Sacto1654

THe difference between Lopatkina and Somova is temperamental and comes from within; Lopatkina creates a mysterious world, and carves her images very carefully, with attention to every facet of the positions she ossupies whilte she's dancing so as to let those who can imagine what kind of soul she must have, to take such infintie pains, may apreciate her rich inner world. Somova thrusts herself upon us -- she reminds me of Lydia in Pride and Prejudice.

Nioradze, though.... Well, she can do the steps, but -- they're not HARD. THey just have to be done with the right feeling and style, for which she has not a clue. Raymonda is very far from being temparamentally appropriate for her.

Your description of Ulyana Lopatkina is probably one good reason why many Russians call her the "Soul of Russia," whatever that means. You can see that REALLY clearly in her performances of "The Dying Swan" and in the Odette role in Swan Lake in the way she does every body move, which at times makes you feel like you're watching a real swan in action.

Gawd, I wished I was at the Mariinsky International Ballet Festival back in March 2008 so I could have compared Lopatkina, Tereshkina, and Vishneva as Odette/Odile live.

You're right about Tereshkina's performance--really good technically, but when I saw her dance on the 14th it felt like a "done by the numbers" performance--it wasn't the strong, passionate performance by her as Kitri in Don Quixote about a week earlier as some here have reported.

I finally saw the performance of the Mariinsky Ballet on October 14, 2008 at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA. (I was originally going to see the performances on the 15th but I was able to swap them for 14th tickets, no thanks to the bad economy affecting ticket sales. )

I can say one thing though: the stage at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA is just too small for the Mariinsky troupe--hopefully the next time they're touring in the Bay Area they go to the larger stage at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House. This proved to be a problem with the excerpt from Raymonda, as Irma Noriadze and Yevgeny Ivanchenko needed dance really carefully to keep themselves from being run over by the other dancers on the stage.

A couple of comments on the dancers:

Alina Somova--good as her performance in the except from La Bayadere is, now I know why some balletomanes don't like her--her gymnast-like movements can detract from her overall performance at times. I for one (in my humble opinion!) would love to see her put under the same coach that trains Ulyana Lopatkina, because Somova reminds me in terms of body build of Lopatkina but just a tad shorter and could use a coach that could properly take advantage of Somova's physical build.

Viktoria Tereshkina--she's definitely a really good dancer in terms of technical skills. She just needs just a tad more "acting presence" (she's already demonstrated that in Don Quixote as Kitri, according to some who saw her perform this role in Costa Mesa, CA about a week earlier) to be a really enjoyable ballerina, in my humble opinion; I thought her performance in the Paquita excerpt felt a bit too "clinical."

All in all, I had a fun night on the 14th and hope to see Ulyana Lopatkina live by this time next year!

I agree, which is why my favorite recent stagings of Giselle have been the Royal Ballet's, which seem to bring the drama of any story ballet they do to the forefront.

Having seen Alina Cojocaru's performance online as Giselle, one problem I had was she was just a bit TOO melodramatic in the "mad scene," which kind of detracted from the ballet performance. It's a really fine line between being really good acting and overly-melodramatic for that very scene, one that Galina Ulanova pulled off masterfully.

(Gee, I should have gotten tickets for the Giselle and saw it in Orange County instead of the October 15, 2008 performance at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA.)

I just saw Vishneva/Fadyeev in Giselle tonight, and am disappointed. With one exception, everyone else was pretty close to sleepwalking it. There were technical problems, including the principals, all over the place, and the corps only looked like its legendary self during the Wili chug. Everywhere else, it was inconsistent, and in some cases they couldn't even keep a straight line or consistent spacing.

The problem with Giselle is that it DEMANDS dancers that are really good in acting roles. Is it small wonder why many old-time Russian balletomanes associate the main role with the legendary Galina Ulanova, considered by many to be the best ballerina with true acting skills? I've seen the movie of Ulanova in Giselle that was filmed in London in the middle 1950's and wow, her acting skills left nothing to be desired.

Having seen Viktoria Tereshkina on video and on YouTube, I think she is definitely on the fast track to become the #1 Principal ballerina of the Mariinsky troupe after Ulyana Lopatkina leaves the scene. And it appears Tereshkina is developing a wide enough repertoire (and have both excellent dancing and on-stage acting skills!) that (in my humble opinion!) the title of prima ballerina assoluta is hers to take maybe 9-10 years from now.

