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Yuri Soloviev pictures


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further soviet postcards of Y.V. Soloviev, all dating from 1964.

the two facing cards show the dancer as siegfried in SWAN LAKE - in the ballroom act, costumed in white, and in the birthday gathering & following lakeside scene, wearing the darker, caped costume.

the third card documents the dancer costumed as albert in GISELLE, act 2.

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further soviet postcards of Y.V. Soloviev, all dating from 1964.

the two facing cards show the dancer as siegfried in SWAN LAKE - in the ballroom act, costumed in white, and in the birthday gathering & following lakeside scene, wearing the darker, caped costume.

the third card documents the dancer costumed as albert in GISELLE, act 2.

Thank you for posting these photographs. I was still at school when I first saw Soloviev and the deep sincerity of his performances then and later, caused me to feel an extreme sadness when he died far too young.

Physically you would say he was a demi-classical dancer, but his innate grace and perfection in technique and epaulement took his appearances to a plain of his own making.

Not an obvious actor, however his physical expressivness in a wide range of roles, characterised absolutely perfectly, together with such convincing sincerity, made him for me a most unique performer of a type never seen again. In soviet ballets he definitely was a hero mixing revolutionery zeal with what one always imagines to be the historic simple honest Russian peasant type. As a prince, not possesing a conventional princely face it is true, but not that many other dancers have matched his seemingly inner princely manner.

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As one who never saw this legend, I thank you, leonid, for such a vivid evocation of his essence.

And thank you, rg, as ever, for sharing the photos.

I notice that in the Swan Lake photos, he is wearing shoes with heels and buckles. Not big heels, but certainly not your standard ballet slippers. I wonder if those were used for the photo session or if they were indeed the shoes he wore in the respective acts. Anyone?

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As one who never saw this legend, I thank you, leonid, for such a vivid evocation of his essence.

And thank you, rg, as ever, for sharing the photos.

I notice that in the Swan Lake photos, he is wearing shoes with heels and buckles. Not big heels, but certainly not your standard ballet slippers. I wonder if those were used for the photo session or if they were indeed the shoes he wore in the respective acts. Anyone?

Heels were worn and changed for pas de deux and variations by Russian dancers in the past.

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not to go too far afield here, but i seem to recall that nikolai fadeyechev's prince in SWANLAKE, opposite plisetskaya recorded in the 1950s film, has him in heeled shoes for the first lakeside scene's encounter and duet with odette.

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THanks, Robert--

oh these are beautiful. Just looking at him standing still makes me cry. What MUST it have been like to see him dance.

THank you Leonid. I think we can all see that he is presenting something supremely physical that is simultaneously really visionary, and that the hierarchy is clear, the body submits to the vision as the cavalier does to the ballerina.

"I am a cloud in trousers," as Balanchine said, quoting (I think) Mayakovsky. What a cloud, and what trousers.

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as luck would have it, my first view of the kirov - london 1970 - included my one and only season seeing soloviev - i saw him in Flower Festival PdD, Bluebird, Albrecht and Leningrad Symphony - opposite sizova!

i was young dancewatchingwise to be sure and somewhat taken w/ the 'nureyev way' of performing but soloviev was the other revelation: light of touch, boundless of depth, and essentially, marvelously aloof.

he seemed to do nothing to draw you to him, nothing about his stage presence was signaling or teasing you to watch - there seemed an overwhelming privacy about him. 'watch me if you want.' o'course it was nearly impossible not to watch him.

his jump was everybit as light and airy and his elevation every bit as astounding as word had it. i'd say he floated, but that suggests, perhaps, a lack of center, a weightlessness, and soloviev he had notable, fully controlled weight, and still there was a expansive freedom to his jumps etc an ease and largeness of scale that went beyond the quantifiable evidence of his strength.

too bad i hadn't seen more or known more when i saw these unforgettable performances.

this was the same season i got to see for the first times, v.semyonov and m.baryshnikov - as well as s.vikhulov and v.budarin and whatever wonders any of these kirov exemplars provided, solovieiv's were the most wonderful of all. it was mostly about soloviev's performing that i filled the letters and cards i sent gushing back to unsuspecting ballet friends in the states.

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light of touch, boundless of depth, and essentially, marvelously aloof. he seemed to do nothing to draw you to him, nothing about his stage presence was signaling or teasing you to watch - there seemed an overwhelming privacy about him. 'watch me if you want.' o'course it was nearly impossible not to watch him. . . . expansive freedom. . . and largeness of scale that went beyond the quantifiable evidence of his strength.
But for the masculine pronouns, you could be describing Suzanne Farrell. Do you see them as equivalents? Or am I misreading?
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I saw a doc. on Soloviev, and of course I was totally blown away. Are there any dancers today that are in the same universe with his dancing? A trully unique dancer. A rare bird.

I remember going to see "The Turning Point" and discussing Misha. A lady walked by us and said,"You should have seen Yuri Soloviev!"(At the old Walter Reade Theater, when it was on 57th St in NYC.)

