Sacto1654

The tempi of the national and character dances in the dvd of the 1957 Swan Lake with Plisetskaya seem extraordinarily fast. Was this usual at that time?

One thing I've read is that the film of this Swan Lake performance was shot at 20 frames per second instead of the 24 frames per second used in the West. I'd like to see someone restore this film back to the 20 frames per second mode (which is not hard to do for DVD release) and we'll see the movie at the right tempo.

On the other side, the cuban finale-(the only element taken by Alonso from the soviet era)-is definitely the happy one. Rothbart gets killed, Odette is transformed into human form along with her maids, and then reunited with Siegfried in a final apotheosis.

I believe that in terms of ending the ballet, there's a big divergence between versions produced in the West (which has more or less a tragic ending) and the version produced in the former Soviet Union and China nowadays. I believe it came down to two reasons: 1) the objections of Soviet-era censors I mentioned above and 2) the Russians felt a "happy" ending better suited the music at the end, which ended in a C major signature.

The 1895 version also adheres to the "unity of the three Bs" rule: bottom, bladder, and boredom. Overtax any one of these three, and your show has problems. A REALLY strong show can overcome these factors, but those are pretty few and far between.

It's also why we've rarely seen full versions of The Sleeping Beauty or La Bayadère produced, too. I believe that the "reconstructed" versions that the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet some times puts on can last nearly four hours including intermissions--I don't think most movies even during the days of CinemaScope "epics" were anything close to that long even with intermissions!

The advantage that the Petipa version has is compactness; it's a tighter show than the Bourmeister. The latter is problematical as it follows the 1877 score pretty much, and ends up with an hour of Act I, and an Act IV that seems like an afterthought. As a symphonist, Tchaikovsky did a great job, working pretty much in the dark about how to construct a ballet. As a ballet, the 1877 show is highly uneven.

Having listened to the superb Andre Previn orchestral recording of Swan Lake (I got that from the Amazon MP3 download service for only US$8.67! ), I can understand why the Bourmeister version has its detractors among the "traditional" ballet fans used to derivatives of the Petipa/Ivanov original. By following the 1877 score, that results in a ballet that is just overly long in certain parts and just too short in other parts. Is it small wonder why we're all familiar with the Riccardo Drigo version, which is a consequence of the vastly better story flow of the Petipa/Ivanov version?

How about a ballet version of Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier? They can use the orchestral suite as the basis for the music.

Mind you, it will be an expensive ballet to produce because you'll need quite elaborate costumes (the original opera is famous for using them), and you need to do it as a true classical ballet. Somebody wave a lot of money in front of the major ballet company and let's see if they can pull it off.

Clara 76,

I can understand your issues, but the Gaynor Minden pointe shoe is only the first step (quite literally!) in finally addressing the issue of dancer foot comfort and landing quietness.

That's why the likes of a Nike, Adidas, etc. with their extensive experience in athletic shoe technology should look at developing a highly-advanced pointe shoe as a "showcase" for its shoe technology, possibly with a lot of customization to address the issue of proper shoe fitment for each individual dancer. Such a shoe will not only address the issue of noisy pointe shoe landings (which is the subject of this message thread! ), but also help extend the careers of ballet dancers from not suffering so many foot injuries.

By the way, I think one ballet that really accentuates the problem of noisy pointe shoes is Swan Lake, especially Act I Scene 2 with its numerous dancers all moving at once and in sync on stage.

I think what is happening within the past few years is the artistic split between supporters (pun not intended!) of traditional pointe shoes and supporters of the pointe shoe from Gaynor Minden, the first pointe shoe that uses the same research used to develop modern athletic shoes from the likes of New Balance, Reebok, etc.

I do think that because of the vastly improved comfort and durability and quieter landing impact the Gaynor Minden shoe, you will start seeing more and more pointe shoe manufacturers going for modern designs, regardless of what "purists" say about the artistic integrity of traditional shoes. Indeed, one thing that could really increase the acceptance of Gaynor Minden and its upcoming related competitors is medical insurance requirements worldwide, given the numerous foot injuries of professional ballet dancers using traditional pointe shoes.

By the way, remember what I said earlier about wondering why the likes of Nike, Adidas, etc. aren't in the pointe shoe business? Given how incredibly advanced the research athletic shoe companies have done in the past 30 years, it wouldn't take much for one of these to develop a well-padded and durable pointe shoe that can be custom-fitted for each dancer. Mind you, like I said earlier, would the likes of someone like Diana Vishneva want to be showcased in a Nike "Just Do It" commercial, though.

Zellerbach is the worst. The corps de ballet always sounds like John Wayne's cattle herd in Red River.

