Is Alyona Kovalyova "Zvezda" material ??

[Roberta]

Oh, Kovalyova was gorgeous when I saw her live, both in NY (Diamonds) and in Moscow. We all have preferences! I, for one, never quite understood the praise for overly-cautious/icy Stepanova, who I avoid but others like. Different strokes for different folks.

 

Yes, Kovalyova is quite tall, isn't she? How Tsiskaridze cast her as title character in The Fairy Doll at her graduation is beyond me. But she somehow pulled it off in the Vaganova performances at home and in Moscow, which led to the invitation to join the BB.

Count me in as an admirer of Kovalyova, who is celebrating her promotion! 

[volcanohunter]

I have to reinterate that this is not the standard of a principal dancer. Makhar Vaziev has brought the Bolshoi low.

 

[naomikage]

I absolutely agree with volcanohunter on her opinion about Kovalyova. I saw her last October in a gala in Tokyo where she danced Black Swan and she was falling off her pointe so often, and also her portrayal of Odile was very puzzling. Sevenard was also in the same gala, and although I am not a fan of her at all, she was at least better than Kovalyova. 

[Mashinka]

Thanks for that link Volcanohunter.  In the present climate I suppose this following comment was inevitable

"I understand Nikolai and his pain, anger at our modern and shameful ballet... Unfortunately, politics is not enough here.... The West and Europe do not need the luxurious and best Russian ballet in the world, as it was in the USSR - they need debauchery and vulgarity. They enjoy when they trample on Russia in all its guises and trample on, corrupt our talented, brilliant peoples for decades ...."

That's telling us!!!

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Mashinka
repetition

[volcanohunter]

Well, obviously it was the West that forced Russian companies to go chasing after a bunch of inferior Guillem imitators: Zakharova, then better yet Somova, followed by Kovalyova and Sergeyenkova after that, so that Russian ballet ultimately reached a state of total discombobulation. And it was the West that forced first the Mariinsky and then the Bolshoi to hire Makhar Vaziev to holler "leg higher!" nonstop at their dancers. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by volcanohunter

[Drew]

6 hours ago, Mashinka said:

Thanks for that link Volcanohunter.  In the present climate I suppose this following comment was inevitable

"I understand Nikolai and his pain, anger at our modern and shameful ballet... Unfortunately, politics is not enough here.... The West and Europe do not need the luxurious and best Russian ballet in the world, as it was in the USSR - they need debauchery and vulgarity. They enjoy when they trample on Russia in all its guises and trample on, corrupt our talented, brilliant peoples for decades ...."

That's telling us!!!

 

I'm a little confused--when I went to the Etudes link comments were turned off and none were visible. Has it been taken down? Or were you looking at another link?

[Drew]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:30 PM, volcanohunter said:

I have to reinterate that this is not the standard of a principal dancer. Makhar Vaziev has brought the Bolshoi low.

 

Parts of this are very awkward indeed but I just now noticed that it was posted in December 2018.  I gather you feel that this is still how Kovalyova dances today, but I am still  a bit wary of citing videos from much older performances to establish where a dancer is.  Or at least I think the date of the video should be noted. All of us have seen lots of growth in many young dancers especially over the course of 3 1/2 years. Youtube videos are often videos of debuts which aggravates the problem.

I have no dog in this race. When I saw Kovalyova live in 2019 in Swan Lake, I would have said she didn't then look ready to be a principal--though as noted above I did find her rather charming. (And I was not mystified or irritated by the company's interest in developing her.)  But I'm not going to hold a 2018 video against a dancer in 2022.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Drew

[canbelto]

I find this quite lovely:

 

[Mashinka]

This is the link I referred to

https://www.kino-teatr.ru/lifestyle/news/y2021/3-27/24138/

[volcanohunter]

44 minutes ago, Drew said:

gather you feel that this is still how Kovalyova dances today, but I am still  a bit wary of citing videos from much older performances to establish where a dancer is.  Or at least I think the date of the video should be noted. All of us have seen lots of growth in many young dancers especially over the course of 3 1/2 years. Youtube videos are often videos of debuts which aggravates the problem.

