Ilya

Does anyone know the casting for POB's Giselles in December 2006? The Paris Opera website of course does not give any information; however, Manuel Legris's site says he and Delphine Moussin are dancing on Dec 9, 12, and 16, which suggests that the casting is already known (at least to the dancers).

I originally had a dilemma of seeing either LeBlanc and Garcia Friday or Tan and Helimets Saturday evening. I posted an inquiry on a different thread and, after reading many interesting responses, I was leaning towards Friday. However, the box office had much better seats for Saturday's performance, and so I ended up going on Saturday.

Well I can sign my name under Talespinner's every single word. Like Talespinner, I had attended a zillion "Swan Lakes" (well perhaps slightly fewer than a zillion ), including some memorable performances by Mezentseva, Terekhova, Chenchikova, Ananiashvili, and Lopatkina. And, like Talespinner, I can say that Tan was as good as anyone I'd seen. Her performance was quite remarkable. Great actress, flawless (to my extremely uneducated eye) technique. Everyone else was quite good, especially Tiit Helimets and the first-act Pas de Trois (Vanessa Zahorian, Pascal Molat, and a ballerina who was substituted for Elizabeth Miner and whose name I do not remember unfortunately---can anyone tell me who she was?). However, what made this "Swan Lake" truly great was Tan's performance.

Thank you all for your very interesting and informative responses!!

Thanks lillianna, this was very helpful!

Anyone else?

(To be more precise about what I am looking for, I might mention that Odette is more important to me than Odile. If a ballerina leaves me cold as Odette, the evening is ruined for me long before she gets to the fouettes.)

By the way, I would definitely go to both performances under ideal circumstances. However, my schedule cannot be worked out to accommodate this, unfortunately. So it's either LeBlanc or Tan I'm afraid.

I'll be in San Francisco for a few days, and will be able to attend only one of two performances of Swan Lake: Friday evening Feb 3 (LeBlanc, Garcia) or Saturday evening Feb 4 (Tan, Helimets). I have never seen any of these four principals. Can anybody give me some advice regarding which one of the two performances I should attend, as well as "pros" and "cons" on the principals, especially the two Odette/Odiles?

Thanks!

Ilya.

I saw Hamlet on the opening night, and I'm afraid I must agree with the reviews. I didn't like the ballet, but the dancers were excellent, as usual.

After the Levitating Head in Red Giselle a few years ago, I thought the Levitating Skull in Hamlet was quite symbolic... At times, the ballet looked like it was hastily put together using bits and pieces of old works.

It is interesting that the Wang Center was only

about half full--quite a departure from full houses a few years ago.

Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to see Don Juan: from the review, it looks interesting. Perhaps in Chicago later this week...

The only ballet-related excerpt from Rozhdestvensky's open letter to the minister of culture (discussing his tenure at the Bolshoi and his resignation), published in the newspaper "Izvestia":

... I would like to say that, in addition to the production of "The Gambler", I invited a remarkable choreographer Yu. N. Grigorovich to the Bolshoi Theater, who wonderfully staged his version of "Swan Lake".  I succeeded in ridding the playbill of a 100% musical garbage (the ballet "Pharaoh's Daughter"), and prevented the appearance on the stage of a 200% garbage, D. Arapnis's ballet "Alexander the Macedonian".

[The translation is not very good, since it's mine.]

For those who know Russian, here is a link to this long and interesting letter: http://www.izvestia.ru/rubr.cgi?idr=524&idbl=&id=1423

I think that some of those decisions have financial reasons behind them. According to the rules of the competition, all competing ladies are separated into FOUR, not two, categories: Junior Soloists, Junior Duets, Senior Soloists, Senior Duets. The same thing with men. I'm not sure what the distinctions are (soloists perform only variations--?)

Here's what the prizes are. Grand Prix $10K. For each Junior category: gold $4K, silver $3K, bronze $2K, participation in Round 3 $500. For each Senior category: gold $6K, silver $4K, bronze $3K, participation in Round 3 $1K. As far as I understand, if several people win the same medal in the same category, the prize money is divided among them.

This means that, if two Junior Duet girls, say Simeonova and Domracheva, get gold medals, then their prize money will be 4/2=2, which is less than the prize money for the silver.

