside...} 1-Would I buy a CD to have it at home...? 2-Would I play such CD in my car to listen to while driving..? Many times I've asked the question in the middle of public discussions of this like, and I've noticed hesitation in the answers....specially from those who want to be completely honest about it. I have my good shares of 1-"no" and 2-"no" from people who liked the live showing. Alas, one of them went to say that for him it was all about the allure of the technical marvels.

Wasn't Kolya looking forward to an attorney career...?