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sejacko

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Everything posted by sejacko

  1. From 1.27 onwards there's a bit from Luigini's Ballet Égyptien. I remember when they danced it here in London I was quite gobsmacked to hear it in there! (I had just listened to the wonderful Bonynge recording a few days before) http://www.buywell.com/cgi-bin/buywellic2/efly.html?mv_arg=16227
  2. For those with Blu-ray players, Amazon has it listed for only £17.59 (RRP £30) -- I have a feeling it's a mistake, as they don't seem to have the normal DVD listed at all, and this was probably meant to be their DVD price. Or maybe it's just an amazing pre-order-only price.
  3. Minkus in this case. I'm guessing the info on the VHS cover and/or the Ebay lister don't have a clue.
  4. Thanks for coming to my rescue, dirac. "Pedants rush in where angels fear to tread."
  5. I thought I'd better start a completely separate thread for this (rather delicate) topic, although it is something I was wondering during yesterday's Mariinsky Sleeping Beauty performance at the ROH. (Let me say at this point, that as a gay man, I don't get any kicks out of gawking at ballerinas' bosums). But I did notice that in Act 3, one of the soloists had a rather more fullsome bust that one normally sees on ballerinas. She was very good, and seemed to be.. shall we say.. extremely well-supported. It made me wonder, from a purely practical point of view, whether this can be a problem for young aspiring ballerinas..?
  6. I saw the SB matinee yesterday. What struck me was how the whole thing had been unnecessarily truncated. Huge chunks were simply omitted (eg. Act 1 went straight into the Waltz - unforgivable!) and many individual numbers shortened. I felt a bit short-changed at the end of it all. Is this really how they perform "their" Sergeyev version? (or perhaps only when they're on tour?) Oh and yes, I also missed the lovely mime sequences that we've become accustomed to in the RB versions.
  7. As an expat South African, that is exactly the kind of ignorant remark one can expect from the uber-manly Rugby fraternity.
  8. Slighty but... In the original 1877 score, with those (what I call) "false starts", ie. several fanfares inbetween the bits of the Waltz of the Prospective Fiances (I think introducing 2 of them at a time before the full waltz is played), the last fanfares for Odile & v.Rothbart have a lot more impact. As if to say, "we thought we'd seen them all, but it seems we have another contender!"
  9. I too have found Dutoit's recording a disappointment; "unballettic" for lack of a better word. Strange that it was so highly rated when it came out, and is *still* widely recommended in the mainstream classical press as a first choice of the complete score. (But then so is the Pletnev/Beauty!) I've always been a bit suspicious how Decca managed to squeeze the whole ballet onto 2CDs.. does Dutoit play all the repeats, and in particulat all those "false starts" in the Dance of the Prospective Brides in ACT 3? For me, the sheer excitement of Ermler's ROH version is unmatched, even though it lacks the Sobeshchanskaya PDD. For that I have the Bonynge box set, although I dont think he's at his best in the rest of the ballet (though he has his moments).
  10. What are the most commonly used editions of the Giselle score used today? Although Minkus's 1884 interpolations have become standard (apart from the much-discussed Act I PDD), I understand that his actual orchestrations are only still used in Russia. In these days of adherance to authenticity, the most obvious thing to do (short of reverting to the complete original Adam version and losing the Minkus interpolations), would be to use the 1884/Petipa version (the published piano reduction which I believe was the basis for most subsequent editions anyway) as a starting point, and then restore Adam's original orchestrations as far as is possible within that structure. Perhaps this is what we get? (Burgmüller's Act 1 Peasants' PDD obviously has to be considered part of the original score since it formed part of the original production, although I personally think it's musically inferior to Adam's more refined music, even in various reorchestated editions). Apart from the original Adam score (on Bonygne's Decca CDs), I'm familiar with these editions: Henri Büsser edition (ROH CD cond. Ermler) Joseph Horovitz (ROH/Opus Arte DVD cond. Gruzin) I've long been tempted to buy Karajan's 1962 Decca recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, but when I listened to the sample tracks on Amazon, I noticed the rather heavy orchestrations used. It seems very far removed from the original, and even from the more familiar Büsser edition. The rich strings of the Vienna Philharmonic sound positively Mantovaniesque in places. I'm still tempted to get it merely as a curiosity. Does anyone know which version this is?