On the other hand, if Domracheva gets the gold and Simeonova gets the silver, it means that a Ukrainian beat a Russian (not just a Russian, a Muscovite!), which of course should never be allowed to happen. Unless the difference between the Ukrainian and the Muscovite is so ridiculously obvious as it was with the Senior Duet men.

By the way, one may notice that there were lots and lots of prizes simply not given out: the Grand Prix; gold, silver, and bronze for Junior Soloists men; silver for Junior Soloists ladies; gold and silver for Junior Duet men; gold, silver, and bronze for Senior Soloist ladies; gold and silver for Senior Soloist men.

I can't understand what it means when a category doesn't have a first-place winner. It seems to be implying somehow that the quality of the competitors is below the overall quality of the competition. But isn't the quality of any competition determined by the quality of its participants? The only conclusion I can make is that giving considerably fewer prizes than announced, was a way to save money. (Note that in most cases, the prizes not given are the top ones.)

Another good way to save money is to give a medal to more than one person. In the Senior Duet categories for both men and women, EVERY medal was given to two people.

My calculations show that, if all the announced prizes were given out, each to one person, the total prize money would have been about $120K. What the Moscow IBC actually paid out was about $75K, not a bad saving!

I wonder: did they simply not have the extra $45K, or were the $45K spent in some other manner?

Marc, thank you very much for your interesting review.

There are very troubling rumors circulating at the Mariinsky's discussion forum, regarding Lopatkina's injury. I find it hard to believe, but it has been said that her career may be over. Can you shed some light on this please?

Clement Crisp's review in Financial Times:

http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/...y=clement+crisp

Alexandra, thanks for this fascinating historical perspective. I actually was wondering about the suicide, since I saw it once on video (Seymour in Nureyev's video, I think). Since then, whenever I watch Giselle pick up the sword, I find myself wondering what will happen next.

First, an off-topic remark about proper use of Russian names. "Sveta" (as well as "Ninochka", etc.) is usually reserved for conversations with personal friends and younger subordinates, and looks very out of place on a discussion board (even if the poster does happen to be her friend). The posters to this board might just as well start calling Marc and Alexandra "Marik" and "Sasha", respectively.

Now, back to Giselle. My "pet peeve" in various interpretations of this role are over-the-board emotional displays in the first act: exuberance followed by hysteria, with overemphasized physical attributes or gestures ("my hair is undone, which means that I'm going mad").

Two most disastrous things I have seen otherwise fine Giselles do are:

1. Have her poor mother remove pins from her hair.

2. Afterwards, clutch her head in a very strange way, with obvious purpose of not letting her hair get in front of her face.

Both are very distracting, and make you concentrate on little technical details rather than on Giselle.

The approach I prefer de-emphasizes the physical in favor of the psychological, and was taken by the great Mariinsky ballerinas of the past, such as Galina Mezentseva and Gabriela Komleva (although the two were very different from each other). For example, after Albercht kisses Bathilde's hand, Giselle-Mezentseva or Giselle-Komleva mimed: "How can this be?" Most everyone else I've seen mimes: "What the $@*&@# is going on? He's mine!" The basic mime gestures are the same; the difference is in the principle "less is more", and in other fine details which set great actresses apart from the rest of the field.

The same can be said about the rest of the "mad scene": all gestures and steps are very restrained; all suffering is in Giselle's mind, with minimal physical manifestations--primarily through expressive (but not hysterical, and not blank) arms and face. The result is a striking picture of vulnerability and deep sorrow--just look at the Mezentseva video.

Even Maximova, Makarova, Fracci, Ananiashvili, Lunkina, Ferri, Durante, Vishneva, and Nioradze are not quite up to my highest standard (although the first three I have only seen on videos). I have, however, thoroughly enjoyed every single one of these great ballerinas in this role. With apologies to Marc, and in a rare agreement with Leigh , I have to admit that Vishneva's performance last year--especially her Act II--was among the most memorable ones. Great acting and dancing (no legs behind her ear! ), including her incredible "in-character" curtain calls. The applause continued for a long, long time, and she was Giselle all through it.

Yes, Marc, the complaint about touring did sound a little odd to me. It used to be that everybody wanted to go on tour, especially to the West. (Andrei, please feel free to correct me if I am imagining things here.) In fact, people were left out of tours as punishment. Has the situation changed so drastically? Or was this demand, again, as Andrei put it, the case of them not knowing what they wanted?

