Sacto1654

Lopatkina, in my opinion, is probably one of the few Mariinsky Ballet dancers that have a strong deference to the legacy of Natalia Dudinskaya (Lopatkina being among the last students directly trained by her), arguably the greatest ballet instructor in the history of the Vaganova Academy after 1950. After all, Dudinskaya was trained directly by Agrippina Vaganova herself in the 1920's and had a pretty distinguished dancing career herself, which unfortunately was cut short due to Dudinskaya's physical fraility.

It will be very interesting to see what Lopatkina will do in the future. Will she become a pedagogue and eventually lead the Vaganova Academy? Or are her ambitions a bit higher, possibly becoming the Director of Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre? Based on seeing the movie Ballerina and what I've read from some of the interviews she gave at her 35th birthday in October 2008, I have my doubts Lopatkina wants to do teaching work--I see her wanting to preserve the "Kirov" legacy that her late instructor (and Dudinskaya's husband, Konstantin Sergeyev) left behind, because Lopatkina knows what Sergeyev and Dudinskaya left behind artistically is almost as important historically as what Marius Petipa left behind a century earlier.

Oh, and I see at the bottom of the above Russian list that Beauty in Motion also won the "Critic's Prize" among ALL theatrical productions -- opera, ballet, theater & puppetry? So it has been deemed the super-duper, ultimate theatrical production in all of Russia for 2008. Uh...OK.

Given the iffy reception to Beauty in Motion by Western audiences, the Russian audience must have a quite different sensibility in ballet for this show to win the Golden Mask.

But I'm glad that Kondaurova is still in the running for the Benois de la Danse award--from what I've read about her premiere performance as Odette/Odile in Lebedinoye Ozero, it caused quite a sensation in Saint Petersburg and well beyond that, too. If she wins maybe the Mariinsky Theatre management will see it fit she at least gets First Soloist status?

One of the interesting "what ifs" is what would have happened to Ulyana Lopatkina's career if the Soviet Union is still around in 2009. Would she have stayed at the Kirov out of deference to her teacher, Natalia Dudinskaya? Or would her natural talent have gotten the notice of the Bolshoi and she would have been dancing in soloist roles at the Bolshoi by the late 1990's? In reality, Lopatkina graduated from the Vaganova Academy just when the Soviet Union was breaking up, and as such her career ended up being tied to the fortunes of what is now the Mariinsky Theatre.

During the Soviet era, the Bolshoi was THE prominent ballet troupe in Russia, and as such the best ballet dancers all would have aspired to dance for this troupe. That's why Vladimir Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova are such legendary names--they danced at the Bolshoi when it was THE "showcase" for the Soviet Union, and as such became household names for any serious ballet fan on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

If you're talking the Mariinsky Ballet currently active female dancers, the two best I know with a glamorous look are Ulyana Lopatkina and Yevgenia Obraztsova, because both look good with a minimum of makeup.

She is really eager to try herself in new roles most of the times, especially famous classical ones. Hope she succeds in this experiment she was long looking forward to. We are folloing her career with great interest here in Moscow and feel a bit jealous that this debut will happen overseas.

I just got tickets to see the June 6th Saturday matinee performance.

By the way, I noticed that Alexandrova really cut her hair quite short within the past year. She's no longer the Sandra Bullock impersonator when she had longer hair.

We did, Sacto1654. Everyone had their binoculars on her. The reason for the sudden eruption last night was that someone in parterre got the applause-ball rolling by shouting 'Brava, Maya!' as soon as the intermission lights went up. I suppose that 'the shouter' had not noticed her earlier, when she entered the box prior to the show.

During the opening night, a similar-but-smaller 'applause only' ovation had greeted Vishneva's entrance into one of the two boxes directly above the sides of the orchestra pit...and the night before, the same thing when Vishneva took her seat at the Mikahilovsky for the premiere of the new Corsaire.

It just takes one or two fans to begin these mini-ovations for VIPs in the audience.

Regarding the minimalist designs, I actually like the basic concept as 'total art.' I was thinking more a-la-Hochhausers who know that 'realistic luxe' is what the general opera-house-paying audience expects to see when shelling-out $100 a person for a night of 'Kirov-Mariinsky' or 'Bolshoi.' In today's economy, who needs a repetition of the July 2006 'Gergiev's Folly' of an all-Shostakovich season at the London Coliseum, when some performances sold only 30%...and the economy was rather good back then. This new Ratmansky ballet is delightful art for the seasoned ballet-goer but absolute box-office poison for international touring right now.

A couple of comments:

1) Thanks for the clarification of why the audience finally gave Plisetskaya that ovation. I was actually a little surprised that the St. Petersburg audience gave an ovation to Vishneva, considering how Gergiev has said publicly in the recent past about Vishneva doing a bit too much work outside of the Mariinsky troupe.