I've actually walked the stage at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA and even wearing a thickly-padded pair of New Balance "755" running shoes whenever I start hopping up and down or stomp on the stage floor you can really hear it. I'm surprised they haven't padded the stage floor whenever a ballet performance occurs.

Bits of the premiere with Maria Alexandrova have appeared on Youtube. I'll give the links for the Danse Basque (the well-known pas de deux is also online):

, and

. Nina Kaptsova is Adeline.

That was fast to be posted online. They must have used a modern tapeless digital camcorder--very good sound quality.

It will be interesting to see when will it premiere on a Bolshoi tour of the West.

Natalia Bessmertnova, Galina Ulanova.

I've seen Bessmertnova's work on DVD, and I would have loved to see her live during her prime in the 1970's. I would also have loved to seen Maya Plisetskaya in 1947, right about the time she made her triumphant debut in Swan Lake.

I do know why Ulanova was so beloved--her ability to act as shown in a number of old films of her performances during Ulanova's prime was just amazing.

Oh, God...

I agree 100%. It was the weirdest and strangely ugly ballet I've ever seen. I am almost beginning to contend that Chemiakin must have gotten some inspiration from Quentin Tarantino because its set and costume design was a major mockery of the other versions of the Nutcracker we all know and love.

What do people think about reworkings of the Nutcracker?I'm thinking of Graham Murphy's Nutcracker. I found it moving in that it paid homage to those Dancers who came to Australia before the war and gave us a ballet tradition which had not existed. I also liked some of the reworking of the actual dances particularly the snow sequence although the flashbacks to the red army as rats was pretty horrible.

If you want to cause a riot, go see the Mihail Chemiakin/Kirill Simonov version done by the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet that was released on Universal/Decca DVD late last year. Its very weird take on the Nutcracker story made me wonder did Quentin Tarantino or the Wachowski brothers had anything to do with it.

Classical: Bored courtiers sitting or standing motionless (catatonia?) while the principals and soloists do their variations. To be fair, some of the men do occasionally walk a bit to a new location.

More than 10 penchee arabesques in a single variation.

The belief that Spanish or Neapolitan character dancers are most athentic when moving frantically and grinning manaically.

The Russian practice of interrupting ballets for frequent curtain calls ... which go on and on as long as even a handful of people in the audience continue clapping. The expression of faux surprise and modesty -- "Who? ME? You love ME? But I do not DESERVE such adoration"-- makes it even worse.

I do have to mention though that I am rather tired of the plot convention of the Beautiful White Lady (Sylvia, Medora, Nikiya, Raymonda) menaced by a male dressed in a cliché middle eastern manner (usually complete with an entourage of people who dance with flexed feet and splayed fingers).

That does it--these two postings just described most of the plot and action in Raymonda. And I wonder why this ballet isn't performed that much in the West in complete form, in my humble opinion....

After posting yesterday's intro, I went home to read my Russian books about the original Flames in 1932. I read the original scenario (FOUR acts) compared to Ratmansky-Burlaka's 2008 version with two acts.

I'm not surprised they're doing this. A true, full-length ballet is an expensive thing to do (Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty is pushing the limits of a long, classical ballet), and I'm not surprised the Bolshoi is redoing The Flames of Paris to cut down on production costs. After all, Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet's "authentic" version (the 1900 Marius Petipa version) of La Bayadere with all its acts restored is very expensive to perform and I believe they rarely do it nowadays. Mind you, I'd love to see an "authentic" version of Flames of Paris done in the future, though.

You know, given the fragility of pointe shoes and the fact some of them have tips as hard as dried cement, you really wonder why somebody didn't ask the likes of Nike or Reebok to use their extensive knowledge of athletic shoes in general to create a very durable, quiet-landing pointe shoe.

It would be quite a bioengineering challenge, but the final result could revolutionize ballet almost overnight. (Mind you, I'm not sure if the likes of Diana Vishneva wants to be associated with a Nike "Just Do It" commercial.... )

When I listened carefully to the 2007 Decca Swan Lake DVD played on my computer (I have a new US$150 set of computer speakers!) and it appears the way they eliminated most of the sound of the point shoes was to use extremely directional microphones that pick up mostly the sound of the orchestra and the audience clapping. That's why it was so jarring to compare this DVD to on older video of the same ballet, which didn't use these highly-directional microphones and you can hear the point shoes very clearly.

Since this version of Sleeping Beauty was filmed in HD, does that mean we could eventually get a Blu-ray release, too?

Digital editing and mixing. It's been available for some 30 years.

So why wasn't it used in the 2005 video? Because, in case you hadn't noticed, the video companies seem to consider their ballet market to be second-class citizens, so grateful for the crumbs we get that the quality doesn't matter.

