Shostakovich - AWESOME composer of Ballet!!!!!

[Solor]

I absolutly adore the ballets of Shostakovich. I love his music: very dansante, very melodious, and still giving the orchestra something to sink thier teeth into. There is a touch of Jazz and orchestral coloring that are all his own - in a way, a very small way mind you, the music has a likeness to Prokofiev in his choices for orchestration. The music is still BALLET MUSIC in the tradition of the old "specialist" ballet composers, but in the tradition of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Glazunov it is symphonically sophisticated.

I have on CD his ballets "The Bolt", "The Golden Age", and the double CD "5 Ballet Suites". I just bought a recording of the ballet "The Limpid Stream". The music is very stripped down compared to his other works (it is his 1st ballet and he was quite young when he wrote it). I compared many of the numbers that are from this ballet to the numbers on the CD "5 Ballet Suites" (where the composer took many numbers from "The Limpid Stream" and dressed them up orchestration-wise) and the music made me think immediatly of Minkus or Pugni as far as the very dansante and melodious quality of the music (funny I should compare the music to Pugni, as this recording of "The Limpid Stream" is conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky - Pugni's BIGGEST enemy!).

Are any of his ballets still performed? I know Lopukhov staged the 1st version of "The Limpid Stream", though it appalled Stalin and was banned from further performance. The Bolshoi danced "The Golden Age" in Grigorovich's staging, but do they still dance it? I know that they recently staged a Shostakovich ballet, though I dont know what ballet it is.........

[chrisk217]

Are any of his ballets still performed? I know Lopukhov staged the 1st version of "The Limpid Stream", though it appalled Stalin and was banned from further performance. The Bolshoi danced "The Golden Age" in Grigorovich's staging, but do they still dance it? I know that they recently staged a Shostakovich ballet, though I dont know what ballet it is.........

They recently staged the Bright (Limpid) Stream, choreography by Alexei Ratmansky and it was a critical success. They also brought the work to their USA tour, this year.

Recent threads about it:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=20231

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=10937

[Marc Haegeman]

For the centenary of Dmitry Shostakovich next year the Bolshoi Ballet will perform all three of his ballets: "The Bright Stream", "The Bolt" and "The Golden Age". "The Bolt" was revived last season with a new choreography by AD Alexei Ratmansky, who is also the choreographer of the resurrected "Bright Stream" from 2003. The "Golden Age" will be the old Yuri Grigorovich staging.

[rg]

acc'd to the bolshoi th. p.r. folk who traveled to nyc w/ the co. in july to linc.cent.fest. yuri grigorovich is planning to rework - if mem. serves i think the suggestion was 'majorly' revamp - his GOLDEN AGE for this upcoming season w/ all 3 shostokovich ballets. so we shall see what we shall see.

[violet]

Shostakovich composed ballet music... how exciting!! I would really like to see those ballets.