I did not understand until I saw this documentary.

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I saw a doc. on Soloviev, and of course I was totally blown away. Are there any dancers today that are in the same universe with his dancing? A trully unique dancer. A rare bird.

I remember going to see "The Turning Point" and discussing Misha. A lady walked by us and said,"You should have seen Yuri Soloviev!"(At the old Walter Reed Thater, when it was on 57th St in NYC.)

I did not understand until I saw this documentary.

To answer your question, I think not.

Why, because he was not merely remarkable because of his technical skills honed by Boris Shavrov, he was a product of an unusual culture of the dance and possessed of an obsessive personality that saw his performances as having a particular meaning beyond the performance of steps that one might in other contexts call holy.

There are dancers to whom their particular calling is related to spirituality whether they are religious in the conventional sense or not. It is as if they are inspired and that manner of inspiration attains a kind of spirituality, often fleeting, but that some performing artists not only reach for, but often achieve.

That particular level of theatrical expression can be found in diverse performers and diverse roles.

It is that region of experience when performers become artists and artists become inspired and inspiring.

I have witnessed moments when watching dancers, singers, actors and musicians when I neither wanted to or could actually breath, why, because the performance was literally breathtaking.

This may not sound an objective view, but I have witnessed audiences reponses that were absolutely in unison in timing and weight, that confirms for the theatregoer of many years that what they had witnessed as unique, finding a resonance simultaneously, with hundreds of others.

This is differfent to mass hysteria, this is a shared experience by knowledgeable audiences of artists performing at a level that one hopes and might I say in the best sense lives for, but experiences not so often.

Yuri Vladimirovich Soloviev, is one such dancer who for me, entered and remains in the pantheon of the elite.

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with so much of soviet ballet history out of most outsiders' reach, individuals such as boris shavrov, soloviev's teacher, as identified here, remained unknowns.

i've scanned three photos of shavrov which i recently acquired, even before i realized he had become a revered pedagogue.

these pictures show him as Phoebus in ESMERALDA, as Albert in GISELLE (both photos signed and both indicate, it seems to me, that the artful postures struck by y.v.soloviev had some beginnings in the 'plastique' of his teacher) and finally as a teacher in a vaganova academy classroom. the notes on the back of this last photo say the dancers being rehearsed by shavrov are: svetlana konstantinovna shyeina, and boris vasilievich soloviev (b. 1910) - not to be confused with yuri vladimirovich soloviev (b. 1940).

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i've scanned another soviet ballet group, also taken in a vaganova academy classroom.

the photo is undated and unidentified.

my sense is that it is a group around boris shavrov, seen with his hand extended at the photo's center.

i'm not sure of the others, the woman on the far left is unknown - could it be izraeleva/zubkovskaya?, next to her, is, i think, olga moiseyeva.

seated next to shavrov are, i believe, b.bregvadze, far right and n. zubkovsky? next to shavrov.

i think v.chabukiani is standing on the far right. i can't identify the smiling man standing on the left nor the one standing in the middle - perhaps aleksandr gribov?

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to any/all kind voices of appreciation re: such pix etc.

it's my pleasure to know of other interests and enthusiasm for such items - i often think of something arlene croce said to a friend as she was finishing up the astaire/rogers book, and wondering about the interest in her efforts: sometimes i feel, she noted, that there are about 3 people besides me who care about these things.

still, three or so interested other parties in the case of historic ballet pix are better than none.

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This is a wonderful thread about someone I've heard about over the years only as a last name included in lists of the late-great, and as an (unseen) icon. I was wondering why nothing of his was included in the widely distributed "Glory of the Kirov" video.

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RG, let me add how exciting it is to look at pictures like these --

Grat pedagogy is a glorious thing in its own right (as I guess is implicit in balanchine's decision to call himelf "ballet master").

I saw Nureyev and Mason in Swan Lake, Act 2 try a knee stand like that, which didn't come off the day I saw it. Actually, of course the ballerina was in a different pose, but the mount is very difficult --

But I find the group picture the most fascinating. So much energy, so beautifully restrained.

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... boris shavrov, ...

these pictures show him ... as Albert in GISELLE (both photos signed and both indicate, it seems to me, that the artful postures struck by y.v.soloviev had some beginnings in the 'plastique' of his teacher)

No kidding about the plastique -- look at all the torque in that Giselle photo, both his body and his costume. That's just stunning.

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He was a beautiful, powerful, exciting dancer. I saw Soloviev and Sizova in "Le Corsaire Pas de Deux", and I have not forgotten it to this day...I also saw him dance the Blue Bird pas de deux in "Sleeping Beauty". He was fantastic...probably the best I have ever seen. I have a pair of Soloviev's Blue Bird shoes, which my brother pinched from a box under the San Francisco Opera House stage when he was performing as a "grasshopper" in the Kirov's "Cinderella". :angel_not: I never was quite certain if they were Soloviev's, but I recently asked a former Kirov dancer (now teacher) for her opinion, and they definitely have his name on them....I treasure those shoes!

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