What I find very interesting was that the character of Benno was in the original Reisinger-choreographed version from 1876, but is completely missing from the two "reference" versions known in Russia today (the Konstantin Sergeyev 1950 variant of the original Petipa/Ivanov 1895 version and the Vladimir Bourmeister version from 1953). I think that change was done because Benno is pretty much a superfluous character in the ballet itself by Russian standards.

If I remember correctly, the 32 fouettes in the "Black Swan pas de deux" from Act II of the Petipa/Ivanov version (Act III as it's known in the West) was put in to showcase the dancing ability of Pierina Legnani, who was the prima ballerina assoluta of the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet at the time it was first performed in 1895--she was one of the first ballerinas to do all 32 fouettes without stopping.

It's so hard to do that I've only seen a very small of ballerinas on video do it: Ulyana Lopatkina and Svetlana Zakharova on DVD home video, Alicia Alonso, Maria Alexandrova, and a couple of others on online video.

Anyone here fluent enough in Russian to translate the articles drb posted?

Thanks for the report! I'm glad that Vishneva has overcome the injury that sidelined her much of this past summer and is performing well.

One more: Spanish dances where the corps hammers on noiseless tambourines.

Which was the reason why I was REALLY surprised that in the Teatro alla Scala production of Swan Lake (2004 DVD release) during Act III, during the Neopolitan dance sequence the dancers were hitting tambourines that were the real thing. Even in the 2006 Mariinsky Ballet performance of the same ballet in that same exact dance sequence, the dancers didn't use real tambourines.

Of course, the strongest swan effects should be saved for her Act II entrance and exit, where she is clearly fighting to resist her reswanification.

I definitely noticed that, and it is VERY effective the way Lopatkina does it. Small wonder why in two documentaries on Russian TV done about her they both mention prominently show a lot of her work in Swan Lake.

EAW,

I actually kind of disagree with that because when Maya Plisetskaya first performed in the West in 1959, Western audiences were totally awed by her really flexible arm movements that mimicked a bird's wing in both The Dying Swan and Swan Lake.

I still think Lopatkina's bird-like movements at the beginning of Act II (aka Act I Scene 2) is much of the charm of her performance as Odette. I would LOVE to imagine her in the Odile role in the Vladamir Bourmeister choreographed version, which is quite demanding to dance (and which Svetlana Zakharova did wonderfully), because Odile is so totally different in style from the Odette character.

Lopatkina completes four ronds de jambes per leg, each time, fully extended on the beat.

I've seen it live and canned. She has this down to a science. It's no fluke: She's technically perfect

as Odette. She has complete control of her limbs, and at the same time she is a supreme mistress of

nuance. From first entrance to final curtain she is the Swan.

What particularly impresses me about Ulyana Lopatkina as Odette is when she dances alone as Odette, she perfectly captures the vulnerability of the Odette character with her dancing skills, unlike Galina Ulanova or Maya Plisetskaya, which project the vulnerability of the Odette character more through their acting skills. One other thing I noticed: when she makes her first appearance early in Act II (or Act I Scene 2), note the way she moves her head--it's almost like watching a real swan stretch and move its head.

One thing I LOVE about Ulyana Lopatkina as Odette is that in what some call the "Odette Variation" from Act II (or Act 1 Scene 2 as it's known in Russia), when she does the leg extensions at the beginning of the piece she has an amazing ability to stop halfway for a split second with her knees way up in the air before fully extending her leg, something that I have not seen from any other ballerina--not even the legends like Fonteyn, Alonso, Ulanova or Plisetskaya--come anywhere close to achieving.

By the way, when she dances alone Ulyana Lopatkina is probably the best Odette, in my opinion. (This is based on the 2007 DVD video release and older performances I've seen via online videos). What makes her so good as Odette is that unlike most other ballerinas, Lopatkina perfectly captures the vulnerability of the Odette character when she dances alone. The only downside is that because of her height, it makes it really difficult to find a danseur in the role of Siegfried that matches well with her to make her the overall best Odette, hence my post earlier. I wonder has she tried to dance this role with Ivan Kozlov lately?