By the way, I saw the new Decca DVD of The Nutcracker (the Mikhail Shemiakin production) and like the Swan Lake DVD recording, they extensively edited out the sound of the point shoes and turned up the sound of the orchestra and audience applause. (A bit off-topic, but Shemiakin's version of The Nutcracker has a very strange feel compared to the versions we all see at Christmas. )

I was watching a YouTube video of a 2005 Mariinsky Theatre Swan Lake performance and good gracious, you can definitely hear the very noisy point shoes (it was REALLY annoying during the "Dance of the Little Swans" sequence from Act I Scene 2 ).

I'd like to know how they managed to block out nearly completely the noise of the point shoes on the 2007 DVD release of Swan Lake (Decca 074 3216 7) without interfering with the great sound of the orchestra and even the applause from the audience.

I remember a production - was it Bolshoi? In this production, Siegfried was killed in the duel with Von Rothbart. The Swans ganged up and offed Von Rothbart. Then Odette paid a tender final farewell to Siegfried's prostrate body and then bourreed offstage, doomed to swanhood forever. Princes come and go but Swans are eternal!

I think it's very unlikely any Bolshoi production done since the late 1940's would have a ending like THAT! Given I've read Soviet-era censors kind of frowned upon the original Petipa version with the deaths of both Siegfried and Odette, I believe the current Mariinsky and Bolshoi productions use more or less the Konstantin Sergeyev version originally shown in 1950, where they went back to the happy ending from the original 1877 production.

Russian papers report that Makhar Vaziev is out and is succeeded as company manager by ballet master Yuri Fateyev.

Interview with Valery Gergiev about the matter in Rossiskaya Gazeta and article in Kommersant.

The issue with Vaziev reminded me too much of what happens with a head coach or manager of a professional sports team at the end of a poor sports season.

There is a marvelous 6-part program about the 8th annual International Ballet Festival that was just put up on youtube; it has clips from seemingly all the performances. It can be found by putting in the keywords "Mariinsky International Ballet Festival."

I just saw that and it was magnificent! Why can't they do that on A&E or PBS?

Alas, I've never seen a live performance of a complete Swan Lake.

But I've seen several different complete versions on tape and by far the best ballerinas in the role of Odette/Odile are (in my humble opinion! ) Fonteyn, Makarova and Plisetskaya. Especially Plisetskaya--her amazing arm movements that strongly resembled a flapping wing just mesmerized Western audiences in 1959, the first time she toured with the Bolshoi Ballet outside the Soviet Union.

Lopatkina could be a great Odette/Odile but her height (5' 10") makes it a bit difficult to find a danseur to work with her (I noticed that issue with the 2006 Maryinsky Ballet performance that was released on DVD in 2007).

Swan Lake is a very strange ballet.....I also wonder how can Siegfried fall in love with a bird(the Swan) and take him to a party to introduce she/it to his mother:"Mum that's my new girlfr....ehm....bird.Can I marry her?"....hahahahah!!!!and then,if at night Odette gets back to being a woman,why does she dance and behave as a Swan in the second act,when she is supposed to meet her prince as a woman ?i don't think there is any aswer to these questions...

A major issue with Swan Lake is the multiple major versions of the same ballet, which I think can confuse even serious ballet fans to no end. I mean, there are four major versions that came out of Russia: the original Reisinger 1877 version, the Petipa/Ivanov 1895 version, the Vaganova 1933 "modernist" version, and the Burmeister 1956 version that more emphasized Siegfried's story. Today, the versions I've seen done by the Mariinsky Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet in the last 20 years are actually (more or less) a hybrid of the 1877 and 1895 versions. As such, it's very difficult to answer the question is just what are the various "right" elements of the ballet. It's almost like trying to answer what is the right "improvised" second movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.

This isn't like the later Tchaikovsky ballets Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker, where there are "definite" original versions based on the collaboration between Petipa and Tchaikovsky.

I always found extremely shocking the very political oriented ending of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba production after the soviets. They wanted to preserve everything from the original, including the final "reunited" pose of the couple, but the idea of an "after life" was a no-no, (it would go against the official atheist anti religious commands), so they came out with the idea of the reunited couple ON EARTH, AS A RESULT OF THE BROKEN SPELL because of Von Rothbart's death. It always looked forced to me...

Ah, ha!! That explains why even the 2006 Mariinsky Ballet DVD video release had a "happy ending"--the original 1895 version probably didn't sit well with Soviet officials, which explains why the major productions done by both the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet and the Bolshoi ended this way instead of the deaths of Siegfried and Odette like we see in productions done in the West.