As to the youngsters having always been favored at the Mariinsky, I don't think that the rebels' careers can be compared to the current generation. As I recall, Ruzimatov was left out of an important tour of the US when he was 23---which is close to the retirement age at the Mariinsky these days . He's still only 36. Not using him and other "old timers" in important new productions, not giving them premieres, not creating new ballets for them is both unfair to them and to the public, as well as financially unwise: they are still major box-office "hits" all over the world.

What next: a 14-year-old Mariinsky principal?

Marc, I do recall that Vaziev used to be called "Company Manager" and Ruzimatov "Deputy Artistic Director". Whatever happened to that, indeed.

This is interesting. I remember reading (not too long ago) interviews with Vaziev and Ruzimatov where both said they had been closest friends since their first year at the Academy (early 70s). It's very sad that ballet politics is so destructive.

Marc, is either of these two articles (in "Dancing Times" and "Moscow Commercial Daily") online?

By the way, my hunch is that "too much Balanchine" was very low on the list of complaints: I would think that the main one was "favoritism for the youngsters".

Andrei, thanks a lot! I thoroughly enjoyed your review: you provided so much interesting information, personal touches and details, that it felt like I was back in SPb, watching the ballet with you. I have many constraints on time and budget (and so do, I'm sure, many other readers of this board who wish to see Mariinsky in London); your review greatly helped me form my travel plans and ticket-buying strategy for the London season.

Yes, of course I hope they can preserve all those wonderful ballets and have interesting new ones created for them; however, I think that experimenting with "second-hand" works is quite healthy (also, probably very interesting for the dancers and especially for the public, most of whom cannot afford to go to New York to see Balanchine or even to London to see MacMillan)---as long as it doesn't *replace* the "first-hand" works.

[This message has been edited by Ilya (edited April 10, 2000).]

I'm glad you liked the sentence about "balletic, accessible, etc": it was very difficult for me to translate, since she wrote these five descriptives as one hyphenated word!

It looked a little odd to me that she spoke disapprovingly of the "second-hand" ballet, yet seemed to imply that Perrot and Petipa are authentically Russian.

It's an English-language newspaper. The article is at http://www.times.spb.ru/current/features/danser.htm

Here is another one, published in the "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" ("Independent Newspaper", a central newspaper owned by Berezovsky), April 4. This one is in Russian, at http://www.ng.ru/culture/2000-04-04/7_method.html, and the translation is mine. Since I'm not a professional interpreter, I was unable to translate certain words and expressions very closely; had to very often change the sequence of words in sentences; and in one instance wasn't able to translate a phrase at all (I simply omitted it). Nevertheless, I think that the translation is decent. Still, if you think that certin passages are incongruous and feel the need to throw a stone, please do so at me.

THE METHOD OF THE MARIINSKY BALLET.

Ballet "Manon" on the stage in St.-Petersburg.

By Irina Gubskaya.

The premiere of Kenneth MacMillan's ballet "Manon" took place at the Mariinsky Theater on March 30. This production continues the repertory direction of the theater: the meeting of the Mariinsky Ballet with famous foreign productions of the past years. This policy, which has gotten the definition "second hand", is now represented by the works of Roland Petit and George Balanchine. Now "Manon", born in 1974 and loosely based on the novel of Antoine Francois Prevost "Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut", has been added to it.

It seems that the main effort of the company is devoted to the exploration of Western choreographic styles. Even the choreography of Perrot and Petipa is transferred to a "balanchinean" linoleum---probably, in striving to find a "universal" manner of performing. It turns out that the company has had immeasurably fewer problems adopting the English style than Balanchine's style. Probably, this is due to Russian foundations of the English technique and ballet structure, when MacMillan and Ashton's works seem more Russian than Russian ballets themselves. "Manon" represents the result of translating from Russian to English and back.

"Manon" is an emotional, melodramatic ballet, made with a student-like meticulousness; ballet in which the dances are staged as if for the last time in one's life, indiscriminatingly representing everything that can be created by the inventive fantasy of the choreographer. Here are all forms of ballet action: solos, ensembles and duets---male and female, soloists with corps de ballet's accompaniment, male and female corps de ballet, even a dancer en travestie, fencing---in duel and in a group, and barefoot dances. This is a ballet in which all structural forms are present, and a unifying plastique is absent. It is replaced by the public's supposed knowledge of the literary source.

