Andrei

I just read in Russian newspaper ... French pianist Madlen Malraux, a good friend of Balanchine, played his music in St. Petersburg an year ago - valse, composed specially for her. Now this score published in Russia. Late on, in the same article, they speculated about Eifman's planes to make ballet about Mr. B.

I just read in Russian newspaper ... French pianist Madlen Malraux, a good friend of Balanchine, played his music in St. Petersburg an year ago - valse, composed specially for her. Now this score published in Russia. Late on, in the same article, they speculated about Eifman's planes to make ballet about Mr. B.

In my youth I saw "Petroushka" in Maly Theatre, St. Petersburg with Valery Panov. I was too young to understand how great this work is, except I like him very much and I was in shock in the last scene, when Magician picked up the dummie from the floor after Petroushka's death. Few years ago I saw it again with the same company and can tell the ballet is very well preserved. The dancers know what they are doing on the stage, they were able to embody Fokine's idea of creation the dance from crowd's movements, as an ocean wave it's bringning dancers on the spot lights and eating them up, sowing us the birth of every movement. I don't have a program and, unfortunately, don't remember who have to be credited for this restaging, but probably the roots have to lead to Leontiev, who brought "Petroushka" in Marinsky in 20th. I didn't see the current version of Mariinsky so far, which was done by Viharev. On the video I saw Paris Opera with Mongne and the choreography is different. I used to dance "Petroushka's room" scene in Mariinsky's concerts, which was showed to me by MalyTheatre's artists and it's absolutely different. Much more jumps, different musical accents, almost every note was choreographed, even running across the wall was not just running, but pas de bourre with special accent down that goes against your arms movements. I doubt in some arms movements of corps de ballet of Grand Opera also, they not Russians at all and I think Fokine couldn't possible make them.

Jakobson is the first name to come to my head as the couture choreographer. All his works impossible to separate from the first cast and, unfortunately, when dancers had to step out, ballets did die.

You know what? I voted for technique! My first impulse was, of course, to choose personality, but then more I was thinkinig about it then more I understand that on the stage in BALLET performance I'd like to see the first of all a DECENT technique, which can't go lower of the certain level or the perfofmance will be spoiled. After this I will look for a) acting abilities B) interpretation of the role and only c) personality of the dancer, who can be beautiful or ugly, smart or stupid, honest or fibber. All people have personalities, but not all of them can be dancers and just few of them have the rights to dance, let say, Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty".

You know what? I voted for technique! My first impulse was, of course, to choose personality, but then more I was thinkinig about it then more I understand that on the stage in BALLET performance I'd like to see the first of all a DECENT technique, which can't go lower of the certain level or the perfofmance will be spoiled. After this I will look for a) acting abilities B) interpretation of the role and only c) personality of the dancer, who can be beautiful or ugly, smart or stupid, honest or fibber. All people have personalities, but not all of them can be dancers and just few of them have the rights to dance, let say, Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty".

Thank you, Jeannie. On Mariinsky website I read very short, but positive comments about this performance. Did you see previous version by Sergeev?

Thank you, Dirac and Alexandra for a wonderful article, I had never read it before. In Russia Diagilev's reputation grows day by day, when people gather more and more information about his heritage. About Russian superstition, the article was written in November, 1953, the month I was born. Does it mean anything ?!

Two creatures by Yacobson were really scary. First is Shurale in ballet with the same name. All children in the auditorium were frightened and even we, children who danced on the stage, were afraid of the dancer, specially, when this part was danced by Sapogov. Yacobson used his unique talent also in "Wonderland", where Sapogov was an evil creature without bones, so, he even can't walk himself and has to be carried by two servants. [ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: Andrei ]

Thank you, Sonjya! I'm wellcome anybody to share their expirience with Rite of Spring, which performance you like most?

I think the statement itself is wrong. Internationals companies can be provincial as well. In Russia we have another definition for the world "provincial". It's mean somebody who is trying to do the things which is not belong to them. So, it can be Balanchine or local choreographer's works, but somethings wrong with the presentation. The bad execution, gaudy costumes, the wrong amount of dancers, the sound of orchestra, the lost style, the lack of interest among dancers on what's going on on the stage make it happened. It's not necessarily to have all those mistakes, but if the company has even one, you start to understand that you are looking at the second rate performance. And what's more important, dancers understand it themselves and, let's say, don't really believe in what are they doing. You feel this "pretending" efforts in everybody. So, for me Boston Ballet is provincial company, because they tried so hard to be in the top ten over the world and NYCB is capital one, even I don't like they approach to classical pieces, but the quality of performances is usually very high. So, I come up with another contrasting, provincial - capital, instead of international.

Sonja, can you tell more about "Sacre du printemps", please?

