Sacto1654

I REALLY hate to say this, but you folks might want to check up on the ticket refund policy due to this issue: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...in-Ossetia.html Because of increasing tensions between the USA and Russia over the war between Georgia and Russia (not to mention the fact Mariinsky Theatre artistic director Valery Gergiev has a personal interest in this conflict!), there's a chance that the fall 2008 USA tour could be cancelled. That's a bummer, because I have tickets for the October 15, 2008 performance at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA. Good thing I bought those tickets with a Visa card, so Visa can assist me in getting a proper refund if we do have a cancellation.

I'll take the Bolshoi's Maria Alexandrova. It doesn't hurt her face strongly resembles American actress Sandra Bullock, too.

Actually, the more I think about it, a ballerina like Diana Vishneva (Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet) or Maria Alexandrova (Bolshoi Ballet) would do very well as Odile in a Bourmeister-choreographed production. Lopatkina is definitely better-suited in the role of Odette, though.

By the way, having seeing the Bourmeister-choreographed version done at the La Scala theater a couple of times straight through on DVD, it's pretty much like taking the original Tchaikovsky music and having the ballet done by a truly competent choreographer like Tchaikovsky wanted in the first place. However, it's understandable why many balletomanes don't like the Bourmeister version--moving the "Black Swan pas de deux" music back to Act I for a totally different dance sequence can confuse a lot of people used to the music found in Act III (or Act II as it's known in the Petipa/Ivanov version). But interestingly, I actually like the Act III of the Bourmeister version over the Petipa/Ivanov version--there's a better sense of "mystery" in regards to Odile, especially the way she occasionally interweaves around the dancers doing the national dances. I for one would LOVE to see Kirov/Mariinsky principal ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina actually dance in Bourmeister version of Swan Lake, though I'm not sure if Lopatkina can do the somewhat more demanding Odile role, though.

I've seen a number of versions of the famous "mad scene" that ends Act I and frankly, in my opinion I still haven't found a ballerina that could do Giselle in that scene better than the legendary Galina Ulanova, well-known for her legendary acting skills on-stage. I've seen the video of Alina Cojocaru in this role and I thought she was just a bit TOO melodramatic in that scene.

I have the DVD with Ludmila Semenyaka and Irek Moukhamedov in the lead roles and I have to agree with that--once the character of Raymonda comes on-stage she rarely goes "off stage" right through three Acts! I wonder what active ballerina right now could dance the role well (I would arguably include Ulyana Lopatkina, because she's talked about dancing this role several times in the past).

Oh wow, you're right! I did a Google search and in The Ballerina Gallery's picture of Alexandrova by Angela Taylor, she really does have a strong resemblence to actress Sandra Bullock.

It's interesting that The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (the place really does exist!) is one of the few ballets created during the Stalinist era that is still in the repertoire of the major ballet companies in Russia now. According to the thesis, it lucked out for one reason: it was created just before Stalin really tightened his grip on artistic control in the Soviet Union, when artists were trying to figure out the idea of "socialist realism." One really wonders would either the Mariinsky Theatre or Bolshoi Theatre want to revive The Bronze Horseman, probably the last major ballet written during the Stalinist era. I think probably not, due to a lot of older Russians who remember Stalin's purges and they don't want any ballet to remind of those purges (which explains why it was a minor miracle of sorts that the Bolshoi would even revive The Flames of Paris).

By the way, to get an idea of what ballet during the Soviet era was like, you might want to read this PhD thesis as the basis for the subject matter of this message thread: http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04072005-133328/ It explains why both the Bolshoi and Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet currently have these ballets from that period more or less in the repertoire: The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (most definitely still in repertoire) Romeo & Juliet (after extensive changes!) Cinderella (though not performed on a regular basis currently) It was essentially a minor miracle of sorts that The Flames of Paris was even revived by the Bolshoi even in its currently revised form.

In fact, according to what I read from my copy of the World Book Encyclopedia 1988 Year Book, the Bolshoi didn't tour the USA after 1979 (probably no thanks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan!) until 1987, one year after the Kirov returned to the USA for the first time since 1964. I remember it was in 1989 that Natalia Makarova was able to return to Russia to visit and work with her old friends at the Kirov during the height of glasnost. Thanks to Bolshoi continuing to tour in the West, older balletomanes recognize the names of Natalia Bessmertnova, Ekaterina Maximova and Ludmila Semenyaka, while we knew much less about the Kirov ballerinas of the same period (in my humble opinion!). But getting back on topic, I do know that Prokofiev got denounced quite a lot during the Stalin era, especially over the structure of the Romeo & Juliet ballet. Not only did the Soviet censors object to the "happy" ending (now there's a lot of irony in this!), but the Kirov rejected the original Prokofiev version and it only premiered at the Bolshoi after a LOT of changes from Leonid Lavrovsky's choreography. And the circumstances of how a part of Dmitri Shostakovich's controversial Symphony No. 7 ("Leningrad") got turned into a ballet was quite interesting from a political perspective.