The beginning of the ballet does not identify theatrical action. An opera and a play could begin this way. The music is even more appropriate for a dramatic play. The ballet itself, conscientiously retelling the subject of the book, starts with Lescaut's variation, which appears very unexpectedly and which is almost a concert piece. Danse classique gives way to grotesque and to danse noble. The dances in principle are separated from the development of the story: dance characterizes the relationships among the characters and their conditions, whereas the story develops in mime scenes (in which the company did not turn out to be strong). The two directions chosen by the Mariinsky Ballet lately (dancing---Balanchine, pageantry---the last version of the "Beauty"), are not synthesized by "Manon", even though it includes both.

The main merit of the new production is the fact that willful primadonnas of the Mariinsky Ballet all got the coveted role---let them shine as they please. Duets and variations for the prima-ballerina is that which Kenneth MacMillan is able and likes to do. As to other merits---for Savina we used to watch all kinds of garbage. [if the author means the only Savina I'm aware of, she is talking about a great dramatic actress who apparently had many roles in bad Soviet films/plays.--IP] One cannot deny this ballet visual appeal a la "mass demand for something balletic, accessible, dramatic, with love story and costumes".

The conductor at the premiere was Renat Salavatov. The part of Manon was danced by Altynai Asylmuratova, who, starting this year, is the Artistic Director of the Vaganova Academy (the age-sake of the director of Mariinka's ballet is in a sparkling dancing and acting form and has the unique possibility to teach her students not only theoretically). In other casts, this part is performed by Diana Vishneva, for whom this production was conceived, and Yulia Makhalina. (Abroad, this role used to be superbly performed by the former prima of the Kirov Theater, Natalya Makarova.)

Asylmuratova's character starts out as a little doll who shines in the reflected light of the universal admiration. The first duet of Manon and des Grieux (to the music of the famous "Elegy") is about the meeting of two people destined for each other, and Manon's problem of choosing between love and defense from the horror of poverty, between the mundane and an impulse of the soul. Manon's culminational variation in the gambling house is the apotheosis of a woman-phoenix, powerful over men yet slipping away, desired as the sparkle of jewels, and reveling in this power. The finality of the choice of Manon, who lost everything but love, is the refusal of violence and wealth: the knife and jewels, abandoned before the flight. Before the flight into nowhere---into American jungle, delirium, and death. The final duet of Manon and des Grieux is the power of the awakened spirit in a weakening body, when the spiritual incinerates the physical. This chain of the dramatically shining dances for shining ballerinas is the most interesting thing in "Manon".

"Manon", by definition, a ballet for the ballerina, unexpectedly revealed the recognized virtuoso dancer Igor Zelensky (des Grieux) as an actor. Needless to say, the duets, on which the development of the heroine's character is built, were danced flawlessly. But, besides that, the tragedy of des Grieux was not inferior in its emotional strength to Manon's theme.

As to the rest of the cast, it was at the level which is usual for the Mariinsky today. Strong performers of supporting roles, interesting dancing and acting by men; by women---sufficiently strong dancing and weak acting. Corps de ballet and ensembles are not harmonious---but here it is not that important. Intriguingly forbidden world of the demi-monde allows to ascribe many nuances to its characteristic peculiarities.

Alexandra, thanks a lot! Now, could you classify some famous male roles according to danseur noble, demi-charactere, character? I'm mostly interested in Desire, Bluebird, Sigfried, Albrecht, Nutcracker, James, Franz, Basilio, Ali, Conrad, Solor, Spartacus (Grigorovich), de Brienne, as well as male parts in "Le Spectre de la rose", "Grand pas classique", "Flower Festival", and peasant pdd from "Giselle". (The only ones I'm pretty sure about are Desire, Sigfried, and de Brienne.)

It would also be great if I could get some specific examples of miscasting, carefully explained: for instance, taking an example from an earlier thread (with which I don't necessarily agree), casting Ruzimatov (who is demi-charactere) as Desire (a danseur noble role) was bad, because ... Or, perhaps, despite the miscasting, he turned out to be equal to the challenge by doing ...

The example discussed above of Makarova in Swan Lake is not really what I'm looking for, because the argument there was the lack of technical suitability, as well as some peculiarities of her interpretation. What I'd like to know is who is suited (or considered to be suited) for different roles physically.

(Marc mentioned that Makarova wan't suited to that role physically, either. Perhaps he could expand on that?)