2) What you just said reinforced my view that the new version of The Little Humpbacked Horse was written for what I call a "hardcore" ballet audience--the dancing was great but the costumes and set design are definitely NOT what more casual fans had in mind when they think about ballet. Given that (in my opinion!) ballet fans in the West have a perceived standard for Russian ballet with its more lavish costumes and set designs, if the new ballet goes on tour in the West, they either have to go to type of costumes and set designs more akin to what Marius Petipa did in his heyday or write a really long explanation in the program guide why Ratmansky went to this "minimalist" design.

Beside Sarafanov, one other dancer in the house received a volley of 'bravos' and a standing-o: Maya Plisetskaya! The Bolshoi great -- and wife of the composer - sat at the front of the Tsar's Box on both nights...but only today received this unusual tribute at the start of the lone intermission when somebody in parterre shouted 'Brava, Maya!' prompting everyone else to commence cheering for quite a long time...and Maya thanked us back by standing and performing her 'swan wave arm movements' for several seconds.

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The Mariinsky should think twice about touring this ballet to places like DC or London, where people expect grand sets and costumes when they pay grand prices in large opera houses. Like last night, kids were bored...but even more telling, I overheard adults around me state the same, i.e., where are the true Russian folkloric costumes and enamel-box sets? It's a shame because the choreography is splendid. These cheesy - even vulgar, at times - costumes do not cut it.

I'm REALLY surprised that the audience on the first night didn't realize that Maya Plisetskaya--the wife of composer Rodion Shchedrin and probably one of the two greatest Russian ballerinas of the 20th Century besides Galina Ulanova--was sitting in the Tsar's Box. Are they a little too chauvinistic about supporting the Mariinsky Theatre?

And it appears, Natalia, you agree with my opinion that the "minimalist" costume and set design might not be the liking of Westerners, either. (I was a bit shocked at the costume and set designs based on the pictures posted on Mariinka.org.) I really hope that if they do decide to tour this new production of The Little Humpbacked Horse in Europe and the USA, they go to more lavish costumes and a set design more appropriate for a Petipa-choreographed ballet as it was staged in the 1880's and 1890's, like I said earlier.

By the way, the pictures from the first performance of The Little Humpbacked Horse are now up on Mariinka.org's only English-language section. Natalia is right--the weird costumes and minimalist set design are quite unusual and not what I had quite expected, especially since I've seen the version filmed in 1962 with Maya Plisetskaya. I was hoping for a bit more "traditional" costume and set designs, which could have made this a wonderful ballet to watch.

It was, sacto. Read above.

Sounds like it was a great performance, though I'm not sure if Western audiences will appreciate the "minimalist" design of the new production, though. Use costumes and set designs more appropriate for a Petipa-choreographed ballet of the 1880's and 1890's would turn this into a major sensation, in my humble opinion!

Hopefully, we'll get pictures of the premiere on mariinka.org within the next few days.

This performance better be good! Shchedrin probably one of the best-known Russian classical composers of the latter half of the 20th Century and Ratmansky has done a lot of great choreographic work, especially his recent stint at the Bolshoi Theatre.

Tarasova will also dance at the Ninel Kurgapkina Gala on March 8 - an event that will also feature her charge, Obraztsova, among others:

http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/playbill/playbi...009/3/8/1_1900/

The Mariinsky Theatre will be completely full for this gala, given the fact she Lopatkina is going to dance in this gala and the fact Kurgapkina has coached many of the best female ballet dancers in the Mariinsky troupe (she was Lopatkina's coach for many years).

You can believe what you want, but a choreographer like Ratmansky doesn't choose his dancers because of their resemblance with some drawings in a fairytale book.

I would agree with you but that 1964 book edition of the original poem Konyok-Gorbunok is very well-known in Russia, and I'm sure many older Russians know the color drawings from that edition. As such, my view that Ratmansky chose Vladimir Shklyarov to play the role of Ivanushka and Viktoria Tereshkina to play the role of the Tsar Maiden actually makes sense.

Thanks for posting the charming fairy tale, sacto...and you are 100% correct. I had forgotten that Ivanushka is supposed to be tallish and sandy-brown haired (not a diminutive pale-blonde lad a-la Vladimir Vasiliev) and the Tsar-maiden is supposed to have an exotic black-haired 'Persian look'! Bravo to you...and to the Mariinsky's casting gods. Common sense has finally prevailed. Not only that; Schklyarov & Terioshkina are both fabulous dancers.

I actually looked up a Wikipedia article on the actual poem and got that link for the 1964 print run of the book, complete with the right illustrations! It appears that Alexei Ratmansky must have read this specific print run, that's to be sure.

I noticed the casting for the first night and it looks like they DID chose the dancers that looked a lot like illustrations from the 1964 publication of the poem in book form. Notice from these drawings how much Ivanushka resembles Vladimir Shklyarov and the Tsar Maiden resembles Viktoria Tereshkina?

(For those who don't know, you can see the illustrations here: http://az.lib.ru/e/ershow_p_p/text_0020.shtml )

Still no official casting, though.

