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Dying Swan rankings


beck_hen

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:nopity:

I performed an unscientific review of some easily available Dying Swan clips and assembled my own ranking, which I believe will differ somewhat from the conventional wisdom, and even from my overall assessment of the ballerinas in question.

My preferences: I do not like swan arms that use a rippling motion more wavelike than birdlike (Nina Ananiashvili, in particular). I am looking for clear and expressive articulation at the wrist. I do not want the solo to look "pretty," though an exquisite bourree is required. Anna Pavlova convincingly portrays the death throes of an animal. If the solo becomes decorative it is an exercise in kitsch. I would prefer it be attempted less often since it rarely succeeds, and is never seen at the level of Pavlova. My opinion.

1) Pavlova. As above, and as a cultural icon that touched millions. Beautiful, fleet feet.

2) Mezentseva. The long, fragile arms are in this case perfect. Above all, the evocatively broken wrist suggests the neck of the bird and/or its injured wing. Self-contained but not narcissistic, the right consciousness for an animal.

3) Plisetskaya. The only artist with the same level of conviction as Pavlova. The appropriate mix of awkwardness and grace. A large emotional range including bewilderment, desperation, fear...

4) Makarova. Not as impactful as I expected. With her usual virtues and within her emploi, but a bit fetishized.

Out of my running:

Makhalina (Saw years ago and liked but can't really remember. Resembled her super-birdlike Odette.)

Moiseyeva (a bit too soft and langorous—at an emotional remove and lacking intensity; not very neat or swift bourees)

Lopatkina (felt insincere—too stylized)

Volochkova (fake, insubstantial)

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I saw Maya Plisetskaya dance "The Dying Swan" at her "70th Birthday Gala" over ten years ago at New York's City Center. I paid a fortune to sit in the awful rear gallery seats but still took away memories to last a lifetime.

Maya was 70 indeed but her feet and legs were still strong. Her bourrees were firm with no tremor or weakness and the feet were rock solid. Her interpretation was now tinged with a hint of defiance against fate and mortality. It was a bit of a tough old bird out there... :( This Swan was by no means languidly and sentimentally let alone gently going into that good night but raging against the dying of the light. I think when you are 70 and can still dance like that, you have every right to your own idiosyncratic personal reinterpretation. Her arms were a miracle, I just can't describe them but they had a supernatural life of their own. She still had that quality of contained power. A wonderful memory.

I have also seen Ananiashvili and the controversial Zakharova do it live as well. Both lovely but not as memorable...

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I saw the Pavlova film a long time ago and would indeed put her at the top of my list. Plisetskaya is a very close second.

I also cast my vote for Pavlova. I haven't seen the footage in years, but I remember it as extraordinary - she really seemed to die right in front of you. It was spooky.

Thank you for that vivid recollection, FauxPas.

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Hans and Dirac, I beg to differ. Not that I thought that Pavlova was no good, but IMO it is not possible to judge her performance on the strength of that film. The movie technique in those days was quite awful to say the least. I have always been very interested in movies and I think that the whole movie industry did not find its feet until lets say, late thirties. "Gone with the wind" doesnt look technically (not much in any case) dated even today. The early American musicals are also quite lovely. But when did Pavlova do that film? Late twenties?

I think it is a very great pity that we cannot see the old ballerinas today, like Karsavina, Pavlova and Kschessinska. I would particularly like to see Kschessinska's Esmeralda.

Must make a confession: Even I did Dying Swan in my youth and even got a medal for it. Now I will get it out and wear it for fun on Christmas Eve! :rolleyes:

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I have seen only tiny snippets of Pavlova's DS. Am I right in thinking that the jerkiness inherent in early Edison movies has been digitized to make a more naturalistic quality of movement in some form that beck hen, Hans and dirac have seen?

I don't remember whether it was her 70th birthday gala, but I saw Plisetskaya's DS twice at City Center. Once with Martha Graham Co., where she also danced a St. Denis solo. She is the only DS I've seen who does not scream kitsch. Therefore, there are no runners-up for me.

Gelsey Kirkland danced it on a televised gala from Carnegie Hall, accompanied by Isaac Stern's violin. It was not an artistic triumph by any means, but she was convincingly perishable.

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If "best" Dying Swan means "most moving," wouldn't it have to be your first?