I hate it, but sometimes it works. Petipa's Aurora's adagio with four cavaliers was part of his previous ballet "Cinderella", I believe. He gave exact description to Tchaikovsky and voila! As I understood from documentary about Forsythe, he changed the music one week before the premiere, without changing the choreography. Didn't see, no comments.

Yes, children start to dance on professional stages from the very first year in Vaganova school and it calls "production practice". They have a very small amount of money and food during rehearsals or performances and they serve not just Mariinsky, but all others ballet companies in St. Petersburg. This is very good for artistic education and for guiding you to the ballet world, can you deal with it or not? I still remember my overhelming feelings, when just after one month of training I was throwed on the Mariinsky's stage in "Don Quixote", blinded by the beam lights, the thunder of orchestra, splashes of sweat from turning dancers, the horse and the donkey on the stage miles wide, with hundred peolpe over there and thousands backstage. Of course, I understood nothing, only I knew that I'm participating in something splending and very important for so many people, I wanted to do it again and again and again ...

This is a book about technique skills for partnering and which method dancer was study before doesn't matter at all. It can help teachers and students to understand the basic requirements for pas de deux's work, but don't forget, you can study ballet just in the studio, guided by the teacher, don't try it alone .

Of course, you can change it, Paquita. Another interesting thing, that besides left or right turning people, we have en dehor or en dedan turning dancers. The classic example is Vassiliev, he could make easily 12 en dedan pirouettes and barely 6 en dehor.

Probably I can explain, why Fokine's lezginka from "Ruslan and Ludmila" looks like from XIX century. Originally it was choreographed by Petipa in 1874. Late on Telyakovsky (the director of Mariinsky)asked Shiryaiev to make new dances for this opera. It was bad and Telyakovsky had have an impudence to ask Petipa to correct "a little bit" Shiryaiev's choreography. Petipa was very angry and refused to do it, of course, so, several years "Ruslan" was performed with Shiryaiev's choreogtraphy. When the new director approached Fokine to change the choreography, may be, (it's just my gess!) he decided to follow Petipa's original version, which he was familiar with and don't change at least the "geography" of the dance. "Nayad and the Fisherman" was revived by Petr Gusev for Mariinsky in 70th and it really looks like Perrot/Petipa's creation. I heard that they even produced the video with this work, but I didn't see it myself.

I'm backing dirac and afraid that now we will have a lot of this-minute-patriotic-shef-d'ouevres. Besides I think that the music of Tchaikovsky's 1812 ouverture is very, very mediocre. From another hand, it's not occasionaly in the time of tragedy, war or catastrophy radio stations start to put the classical music on. People needs to lift their spirit up and the music does it. Of course, in my mind I have an example of starving musicians in Leningrad, performing the premier of Shostakovitch 7th symphony, when the city was under the siege of German army. May be some of German officers were late on the performance of "Toska" in Berlin, who knows. "The art belongs to people", this Lenin's words ironically explain this strange situation.

I don't like the term "mistakes" for the choreographer. Mistakes in what? In the story to chose from? In the structure, in the music, in the movements? Every mistake has just one right opposite choice, but the choreographer has thousands of choices. I prefer to judge the choreographer's work as a failure or a success. Of course, this is a very personal and what could consider the failure for Balanchine could be the success for Wheeldon.

The story from the glory of the Kirov. I will not give you names, but a very famous male dancer in the end of variation in "Don Quixote" fell off pirouettes. He immediately stood up and without music repeated pirouettes beautifully, provoking rave applaudes from the crowd. The next morning we had "Swan Lake" and the young soloist, dancing pas de trois, fell off his pirouettes also. He also stood up, lifted his hand, like wanted to bring attention to what he is doing and repeated pirouettes. Unfortunately, he fell again. Without any confusion he stood up, repeat his gesture, made pirouette again and fell again! He was willing to do it all day long, I believe, but somebody from the wings just pulled him out of the stage. The conductor couldn't continue performance for few minutes, everybody was laughing as crazy, musicians included.

Don't forget about time limits. For IBC in Helsinki, for example, all modern pieces have to be choreographed after 1995.

Mel, I appreciate if you continue your hunting for the full version of "Paquita". I'm looking for it too. :rolleyes:

Kolpakova never was a brilliant technician, but she was a brilliant stylist. If I think about clearness and spiritualness (my English?), the first name is coming to my mind is Kolpakova. From one side she was light as a feather, but from another you understand at once that this girl, women, sylph, princess has something solid and strong inside of her, which doesn't allow anybody to change her inner world. This kind of chemistry is very difficult to see on the video, but try to believe me, she was one of the few.

Estelle, you said classes were taught by Vassiliev and Maximova, but the repertoire is so much modern. It's look really strange to me ... :confused: