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The Bolshoi under Vaziev


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6 hours ago, Laurent said:

This is a common knowledge among choreographers and ballet scholars alike, whose interests lie in the area of 19th century ballet.

"Common knowledge" among insiders' is not official news for the purposes of this site.  If you don't have a citation to official news, oral or written, do not post it here.

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What I said is not an insider information, it is regularly mentioned at conferences on ballet history and reconstruction. It's been mentioned at two most important conferences devoted to the Marius Petipa Bicentennial.

Edited by Laurent
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48 minutes ago, Laurent said:

What I said is not an insider information, it is regularly mentioned at conferences on ballet history and reconstruction. It's been mentioned at two most important conferences devoted to the Marius Petipa Bicentennial.

Then this needs to be cited/mentioned, per our site rules.  

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Plato may not be my friend, sed magis amica veritas. In the article under the link below, a prominent Russian conductor Roudin also complains that it is notoriously well-known that the Mariinsky theater library does not give anything to anyone. Can't tell whether it is because of Gergiev's supposed malicious whim, or simply a reasonable precaution to protect the library's collection of rare and fragile antique sheet music. In any case, it was also publicized that the library recently acquired a scanner to convert its collection to digital format and make it easy to access.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2310500

 

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Getting back to Shipulina and Vaziev. Shipulina has been the Bolshoi's best Gamzatti and among its three best Aeginas in the last fifteen years or more, she was among the original five most accomplished Moscow Academy ballerinas chosen for the Cinque program by Bigonzetti (alongside Krysanova, Semionova, Kochetkova and Osipova), she completely stole the show as Ondine in Possokhov's Hero of Our Time, overshadowing Zakharova's Princess Mary, a more prominent character of Lermontov's novel. Moreover, if we are to esteem the opinions of choreographes and ballet scholars with knowledge of 19th century ballet, then look no further than Pierre Lacotte, who selected Shipulina for the lead role in the upcoming revival of his and Petipa's Pharaon's Daughter at the Bolshoi. I don't think Lacotte really cares about who may be Putin's friend, but he is very discerning about who dances his ballets, so this is a most compelling recognition of Shipulina's undoubted merit and accomplishments.

Everything Shipulina has achieved is thanks to her talent and hard work, not marriage to Matsuev. On the other hand, it should shield her from being pushed into retirement before she is ready to retire herself.

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Igor Tsvirko is now listed as a principal dancer on the site of the Hungarian State Opera Ballet and is already scheduled to dance with the company in Don Quixote in New York this November and also to dance Mayerling with them in June 2019 .  I can't quite figure out whether that means he is departing the Bolshoi or not though informal reports had seemed to assume as much. Here is his page on the English version of the Hungarian State Opera Site--which creates what I trust is the misleading impression that he will be dancing eight performances of Mayerling in the course of nine days. Which makes one wonder if he will be dancing both the Don Quixotes for New York that are listed.

http://www.opera.hu/tarsulat/szemely/tsvirko-igor/?lan=en

Whatever night he dances...if I were in New York, I would make every effort to see his Basilio.

Edited by Drew
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Tsvirko and his wife Evgenia Savarskaya are no longer listed on the Bolshoi's site, so apparently the move is permanent. I guess despite starring roles in three of four live broadcasts this season, Tsvirko was not happy at the company. Or perhaps 13 years after graduation from ballet school, Savarskaya saw no chances of advancing out of the Bolshoi's corps, and they decided it was time to seek a more conducive work environment.

Tsvirko is now the second dancer featured in the Play for Him prorgram presented in late April, to have left the company, the other being Vladislav Kozlov, now in San Francisco. I suppose Moscow audiences will be watching a little nervously to see what becomes of the program's other two soloists, Vyacheslav Lopatin and Denis Savin. (In the case of Savin, his talents are so undervalued at the Bolshoi that I would encourage him to go elsewhere. His role as the King of Nubia in the forthcoming revival of The Pharaoh's Daughter is an insult to his abilities.)

Edited by volcanohunter
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I don’t get Tsvirko’s hype on social media, except that he was always pushed on Internet by his teacher at the Moscow Academy, Kuznetsov. An ok demicaractere Soloist - shortish and muscular.

Edited by CharlieH
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I'm not an admirer either, but it is a little surprising that a dancer who enjoyed such recent prominence should have jumped ship.

I don't fully agree about his "warrior" credentials. I think the last thing I saw him dance was the Flames of Paris duet at the Adyrkhaeva birthday gala, and he was trying to out-Vasiliev Vasiliev, except that he couldn't, and he shouldn't have attempted that approach. He came across as an labored, inelegant bulldozer.

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Another Bolshoi dancer scheduled to dance with the Hungarian National Ballet in New York, as Kitri no less, is Diana Kosyreva. She is still listed on the Bolshoi site, although that may change after her final scheduled performance next week. 

Kosyreva has been little used under the current Bolshoi management, although she dances plenty of leading roles as a guest of provincial theaters in Russia, and has probably decided that she's not likely to advance out of the Bolshoi's corps, trading that in for a demi-soloist contract in Budapest.

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Tsvirko  does have his fans though and one London fan I know was planning a trip to see him with the Bolshoi in Milan this autumn.  I looked at Tsvirko's Facebook page and there was no announcement that he  was leaving the Bolshoi, nor mention that he was joining the Hungarians which seems odd.  If anyone has further news I'd like to hear it.

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5 minutes ago, Quinten said:

Back from vacation and trying to catch up with doings at the Bolshoi.  That Raymonda -- what on earth happened with the casting?  I saw before I left that Kovalyova and Tissi were scheduled for a matinee debut and then suddenly they were dancing two of the three scheduled performances. I see from the website that Kovalyova did not actually perform, that Tissi debuted with Mary Allash and that Stepanova, who had been originally scheduled for one performance actually performed twice.  I hope that Kovalyova was not injured! Bravos to Allash and Stepanova for saving the day! But why did this happen?

Kovalyova was injured.

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8 minutes ago, Quinten said:

According to the Bolshoi website, Jacopo Tissi has been promoted to Leading Soloist, and Alyona Kovalyova and Margarita Shrainer have each been promoted to First Soloist. Congratulations to all.

Great news - especially for Shrainer, who jumped a rank!  Zhiganshina also was promoted to soloist recently.  I do wonder why Soares has not been also been promoted though.  

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I’m surprised Marchenkova hasn’t been promoted as her body of work has been stronger than Zhiganshina’s. But maybe she’s too old for Vaziev

The amount, not the quality. I have had an ample opportunity to observe the company since Vaziev took it over two years ago, and I was positively impressed with Zhiganshina on several occasions.

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On 2/17/2018 at 11:56 PM, volcanohunter said:

I'll admit I don't know all the details, but today I watched Roman Abramov and his crew counting large numbers of 1,000-rouble bills stuffed into envelopes right inside the Bolshoi Theatre. They were also discussing who they'd be applauding at tomorrow's performance (Maria Vinogradova and Artem Ovcharenko).

Again, it may not mean anything, but in the stage door area this same group swarmed around Artemy Belyakov as soon as he emerged and left when he did, even though the principal dancers in the cast and the other dancers with honorific titles hadn't yet come out. (Honestly, I would tell Belyakov that he doesn't need the claque. He makes a better Pechorin in "Taman" than either Ovcharenko or Vladislav Lantratov.)

The spectacle was revolting.

Today I saw the even more revolting spectacle of David Hallberg hugging and kissing Roman Abramov in the center aisle of the Bolshoi, where it was impossible not to see them. :yucky:

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