Mine was as a child in the early 50s. I don't recall whether I ever knew the name of the ballerina, though it was probably Ballets Russes or Ballet Theater. Maybe Alonso? (I had heard of Pavlova and had been told that this dancer was almost as good.)

I can't speak to the quality of the dancing. But I was mesmerized. This was death. It was sad and painfully troubling. What made it even sadder was that you could see the wrinkles across the swan's white bodice -- and at the place where the ribbons of her shoes were tied. I remember thinking that she was the same swan I had seen in excerpts from Swan Lake -- and wondering what had happened to all the other swans, not to mention the Prince. Her alone-ness added to the sadness.

I hate to admit this, but the only other time I was truly moved by a Dying Swan -- though in a very different direction -- was the first time I saw it performed by a desperately earnest member of the Trocks.

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I don't remember whether it was her 70th birthday gala, but I saw Plisetskaya's DS twice at City Center. Once with Martha Graham Co., where she also danced a St. Denis solo. She is the only DS I've seen who does not scream kitsch. Therefore, there are no runners-up for me.

Gelsey Kirkland danced it on a televised gala from Carnegie Hall, accompanied by Isaac Stern's violin. It was not an artistic triumph by any means, but she was convincingly perishable.

Of the handful of DSs I've seen live, Maya P was the only one that really made the piece work for me, I saw her in the early 70s.

My memory is hazy but I think I saw Makarova dance the piece, like Kirkland, to Stern's accompanment. I didn't think her's (Makarova)was much of a triumph either.

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There seems to be a consensus that only Pavlova and Plisetskaya carried off the piece, in each case making it into a signature work.

Can you think of any dancer today who might succeed in it? I really hesitate to put anyone forward... Veronika Part? In response to carbro's analysis below... Diana Vishneva?

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Since my last visit here, I've been thinking about Maya's DS and why it was so affecting. Maya is a powerful woman with a huge life force. Rather than trying to subdue that to a fragile and doomed reading, she reminds us that even the strongest among us is mortal. Nothing pretty or sentimental in that.

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Since my last visit here, I've been thinking about Maya's DS and why it was so affecting. Maya is a powerful woman with a huge life force. Rather than trying to subdue that to a fragile and doomed reading, she reminds us that even the strongest among us is mortal.

Good point!

Maya's DS was HUGE in scale. I never thought it out the way you described it, my reaction was just instinctual but I really think you hit the nail on the head.

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Can you think of any dancer today who might succeed in it? I really hesitate to put anyone forward... Veronika Part? In response to carbro's analysis below... Diana Vishneva?

Before she left to go on pregnancy leave, I saw Irina Dvorovenko dance the piece. While I wouldn't put her in the platinum class, she does have tons of personality and also a suitable style. She made the piece work for me.

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First and foremost - Plisetskaya.

I found former Kirov dancer Lubov Kunakova very moving in the role and I also liked the Bolshoi's Ludmila Semenyaka whom I saw dance it in The Hague, where Pavlova died. Before going on stage Semenyaka commented that she hoped that given the location, dancing DS that night wouldn't prove fatal. Happily it didn’t. Irma Nioradze, a dancer I don’t always care for, also has a feel for the role

On film, Pavlova of course, but I also liked Mezentsova, a dancer much maligned on this board.

I’m not a fan of this piece as I consider it a dreadful balletic cliché, rather like the Don Q. pas de deux taken out of context. Those dancers that impressed me I liked in spite of a general aversion to the piece, all possessed qualities that breathed life into the role.

Margot Fonteyn danced it only once, at a gala for Sir Winston Churchill. She took a lot of persuading as she felt the role was Pavlova’s alone and should stay that way. She was absolutely right of course and my heart sinks every time I see it performed (usually badly) by Russian dancers that should know better. I even saw a Royal Ballet dancer mangle it back in the summer. Ideally it should be performed once by an Assoluta every twenty five years or so.

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One thing that struck me about Pavlova was how contemporary her figure looks. Her style of dancing may have been very different, but it seems as if she had a "modern" ballerina's look -- long, slender legs, long arms, beautifully arched feet. I think the way she all of a sudden drops her torso is striking, as is the kind of ruffling, shaking movement she makes towards the end of the solo, and if she were writhing in pain before she succumbed to death.

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One thing that struck me about Pavlova was how contemporary her figure looks. Her style of dancing may have been very different, but it seems as if she had a "modern" ballerina's look -- long, slender legs, long arms, beautifully arched feet. I think the way she all of a sudden drops her torso is striking, as is the kind of ruffling, shaking movement she makes towards the end of the solo, and if she were writhing in pain before she succumbed to death.

I couldn't agree more it is for me, the best version I have seen.

I saw Plitsetskaya dance this in the mid-1960's when she encored this work at least two times. One might think this to be bad taste. However Plisetskaya’s performance was truly monumental and entirely dramatic and for me the least disappointing of the many other dancers I have watched performing. 'The Swan' either on film, or in the theatre.

I have a copy of the "The Immortal Swan" which I watch 3 or 4 times a years for the last 20 years and never tire or fail to be amazed by Pavlova's dancing and characterisations.

This year as part of an exhibition to mark the 75th anniversary of Pavlova's death and the 125th anniversary of her birth, a newly processed copy of the above film made by the British Film Institute, was shown on a continuous loop from January through to March at Ivy House Pavlova's former home now leased by the London Jewish Cultural Association who funded the exhibition and who are committed to remember her presence. A perpetual exhibition of Anna Pavlova in her home is exhibited and in their delightful café there are outstanding photographs of Ivy House in Pavlova's time.

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I agree with Carbro about Plisetskaya -- absolutely, she found HER way to make it tragic. Pavlova's was prettier, more hectic, more like Blanche du Bois -- indeed, I'd say her swan was probably the deep deep background archetype for Blanche, the beauty who's outlived her time in every way.

(off-topic) Pavlova is really an amazing dancer -- she's not the simpering thing many of us think her to be today. Her pirouettes were shocking; they had no preparation and came as Ashton said VERY fast out of nowhere -- only doubles but very fast. There's a tape of her at the beginning of a mostly awful documentary about Ashton that everybody ought to see, she's totally electric.

Back on-topic -- here in San Francisco, our French ballerina Muriel Maffre dances “Dying Swan” with unsentimental, modernist almost existential authority; it reminds me of the way Mravinsky conducted Tchaikovsky's “Pathetique Symphony,” it rattles your bones. It's on a tremendous scale -- she's of course one of the tallest ballerinas that ever was, every bone that can be long IS long, she must be eight feet tall toe to toe in penchée arabesque -- so the scale on which she CAN dance is breathtaking. The challenges to her verticality are also great, and she'll risk SHOWING them. In some of the deep lunges she twists herself into positions you'd think she could never get back out of. There is NOTHING safe about it, it makes even Plisetskaya's look careful, and her tortuous épaulement puts one in mind of the ways the most extreme yoga positions can be approached as a potential oasis, to be relaxed into and as relief from some sort of bondage.... But only someone in extremis would consider such a course of action. She makes the whole thing an attempt to stretch the sinews, expand the breath, squeeze somehow past some barrier and slide out of some yoke that nevertheless has her in its grip and is slowly bringing her down; it is a contest that cannot be won. It is an agony for the creature, but Maffre the dancer has pulled it in just enough so that it is bearable for us to see. Everyone who has seen her do it feels this way.

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i was reminded by a japanese historian just recently that lydia kyaksht claims in her memoirs: ROMANTIC RECOLLECTIONS that she was the first one to dance fokine's CYGNE. (the same colleague noted that his info was accepted as sound enough and included in a dictionary or encyclopedia entry - the particulars of which now escape me.

i hadn't come across this mention previously.

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i was reminded by a japanese historian just recently that lydia kyaksht claims in her memoirs: ROMANTIC RECOLLECTIONS that she was the first one to dance fokine's CYGNE. (the same colleague noted that his info was accepted as sound enough and included in a dictionary or encyclopedia entry - the particulars of which now escape me.

i hadn't come across this mention previously.

To paraphrase Tamara Karsavina, " Lydia had a wonderful memory, the trouble is that she relies on it too much." I cannot find the original quotation at this time of the morning.

Once in a while the Kyasht story re-appears and it disappears just as quickly.

It is a shame, as Kyasht has her own history and success and was surely one of the prettiest of the Russian dancers of the early part of the 20th century.

The claim of Lydia Kyasht is not substantiated by any record, whereas the details of Anna Pavlova's creatiion of 'The Swan' is well documented.

