Bolshoi Swan Lake: caveat emptor

[canbelto]

The Bolshoi's Swan Lake starring Alla Mikhalchenko and Vasyuchenko is certainly not one of the Bolshoi's best videos! In fact I'd say it is one of their worst. It seems to have been a performance where nothing clicked. The Bolshoi Swans were inexplicably snail-paced and leaden. Mikhalchenko either is having a bad day or is not really suited for Odette/Odile. She's very leaden, very tentative, shaky at times. She also cuts little things in the choreography, like she doesn't do the foot beats at the end of the Swan Lake adagio. But mostly her performance just never takes off.

I also really dislike Yuri Grigorivich's production, which gives more dancing opportunities to Rothbart than to Siegfried practically. And I dislike the flock of black swans in Act 3 (or in this case Act 2 Scene 1), especially since Grigorivich uses music that is mostly used at the very end of Act 4. The random musical shuffling also grates on my nerves. Mostly Grigorovich always wants to have too many people onstage at the same time. This is also an issue in his Nutcracker.

The Bolshoi has many great videos, but this is not one of them.

[richard53dog]

The Bolshoi's Swan Lake starring Alla Mikhalchenko and Vasyuchenko is certainly not one of the Bolshoi's best videos! In fact I'd say it is one of their worst. It seems to have been a performance where nothing clicked.

I also really dislike Yuri Grigorivich's production, which gives more dancing opportunities to Rothbart than to Siegfried practically. And I dislike the flock of black swans in Act 3 (or in this case Act 2 Scene 1), especially since Grigorivich uses music that is mostly used at the very end of Act 4. The random musical shuffling also grates on my nerves. Mostly Grigorovich always wants to have too many people onstage at the same time. This is also an issue in his Nutcracker.

The Bolshoi has many great videos, but this is not one of them.

I was glad I took this out of the library and so didn't spend any money on it. Maybe a mitigating factor with the odd emphasis on the Siegfried roles would be that Vetrov dances the expanded Rothbart role and I like him. Certainly I prefer Vetrov's Rothbart to Vasyuchenko's Siegfried. But this sort of goes back to canbelto's point. "Why would I want a Swan Lake if I think the best thing about it is the Rothbart?"

Richard

[canbelto]

I have some more time now, and I can elaborate on why this performance fails overall. For one, the oft-mentioned lack of emphasis on "feet" at the Bolshoi was something I just read about, but this is the one performance where I can see it very clearly, and in very ungainly ways. For instance, Mikhalchenko's arabesques and attitudes, so crucial to this role, are often done with her feet sticking out in a way that totally ruins the classical line. Also, the lack of uniform turnout ruins the lines of swans -- their feet, and therefore their legs, do not move as one. They move at the same time, but not in the same way.

I have never seen the Bolshoi this bad on video before or since. I assume this was just a very, very unfortunately preserved performance.

[Roach]

Unfortunately I lack the technical knowledge of ballet to describe why I like this version in terms like the ones used above, so I must say that it succeeded at levels other than technicality which a layman like myself can appreciate and even love.

In terms of story telling, I like Grigorovich's presentation of Rothbart. I don't find it conflict's with Siegfried's character at all but rather accentuates it. Rothbart is presented as a sort of symbol of man's dark side when he mirrors Siegfried's moves and thus gives more of a human reason (rather than magical) for the deception of Odille . . . that is, Siegfried is decieved more by his own desire than by the spell of Rothbart.

Anyway, my points of course don't conflict with the ones above. I'm only speaking for the common man.