cubanmiamiboy

Happy New Year from Fee Dragee Delgado, Fedorova style! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PY_-47_S0M

"The Whirling Queen"

Agghh... I can imagine Tchaikovsky and Petipa rolling in their graves to that Snow Scene. The DQ PDD thing with those underwear guys was just plainly ridiculous. But...to each his/her own, so here's a clip of the thing. Now, let me go back to Collier and Dowell's Grand Pas.

Wine, wine and more wine to recall the harvest in Giselle! Then at the end present the drunkest guest as the Queen or King of the harvest...

Browsing and revisiting this amazing collection of rg's pics-(thanks both rg and Helene for the great work at putting them all together!)-I realize how this ballet has somehow come full circle in its costume design to where Grisi started. Whereas posterior pics show a desire to modernize and change the look of the heroine-(Pavlova's pseudo art-deco camisole and Chase in her long sleeves/braided wig)-now we see our modern Giselles in a very similar fashion to what Muravyeva shows.

And then there is that infamous story on Taglioni's cult- (still retold on numerous websites as a historical fact) -which is what we might call the ‘Saint Petersburg Supper’. A couple of admirers bought her dance shoes after one performance-(for 200 roubles it's said)-, cooked them and ate them-(‘with a sauce’, some say...).

For some reason I've always though of ABT as the most exciting company to look at. Being such a melting pot of schooling and stars, it has always had in rooster dancers that will always please you. Now Vasiliev, Osipova, Part, Semionova and Gomes are keeping the game that Markova, Alonso, Youskevitch, Misha, Naggy, Bujones, Kirkland , Makarova and many others initiated. As I always say...you lucky New Yorkers...

And let me be the very first to extend your words. Since my registration, BT has been a wonderful place to come and engage in intelligent and wonderful discussions about the art we love, and I'm certainly very grateful to have that. I always tell my friends that it feels to me like a little apartment to which I can always come back and resume conversations with people continuously getting in and out, even after years having being initiated... May 2013 brings to all of us and our loved ones health and inner and outer peace. Looking forward to an even better year of B.talkin'..! (And...this will be my Kirov/Mariinsky life-long waited pilgrimage, so let's see what do I "get"... )

Reading this thread I'm now convinced that I don't have to go to Russia to see the current best company of the world. If so, where then...? ABT...? Paris..? Somewhere around the Caribbean maybe...?

There is the old theory that the "revolutionary" class' ultimate/non spoken desire is to imitate and eventually clon its predecessor.

I saw three Nutcrackers this year...two by MCB-(Balanchine)-and the CCBM-(Alonso-after-Fedorova based). Ditto with atm711 about the law needed on this Pas. I think its Adagio it outshines every single one in the classical repertoire in beauty and choreography, including SB's...(which gets a higher work up with the Spessitvtzeva's fish dives, not performed in the original). I too watched Sir Peter Wright's on my computer yesterday, and sent it as a Christmas card to my friend in France, so he could show it to his ill mother. I wrote to him.."even if you guys don't watch the whole thing, at least put that Grand Pas for her, please...".

Ditto with her Black Swan in Miami a while ago...almost falling on the floor during the fouettes.

Oh bart and Macnellie...I'm very glad you guys liked my link on Salas' music. He was mainly a religious music composer, particularly cantatas, aside from being a philosophy and theological studies professor, eventually becoming a priest in his later years. His works were always preceded by the words "Soli Deo Gloria". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5wQLkAst58

bart...aparently Salas composed more than what it is known today, but manuscripts were lost, but many of them have been rediscovered buried in old churches in Santiago de Cuba, and the music is being reissued. Isn't it beautiful..? Glad you got all that fish...it sounds yummy though..!

Just put this wonderful, very balletic staging of the Nutcracker, one that successfully resolves the old problem of who the leading ballerina ought to be. Here Sir Wright, just like Alonso in her staging, by putting a coming of age teenager Clara...one that can both starts having romantic interests and still play with dolls while dancing on pointe, and by giving her many wonderful dance moments, tells the audience that it is Clara the one to be watching carefully. Hence, the Grand Pas, as beautiful as it can be, sort of gets closer to the Bluebird PDD concept in SB...a highly technical Pas danced by secondary roles. Not saying that the result is 100% reached..(we still sense that it is Fee Dragee the One that has the formal PDD here)-but still, Clara definitely grows in importance as a ballerina role. A wonderful sight for Christmas Day! Enjoy! P.S. This is the first time I see a danseur doing fouettes. They are performed by the soldier-toy side by side to those of her vivandiere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atUsFzvDDF0

As usual, I went to my mother's best friend's house for "Nochebuena"-(in Cuba we celebrate the night before with roast pork, rice an beans and everything in between, for which the old tradition dictated to go hear midnight mass after the late supper, with full belly. ). The mass is now usually skipped-(although believers usually go on Christmas day, like my mother and me)-but the get together on Christmas Eve is "de rigueur". I'm still bloating! Merry Christmas! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdbB36x15mE

Much love, peace, health and "bonaventura" in this Christmas. May God bless you all, your family and your loved ones. Here's a baroque Cuban Christmas Carol-(Christmas of 1791)-by composer Esteban Salas-(1725-1803)...just for you all. Enjoy!

So, basically, there is no account of Balanchine having ever staged the whole 4 parts Pas.

Kolya is such a DIVO! (I like that...)

I longed my whole life to go see the Kirov. Now the Kirov is gone.

Oh...how interesting..! I wonder if anybody has any recollections here of the original Grand Pas, or if any explanation is known by B on his elimination of the male variation...

Did Balanchine at any point choreographed the whole PDD...? I mean, I know about his inclusion of the male characters of the divertissements in the Adagio in his first attempt, but I didn't know he had choreographed a male variation too at one point. When did that happened...? Was Dragee's variation also in the right place at one point also...? I didn't know that either. Please, shred some light on the subject..!

@ 13:59. Enjoy!