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many thanks for the background on this 'recollection.'

i've asked my japanese colleague's friend to ask about the dictionary/encyc source, which i suppose is only hearsay on the basis of the ballerina's own memory.

i see no reason for karsavina to have denied kyaksht's assertion if it were true, since she had her own bad experience(s) with pavlova and would perhaps like to support kyaksht's claim if it had some veracity, which i guess it doesn't.

in case some readers don't have a sense of kyaksht when she was in russia, i've attached one of my favorite photocards of her as swanilda.

what i esp. like is the delicate animation caught in the photo. such a moment and gesture are often seen in stagings of COPPELIA nowadays. the balanchine/danilova version certainly has swanilda similarly stamp her foot and delicately clench her fist in frustration and displeasure over franz's flirtation with coppelia.

post-848-1165243327.jpg

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many thanks for the background on this 'recollection.'

i've asked my japanese colleague's friend to ask about the dictionary/encyc source, which i suppose is only hearsay on the basis of the ballerina's own memory.

i see no reason for karsavina to have denied kyaksht's assertion if it were true, since she had her own bad experience(s) with pavlova and would perhaps like to support kyaksht's claim if it had some veracity, which i guess it doesn't.

in case some readers don't have a sense of kyaksht when she was in russia, i've attached one of my favorite photocards of her as swanilda.

what i esp. like is the delicate animation caught in the photo. such a moment and gesture are often seen in stagings of COPPELIA nowadays. the balanchine/danilova version certainly has swanilda similarly stamp her foot and delicately clench her fist in frustration and displeasure over franz's flirtation with coppelia.

Thank for what I consider to be a most unusual and striking photograph of LK.

As regards supposed animosity's between Pavlova and various dancers, the quotations are all concerned with dancers writing for posterity and spicing up the narrative. The Kyasht claim certainly must have caused

a frisson when first made but has never been substantiated. The story of the creation of The Swan has been told by those involved and no programme details other than the charity performance has been recorded.

In fact there was no such problems in relationship between Pavlova and Karsavina when the latter arrived in England to live and Kschessinska who is quoted in a negative remark about Pavlova to Karsavina visited Pavlova in her home as a colleague and in an entirely friendly manner.

Lydia Kyasht was an undoubted friend and near neighbour of Pavlova in London and visited her home often.

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My preferences: I do not like swan arms that use a rippling motion more wavelike than birdlike (Nina Ananiashvili, in particular). I am looking for clear and expressive articulation at the wrist.

Me too. I saw Nina perform it (on CAS) and just thought more on the lines of "entertainment and acrobats", though the Bolshoi audience went crazy every minute.

Also saw Plisetskaya (during the '50-'60s? recording on CAS) and found a liking. Passionate and sweet.

I regret to say I haven't seen Pavlova. Where can I see it?

But of course my favorite was my first. Vera Karalli. (in a Russian film around 1917? - can't remember, saw it also on Classic Arts Showcase) She, to me, depicted a 'dying' swan with her hands and arms just like wings, and her head positions sort of tucking into her wings. You can see her performance like a "hill". The swan starts softly, then towards the climax she depicts more suffering, and then holds you until the last moment. The whole time she bourrees, until the end, where she slowly 'dies' to her knee. (I just mean that I am not distracted by the "bird-like 'quality' " and can feel the performance.)

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Out of my running:

Makhalina (Saw years ago and liked but can't really remember. Resembled her super-birdlike Odette.)

Moiseyeva (a bit too soft and langorous—at an emotional remove and lacking intensity; not very neat or swift bourees)

Lopatkina (felt insincere—too stylized)

Volochkova (fake, insubstantial)

couldn't agree more with your comments. I feel like it's a shame that this piece can even get to that point and how this lack of quality is like a 'plague' around the world.

One could just hold a sign in front of them that said "I'm a dying swan" and it would tantamount to dancing it w/out fully plunging your emotional intensity in it. ok, ok, I'm over exaggerating; everyone tries hard to depict their character, but sometimes it just doesn't get through to the audience that has seen the heart-plunging Pavlova.

Although, the audience goes wild at these performances and it's like the dancers have to keep them entertained w/ silly acrobats, constantly bringing it 'up' a level to keep 'up' with where ballet has 'gone'. It really is 'up, up, and away...'

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