  11. I don't think that's the point. 3rd party online vendors wouldn't have access to those "missing tracks" unless the record companies made them available to them separately from the already available (incomplete) CD versions. If for instance EMI made the "missing tracks" available from the wonderful complete Sylvia & Coppelia (Paris Opera Orchestra, cond. Jean-Baptiste Mari, 1977/78), I'd buy/download them in a flash (even though I already have the existing CD versions which contain about 80% of the music). Mind you, I'd *only* buy those missing tracks, not the whole lot..
  12. Interesting you mention the live Rozhdestvensky one. Around the same time (literally days before/after) he made a studio recording (also with the BBCSO) which was released at the time on LP on the BBC's own label in the UK, and on Eurodisc in mainland Europe. I've been trying to find out for some time whether it's ever been out on CD, but I cannot find any trace of that, so I gather it hasn't. Unlike the live version (which is "slightly abridged"), the studio version was complete, and from the few references I've been able to find, it was very good indeed. It was highly praised in the Gramophone magazine at the time (Sept 1980). The BBC Legends live version (given a Rosette in the Penguin Guide -- whatever you may think of that publication), has been criticised elsewhere as having harsh-ish (not ideal) sound, and for the brass (understandably) sounding a bit tired towards the end. It really is a shame that the BBC are letting the studio version gather dust in their archives in favour of the imperfect live version. But it's one to look out for in the future, who knows.. In the meantime I find the Bonynge version very satisfying, even though the recording itself is rather over-rich, Decca overegging the pudding a bit (as in the other Tchaikovsky ballets also; maybe a sympathetic new remastering would help). For a perverse kind of pleasure, I occasionally listen to Pletnev's bizzarly fast-paced reading (you can almost see the producer sitting there with a stop-watch thinking, "we're gonna get this baby in on two CDs whatever it takes!"). It also features a kind-of x-ray-vision-type clarity of sound (and left/right devided violin desks) which allows one to hear every tiny detail of the score in a quite unnatural way. But it completely lacks any sense of magic, which this of all ballets simply cannot do without. It too was highly praised in the Gramophone as well as the Penguin Guide, but I would certainly not recommend this version to anyone as their only complete Beauty on CD. I've not heard Previn's version, but I've read good things about it -- anyone familiar with that one?
  13. The much-maligned Makarova/Lanchbery version has no particular relevance in terms of copyright issues since so much "real work" (orchestrations, reworking and new music) went into it that it would carry its own new copyright, and rightfully so. I happen to think that it's very enjoyable in its own right, but it's one of those love-to-hate-it vs. hate-to-love-it things. At least it did lead to a a splendifirous recording of the music (Decca/Bonynge) which is more than the Russians ever gave us. But does Makarova not also deserve credit for starting the slow process towards La Bayadere's rehabilitation towards it's original form? It seems to be happening in more-or-less 10 year intervals: 1980 : Makarova/Lanchbery (ABT) - 4th act recreated, heavily reorchestrated 1991 : Nureyev/lanchbery (POB) - 4th act (apparently) considered and abandoned, orchestrations a bit "lighter" 2000/2001: Mariinsky Reconstruction of Petipa's 1900 version with original Minkus score Perhaps the next few years will yield a further development in this process. We tend to forget that what they found in the Mariinsky archives was not only the score as revived in 1900 but also the rest of the original 1877 score, which was then "brought into line" (changes/cuts) as per the 1900 version. By implication that means there is even more music that we haven't even heard yet! As I've argued above, in my opinion (by modern copyright laws), the Mariinsky do NOT hold the copyright to this music (much as they'd like to think they do), and they have a moral obbligation to make it available to the outside world. Ideally a facsimile of the 1900 version of the score should be reunited with the materials already held in the Sergeyev collection at Harvard, along with a copy of the full original 1877 score. There they will be accessible to scholars and ballet institutions to be studied, copied, performed and recorded as any other important piece of art in the public domain should be. Or what, wait another 100 years before reviving the thing?