I believe that that Valdimir Shklyarov has been training for the role of Ivan in this new production. Who's going to play the Tsar Maiden is still very unknown, though.

I assumed Sacto was referring to the overture, which is what has been used as the Prologue music...

In the Vladimir Bourmeister version of the ballet (which essentially only kept the Ivanov choreography from the Petipa/Ivanov version), the danced Prologue before Act I uses the Overture music, based on the DVD I have of the version danced at the Teatro de la Scala with Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle in the lead roles.

Do you mean they play the written overture with the curtain (or front scrim) down?

Yes. The April 2006 Mariinsky Ballet performance that is now available on DVD/Blu-ray disc has the orchestra play the entire Prologue with the big main curtain down.

Of the three major significant versions of the ballet performed in Russia today, the version performed at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres has the prologue in musical form only. I'm not sure if the Bourmeister version performed at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre in Moscow has a performed prologue, though.

I would love to see a revival of the classic old version of LITTLE HUMPBACKED HORSE as it was danced at the Mariinsky in the early 1900s (Petipa-Gorsky after St. Leon), to the music of Pugni, with additions by Drigo, Lizst, etc. I am somewhat disappointed tha tthe Mariinsky has chosen to revive the (to me) charmless 1960s Rodion Schedrin score, which isn't even of the Mariinsky-Kirov's heritage but, rather, a Bolshoi creation. [The Mariinsky seems to be in a Schedrin-Plisetskaya Kick these days.]

It will be VERY interesting to see what kind of choreography Alexei Ratmansky will do with the new version of Little Humpbacked Horse. I'm hoping it won't be something radical, especially given the finicky audience in Saint Petersburg so used to the "Kirov" style as defined by Konstantin Sergeyev.

If the Mariinsky Ballet was still interested in doing "reconstructions" I think the old early 1900's version of Paquita should be near the top of the list. Pierre Lacotte's reconstruction for the Paris Opera Ballet is NOT truly authentic because Lacotte didn't use the original choreography (which fortunately has been preserved with the Sergeyev Collection).

There are a number of ballets in the Sergeyev Collection at Harvard University that should be revived. I for one would LOVE to see the original Petipa production of Paquita revived, which fortunately we have a full notation of.

Bolshoilover, before Vasiliev, Fadeyechev, and those who followed was the Era of Yuri Grigorovich. The 'Age of Spartacus,' if you will...the great big Soviet Hero. The entire esthetic was big, all-powerful, Soviet, oomph...less finesse and no eye towards happenings in the West. Simple answer to a complex question.

If they ever revive The Bronze Horseman it will be a Bolshoi production. Despite what all the people in Saint Petersburg think, it was the Bolshoi version of this ballet that is best remembered by old-time Russian balletomanes (I believe Stalin favored this version, too).

Marc,

I'm surprised that there hasn't been an intense program at GITIS in Moscow to train a new generation of "classical" choreographers that can take the legacy of Segeyev and Grigorovich and improve on it in the near future. Ratmansky appears to be a very rare kind in Russia nowadays.

By the way, the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theatres are still more or less state supported--after all, both theatres have the title "State Academic Theatre."

I also see that the Fri., March 13 Le Corsaire (repeated multiple times in March '09) will be brand new, so I am almost certain that the Matvienkos will be performing the first night. The old Peter Gusev production that I assumed this would be is being laid to rest. [They DO have a bit of chutzpa in doing this...scheduling a major full-length premiere the night after the Bolshoi will premiere its Coppelia in Moscow...and the night before the premiere of the Mariinsky's Little Humpbacked Horse! I predict that Russian balletomanes from the two cities will be shuttling back-and-forth to take-in all of the ballet premieres during the four-day period. It will be a crazy weekend of full-length classical ballet premieres in the two 'ballet capitals' of Russia.]

You can forget about getting tickets on flights and passenger train trips between Moscow and St. Petersburg on those few days.

By the way, I read that Vladimir Shklyarov is practicing for the role of Ivan in the new production of Little Humbacked Horse. He's a natural for the role since he does look a lot like the illustrations of Ivan from the 1964 Soviet-era book of the poem.

I read the interview and it makes me wonder is the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet too tied to the legacy of the late Konstantin Sergeyev and the Bolshoi Ballet too tied to the legacy of Yuri Grigorovich. In my opinion, maybe it's time for "classical" ballet in Russia to start evolving and create a new legacy with younger choreographers?

I am definitely looking foward to what Ratmansky will do with the ABT, though.

For example, the "2nd company" of the city -- the Maly/Moussorgsky Theater Ballet, led by Farouk Ruzimatov and Oleg Vinogradov -- will be presenting CORSAIRE on March 13, the night before the start of the Mariinsky Fest (and repeating it several times during the Festival period).

So that's where Vinogradov ended up! (I thought after the disastrous experience with his version of Swan Lake he got exiled from the city.) I've heard that the Maly performance version of Le Corsaire is more complete than the Mariinsky version, too.