What's interesting about The Red Shoes was that for many serious balletomanes at the time the movie came out in 1948, it was in many ways telling in a fictional way the story of Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, especially in the where Boris Lermontov is close to an analog for Diaghilev and Vicky Page is almost an analog for the tragic life of Vaslav Nijinsky. Is it small wonder why they ran that disclaimer about "any similarity to real-life persons or events are purely accidental" so prominently at the start of the movie?

I do like the unusual storytelling and the excellent use of color, especially with the full Technicolor restoration done some years ago.

I do think, however, that Swan Lake is not exactly a favorite for corps de ballet because especially in Act II (or Act I Scene 2 in the current Russian versions) the dancers have to be very synchronized and have to be very still with great precision--it's probably among the most demanding roles for a corps de ballet.

I'm not surprised that they did this, because after all, the company's website is www.mariinsky.ru anyways, and I believe the Russians refer to it as the Mariinsky Theatre (Мариинский театр in Russian).

Somebody here mentioned Andris Liepa--so THAT was the person who interviewed Ulyana Lopatkina for a TV documentary in 1997! I do agree he's definitely quite handsome.

By the way, I think Ivan Kozlov (who's Lopatkina's dancing partner since last year) could be quite handsome if someone gives him a good hairstyling.

It would seem that retired President Putin was more of a ballet fan, as he has frequently been photographed presenting bouquets to ballerinas.

I believe that Putin has always been seen passing out major awards to Russians such as the People's Artist of Russia (I've seen a picture of him awarding Mariinsky principal ballerina Diana Vishneva this very award, which was done just recently).

What a great athletic event!. But 3.9 seconds to run -- on pointe, on gress -- 25 yards??? Congratultions to Virginia Hart. I can certainly understand why "The girls believe the record will stand for a long time."

You REALLY have to wonder if a contemporary ballerina could break 3.9 seconds travelling 25 yards en pointe. Especially if the ballerina could wear a custom-fitted pair of Gaynor Minden pointe shoes, which are structurally built like a real athletic shoe.

Here are the versions of the ballet I've seen on video:

1) Margot Fonteyn with Michael Somes (1959)

2) Maya Plisetskaya with Nicolai Fadeyechev (1957)

3) Natalia Bessmertnova with Alexander Bogatyrev (1984)

4) Svetlana Zakharova with Roberto Bolle (2004)

5) Gillian Murphy with Angel Corella (2005)

6) Ulyana Lopatkina with Danila Korsuntsev (2006)

Of all these versions, Plisetskaya has by far the best on-stage acting ability, Zakharova has the best-danced Odile, and Lopatkina has the best-danced Odette.

I don't think your choice of those three big oil companies could lead to anything productive. I doubt that they even would believe or be interested in any possible "value" of supporting any arts activity. Remember that when Chevron purchased Texaco they quickly dropped the decades old sponsorship of the Met

Saturday afternoon broadcasts. Texaco obviously saw some value to this support but Chevron didn't.

Given how much mileage (pun intended!) Mobil got out of sponsoring PBS' Masterpiece Theatre for many years, ExxonMobil doing a major sponsorship deal with ABT would give this troupe the funding it finally needs to turn it in the type of company that can rival POB, Kirov/Mariinsky and Bohshoi troupes. And frankly, given the profits of ExxonMobil lately, they are one of the few corporations with money to spare for a major sponsorship.

Ah, she may be blind, but she ain't dead! Remember, Alonso is a Force of Nature, and I really don't believe that she has to see very much at all to head the Cuban School. I do think that her ways have the potential to outlast her mortal life, but we can't be sure until we see what happens.

I personally think Alica Alonso does an amazing job leading the Ballet Nacional de Cuba nowadays considering her blindness and sheer age, though even at this advanced age she leads and inspires one of the truly great ballet troupes in the world. The day she passes away will truly be a huge loss for the world of ballet, that's to be sure.

But getting back on topic, I'm surprised there aren't big corporate or individual benefactors to really make ABT a truly great ballet troupe that it deserves to be. Somebody should talk to ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, or even Chevron, companies that have plentiful cash on hand and could make a major PR coup by offering a major sponsorship deal to help the ABT.