  14. I've been doing a bit of reading about Russian copyright law. (Ok so it's only on Wikipedia..) Here's what it says about unpublished works: "Among the true novelties introduced by the new legislation in the area of copyrights were a publication right (a copyright granted to the publisher of a previously unpublished, uncopyrighted work with a period of 25 years from the publication), and the definition of two kinds of contracts: one for copyright transfers, and licenses for granting usage rights. Newly, gratis licences were explicitly allowed (article 1235). A subtle change concerned the calculation of the copyright term for posthumously published works, which began newly from the disclosure instead of from the publication. (See above for the difference.)" ...and crucially : "For a work that was disclosed during the author's lifetime, the copyright term of 70 years thus runs from the year the author the author died (or was rehabilitated, if the rehabilitation was posthumous), even if the work is published only later." As for what they mean by "disclosure"... " "Disclosure" is a concept newly introduced in the copyright law of 1993 to put an end to the ambiguities surrounding the term "publication" in the old Soviet copyright law. In Soviet copyright, publication included ephemerally making available a work, such as through a performance, a speech, or a broadcast. However, for foreign works protected under Soviet law indirectly through international agreements (in particular the UCC), the definition of "publication" laid down by these agreements (typically the "making available of copies", which excluded ephemeral reproduction and required the physical fixation of a work) was used. The new law tried to resolve this confusion by using "disclosure" for the broader sense (making accessible of a work to the general public through publication, performance, broadcast, or any other means), and using "publication" generally only in the sense of distribution of copies of a work to the general public." In broad terms this is all in line with international copyright law. Thus (if I'm interpreting this correctly), copyright on La Bayadere (1900 version), because it had been "disclosed" (ie. performed) during the composer's lifetime, extended to 70 years after his death (in 1917) -- thus to 1987. I can only re-iterate that IMHO whatever "work" was required to make this version performable (if it's as "authentic" as they claim it to be), was not enough to give them full and legal copyright on the work, and thus the work is for all intents and purposes in the public domain. But they do own the original score (in the physical ink-on-paper sense). So apart from physically keeping the scores and their orchestral parts under lock and key, I don't think that, if anyone decided to do a "reverse engineering" job (ie. use what is out on YouTube etc.) and re-assemble (as-close-as-is-possible) a full score (including lost act) that way, the Mariinsky would not have any recourse to copyright protection. Morally, however, it shouldn't have to come to that. The "moral rights" (as defined in the same article), remains with the composer. And thus the Mariinsky (as the owners of the score) have a moral responsibility to further Minkus's reputation by making the score as widely available as possible (ie. by GETTING IT PUBLISHED). (If you've gotten this far, for sticking with me!)
  15. But if the "lost act" was jettisoned in toto (circa 1923?) the only "work" they had to do was to re-assemble it (ie. finding all the pages and figuring out which page follows the next), as they've made in known that this was a *fully orchestrated* (?) complete score which was discovered in the Mariinsky archives. (Even if it had to be re-assembled from orchestral parts, that's not really that big a deal.) I'm no copyright expert either, but that kind of rudimentary musicological process is surely not enough to claim full legal copyright on the music itself. I was always under the impression that Nureyev had used the the old standard Chabukiani (cut) version as a starting point for his production. He seemed to be more concerned with the orchestrations than with the "lost" act. I think that, if he had indeed had access to the same material as what was used for the reconstruction, there would have been some indication (even one little dance which which was "new" -- how could he possibly resist?). As it stands, his version is pretty similar in most respects to Chubukiani in terms of the structure of the ballet. Perhaps Mr. Letellier muddled the issue. As enjoyable as his book is, it's certainly not without errors!
