Alymer Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 There have been such detailed reviews of this season that I don't really feel I can add anything much. I did want to say however that Doug Fullington gets a mention in Pierre Lacote's programme note for Pharoh's Daughter. I found this the least convincing of Lacotte's reconstructions - too many steps, too fussy, dozens of groups of people all doing different things at the same time. The only thing that looked like Petipa were the River variations - in particular the first one for the Guadalquivir. The rest of the ballet reminded me of nothing so much as Excelsior - though it was not nearly so original. I loved Bright Stream however; a real success for the company. Lovely designs, a great score and interesting choreography. The dancers looked really happy and both casts I saw were excellent - especially Alexandrova as the Classical ballerina and Inna Petrova as Zina. But the real hero I thought was Ian Godovski who in ActII managed to pull off the amazing trick of being clearly totally masculine, while imitating the way a woman moves and dances perfectly. The moment when he snatched off the old dacha inhabitant's hat and placed it on a bench was pure Bournonville;his pointwork was amazing, and he managed to be very funny too. But really, the best thing of all was to see how good the company looked, how well they were dancing, and how many promising dancers they seem to have. None of those I saw ranked higher than soloist. Most companies would be happy to have them as principals. Link to comment
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