Whoops! I forgot about the Kirov US tour in 1964. I do know that after a number of high-profile defections (Rudolf Nureyev in 1961, Natalia Makarova in 1970, and Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1974) that both Konstanin Sergeyev and his wide Natalia Dudinskaya were subject to a lot of sanctions from the Soviet government, and we didn't see the Kirov troupe in the USA after 1964 until 1986, right at the beginning of the Glasnost period. As such, I personally think that the Bolshoi troupe definitely benefited from the sanction against the Kirov (the Bolshoi continued to tour the West extensively after 1964), and Western audiences were able to see the final years of Maya Plisetskaya's legendary career.

If I remember from Maya Plisetskaya's autobiography, she said that because of her Jewish heritage the Bolshoi management treated her pretty poorly, which mean it wasn't until 1959 (some sixteen years after she graduated from choreographic school in 1943!) that she was allowed to tour with the Bolshoi troupe outside the Soviet Union. Of course, we also know of the unfortunate situation with Konstantin Sergeyev and his wife Natalia Dudinskaya after Rudolf Nureyev suddenly defected to the West in 1961--both were heavily criticized and also the Kirov troupe was not allowed to tour in the West until 1986, some 25 years later!

By the way, the reason why I say the score at the end of Act IV has a C major signature is I listened to the famous Andre Previn-conducted orchestral recording from the 1970's and the last 2 minutes of the score is definitely in that signature. I'm going to check the 2007 Decca DVD and see if Gergiev conducted the Mariinsky Theatre orchestra in the same signature here, too.

innopac, I personally think during the Soviet era Russian authorities didn't want the idea of a tragic ending to Swan Lake for two reasons: 1) A tragic ending presumed the religious idea of Heaven, and that was definitely an ideological no-no under Communism! Small wonder why the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov ending was dropped after 1917. 2) The musical score ended on a C major signature, and for probably for aesthetic reasons it "looked" better if the ballet ended in an optimistic fashion. That does explain why even the Bourmeister version introduced in the 1950's in the Soviet Union had the "happy" ending.

I actually prefer the Petipa/Ivanov version because it makes better sense in terms of storytelling, if you're talking about the end of Act I Scene 2 (or Act II as it's known in the West).

I just got that as part of a three-DVD package sold by Decca Classics--it does look really sharp and good (it better be since they used MUSE high-definition cameras to record the show!). That means we could see a Blu-ray HD release somewhere down the road.

A bit off-topic, remember my suggestion about a ballet dancer in a Nike shoe commercial? Well, such a commercial does exist, and you can see it on YouTube here: The featured ballet dancer in this Nike commercial--which ran on Russian TV last fall--is Maria Vinogradova.

I believe that Ulyana Lopatkina (who's probably the de facto prima ballerina of the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet today) graduated from the Vaganova Academy in 1991, so by far she's the best-known of that graduating class if this is true.

Done. I've been waiting for this for a LONG time.

I have the Semenyaka version on DVD (Kultur D1170) and I do agree that Taranda did a great job "hamming it up" as Abderakhman. By the way, you can tell the big difference between the Kirov/Mariinsky and Bolshoi troupes: the former emphasizes technical excellence, while the latter emphasizes on-stage acting excellence. (In the case of the Bolshoi, it must be the influence of the late Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya, both of which were legendary for their very strong acting presence on-stage.)

The current version done by the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet--and in fact by most Russian ballet troupes that use the 1950 Konstantin Sergeyev production as the "reference" version--has Act I in two scenes, with a shorter intermission between the two scenes (which is the Petipa/Ivanov listing). If you've seen the 2007 DVD release of the 2006 Mariinsky performance, note that at the end of the Scene 1 when a small number of dancers come out to take their bows it's done with the secondary curtain down. You can read the changes compared to the original 1877 Reisinger production from this web page: http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/SwanHist.html

What do you mean by that...?, Aren't more all less all Act III's endings the same, i mean, everybody being laughed at by Rothbart and daughter, followed by their quick escape and the always overly dramatic fainting Queen...? That's if you use the original Act listing order from 1877. The 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version--which is the basis for many modern productions of Swan Lake--lists it as Act I (two scenes), Act II and Act III. I tend to follow the Petipa/Ivanov act listing.

What I do interesting about the Introduction music on Swan Lake was that it has the same key signature and even the same tempo as the main theme of the ballet we hear for the first time at the end of Act I Scene 1 (Petipa/Ivanov act listing), which kind of "previews" the main theme in a way like you described. I sometimes wondered why there are several different endings to Act III. Do you think that because the ballet was so heavily reworked from the 1877 original in the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov version that it allowed librettists and choreographers freer reign on how to end the ballet in more recent versions?

By the way, what I find interesting about the Introduction to Swan Lake was that the music was NOT repeated elsewhere in the score. This isn't like an overture to an opera, where you essentially hear the themes you'll hear elsewhere in the opera. By the way, I need to start playing any keyboard again--I'm losing my sense of key signatures in music.

I think in that case the Soviet-era censor was right--the original Shakespeare play had a tragic ending, so why change the ending in the ballet version of the same story? That would have confused the audience to no end.