  16. I'm in the process of reading Letellier's "The Ballets of Ludwig Minkus". Fascinating! Regarding the Mariinsky reconstruction, he states that the reconstructed score is "Copyright of the Mariinsky". I'm wondering if that's legal (apart from being unconscionable). As we understand it, the music was re-assembled from a handwritten score in Minkus's own hand. Presumably small editorial decisions had to be made for practical reasons, but since the basis of the reconstruction was the 1900 revival, those would already mostly have been made in 1900. Copyright surely cannot exist on material composed (and edited) more than 100 years ago. I can understand that from a staging point of view (choreography, direction, etc.) more modern input was required. For instance male variations are obviously more virtuosic than they were in 1900; indeed some later additions were retained in that regard. Ballet technique itself has changed/evolved dramatically over the last 100 years and no-one can pretend that what we see (only on YouTube as the case may be!) is what the ballet would have been danced like in 1900. But the score itself, as a piece of intellectual property, I don't think can be owned/copyrighted by Mariinsky. Or am I wrong? As a revival of the reconstruction now seems out of the question, at least they should make the score available to the outside world. Hopefully one day a full studio recording of the score will be forthcoming. Jack
  17. .... and I've got a ticket to see her in Les Sylphides on 29th May
  18. It's good to see she'll be back dancing Giselle at the RB this month. She was sorely missed during her long recovery from her injury.
  19. I've just ordered my copy of this book, published last year I believe.. Has anyone else read it? There is a list of contents plus the introduction (very tantalising!) from this book here. Seems Minkus is now finally being taken seriously (in some quarters at least).. I hope this book lives upto expectations. The very fact it was written post-Bayadere Reconstruction alone should make for fascinating reading. Now we just need a similar book on the ballets of Delibes (and perhaps those of Adam) to stand alongside this one and Roland John Wiley's invaluable one on Tchaikovsky's..
  20. On 30th November 2008 the Dresden SemperOper Ballett unveiled their new version of La Bayadere, with choreography by Aaron S. Watkin and Minkus's score arranged by David Coleman. More information, photo gallery and a nice video clip here. It's in just two 2 acts so presumably ending with the Shades scene. I'm not sure about those temple-dansers stomping around barefoot in the first section of the video-clip, but Coleman's arrangements sound quite attractive (I wonder if it's the venerable Staatskapelle Dresden in the pit?!). Also nice to see Nikya has not given up her vina (Indian lute) lessons. Has anyone seen it?
  21. Michael Kaiser may have made an early (and brief!) contribution towards the recovery of the two ROH companies (opera & ballet), but it's been upto Tony Hall to see that process through and under his leadership they've gone from strength to strength. As for the RB: the fantastic shape they find themselves in at the moment is almost exclusively down do to the inspirational leadership of Monica Mason (sorry DAME Monica Mason!). What a lady! On the opera side we have Tony Pappano. Covent Garden is truly going through a kind of golden era at the moment.
  22. I guess my "home team", the Royal Opera House have a distinct advantage here, having bought Opus Arte, and are in a stronger position than most to get their filmed productions (both past and current) out on DVD. Still, as far as I can tell, on recent releases, even they are still dependant on an initial TV broadcast, which would presumably cover a big chunk of the costs. At the end of the day, being a publicly subsidised company (although not as heavily subsidised as some in mainland Europe), they do still need to balance the books. On a related note, it saddens me that after more than 20 years, the current (A.Dowell) RB production of Swan Lake has not been filmed. And now that we're heading into crunch-times for the arts, it seems less likely than ever.
  23. "Silence is golden..." I guess that's a no then!
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