Marc, I thought that many people from the "old school" danced everything: Sergeyev danced not only Princes, but also Slave in "Le Corsaire", Basilio, Bluebird, Ali-Batyr; Sizova was both Giselle and Myrtha; Dudinskaya danced both Kitri and Odette, Giselle and Raymonda, Aurora and Laurencia; Semenova was Queen of Dryads (sp.?), Street Dancer, and Kitri in "Don Quixote", Odette and Odillia in "Swan Lake", Giselle, etc. Most of this was happening under the watchful eye of Vaganova. And, in my opinion, this is good: the public was treated to a variety of roles danced by these wonderful artists. The spectators had a choice: if you do not like Dudinskaya in "Giselle", don't go.

Neither did this seem to lead to any injuries (as was implied in this thread): all these people had very long, illustrious careers. I think ascribing Soloviev's suicide to typecasting problems would be trivializing the matter.

I am also very much confused by the terminology. It would be very helpful if the professional posters could clarify the meaning of "danseur noble", "demi-caractere", etc. Is "danseur noble" equivalent to "a Prince who does not do any virtuoso dancing", like P. Gerdt in "Sleeping Beauty" and "Swan Lake"? (But then why did he also dance Abderakhman?) In previous threads, I've seen Ruzimatov, Bruhn, Soloviev all described as "demi-charactere". Some posters, however, said that Soloviev was a "danseur noble". I've also seen "Apollo" described as a demi-charactere role, but when Ruzimatov was scheduled to perform it last summer, there were many sarcastic remarks. On the other hand, there was a general approval when Zelensky (who is probably considered "danseur noble"--?) performed it. In short, I'm completely, totally confused--which probably means that so are many other readers of this board.

What would be nice are clear definitions, like: danseur noble is someone whose muscle structure, facial features, and proportions are such-and-such (we already know about the nose ), height is around X feet Y inches, etc.; Odette is a ballerina who is ...; she is inappropriate for Kitri because ..., etc. A specific example or two would also be very helpful.

I'm not so sure about the reasons for having Makarova and Fedicheva dance the role. For example, there is a movie of "Swan Lake" (VERY abridged) from early 50s where Odette is Ulanova and Odile is Dudinskaya. My guess is that it was done for artistic considerations only: Ulanova was considered the best White Swan, Dudinskaya the best Black Swan, so why not cast them both?

I don't know anything about the traffic in West Palm Beach, but if hurrying to the exit means that you avoid a two-hour traffic jam, I can sympathize with the audience. This opens up a whole host of issues about people who build these venues and the infrastructure that goes with them, and whether they think about the viewers' convenience.

A very prosaic example--pardon me--are the ladies' restrooms in the MET building, whose (the restrooms') capacity is probably about three times smaller than it should be. (Some people have argued that the MET's capacity is about three times larger than it should be, but that's a topic for another discussion.) As a result, the curtain before any intermission at the MET signals the start of a race to the restrooms, with many female members of the audience participating. The losers spend the whole intermission standing in line, and some don't even make it before the end of the intermission. It is in situations like this that one feels lucky to be a man.

All I meant to say was whatever I do to express my opinion is polite, as long as I do not inconvenience my fellow audience members. Examples:

Getting up in the middle of a performance and telling everybody what I think about the dancers or the choreographer is impolite.

Quickly leaving right after the end of the performance (without walking on my neighbors' feet or blocking their view or causing them

to fall from the gallery into the orchestra) is NOT impolite.

Estelle, I perfectly agree that if you think that somebody deserves applause, you should stay and applaud. I'm arguing, however, that if you think that no applause was deserved, you should not be obliged to stay, and should

not be called rude if you don't.

One doesn't usually pay $30-80 for a ticket to see just "hard work": for that, one could go to a construction site and look at bricklayers for free. If it is polite to applaud just for an effort, why don't the artists on stage applaud me for driving four hours to New York to see them and four hours back home?

Why is it that, in all other professions, if your clients are dissatisfied, they are encouraged to voice their disapproval, but suddenly if you are an artist, disapproval is equated with impoliteness?

I always thought that it was my personal decision as a viewer: how much to applaud at the end, and whether to applaud at all. I agree that it is rude to other viewers to leave before the end of the performance--unless you are sitting right next to the exit, but I see no problem with people leaving during the curtain calls. If I liked what I saw, I applaud; if I didn't, I leave. (For the record, I myself have very rarely left before the end of the curtain calls.)