I don't think I saw this particular performance of Etudes, but I saw one very much like it. By my count it was Kovalyova's seventh performance of the ballet, and she fell off pointe repeatedly in the variation and in the adagio section. I think I last saw her in January 2020, when she was performing Mireille de Poitiers in Flames of Paris. There the variation ends with a diagonal of hops, much simpler than the hops in Etudes because the pelvis doesn’t have to change position, and she fell off pointe four times in the span of about 10 seconds. I also saw her fall off pointe in Symphony in C, although the second time I saw her she was less shaky than she had been in her debut, when I thought her quaking ankle would buckle during the slow sequence of fouettés into arabesque with the pliés on pointe. naomikage's experience is more recent, which suggests this problem hasn't gone away.

I was never tempted to boo Kovalyova (as I was in the case of one of her older colleagues) because I blame management for casting her in ballets she cannot execute. If a dancer can't jump, she shouldn't do La Sylphide. If she cannot turn, she shouldn't do Don Quixote. And Kovalyova should never be asked to hop on pointe or have to let go of her partner’s hand during a balance. After that awful Etudes, though, I was infuriated and left the auditorium as soon as the curtain fell. Ahead of me in the corridor I saw Vaziev, who'd bolted even sooner, and I was sorely tempted to run after him, kick him in the shins and demand to know how he could permit such a disgraceful display on the Bolshoi stage before a paying audience.

So y'all will have to pardon me for not checking up on Kovalyova's progress. I've had quite enough already.

[canbelto]

Ok we get it. You don't like her. 

[Drew]

7 hours ago, Mashinka said:

This is the link I referred to

https://www.kino-teatr.ru/lifestyle/news/y2021/3-27/24138/

Thank you. If I understand the context correctly --I'm dependent on Google Translate-- then the critical Tsiskaridze comments being discussed were focused at least as much on today's Bolshoi ballet as the "west" (which the comment you quoted brought into it)...Actually the comments featured in print, the only ones I can get translated, are exclusively dissing today's Bolshoi (which, presumably, Tsiskaridze sees himself as the best person to fix). As he himself points out, he doesn't spare his own students either.

[l'histoire]

9 hours ago, canbelto said:

I find this quite lovely:

 

My god, the tutu portion of that costume is truly awful - Farrell would look inelegant with it flopping about around her. 

[volcanohunter]

4 hours ago, canbelto said:

Ok we get it. You don't like her. 

No, I think Kovalyova has obvious limitations and is frequently miscast. I base this on my first-hand experiences in the audience, and I'd be hard pressed to think of another company where a dancer would be permitted to flounder repeatedly in problematic roles as she has.

There are other women at the Bolshoi I like a whole lot less.

[Mashinka]

I have never seen the Bolshoi dance Etudes, in fact I didn't know it was in there rep, which illustrates I suppose how much my interest in them has waned.  Kovalyova apart, how do they do in it?  The Maryinsky once danced it in London and it was excruciatingly bad, only their appalling performance in Les Noces was worse.  Does the Bolshoi corps still have speed (and accuracy)?

[naomikage]

Here's one recent sample, October 2021 in Tokyo, in a gala.  Kovalyova's Black Swan and White Swan. It is a short video so it might be not enough to say opinions though. 

 

[Meow]

7 hours ago, Mashinka said:

I have never seen the Bolshoi dance Etudes, in fact I didn't know it was in there rep, which illustrates I suppose how much my interest in them has waned.  Kovalyova apart, how do they do in it?  The Maryinsky once danced it in London and it was excruciatingly bad, only their appalling performance in Les Noces was worse.  Does the Bolshoi corps still have speed (and accuracy)?

As for how the Bolshoi does Etudes, here is a full performance with Obraztsova starting at 10:55.  

 

[Buddy]

On 6/4/2022 at 1:29 PM, canbelto said:

I find this quite lovely:

 

I also find this quite lovely, Canbelto. In addition, I've been watching a recent performance of her Pharaoh's Daughter which might be even more beautiful.

I also feel that this Diamonds is not that different from the beautiful treatment that George Balanchine's more lyrically graceful works often receive from other Bolshoi and Mariinsky ballerinas.

A favorite of mine is the duet/solo from Symphony in C. I've just watched it performed by  Yulia Stepanova (with Artemy Belyakov) and I think that she's absolutely lovely. I've seen a range of performances of this work from the Miami City Ballet's almost 'rocker' version to the most lyrically delicate performance by the Mariinsky. I've really enjoyed them all. Interestingly, my favorite duet/solo version on internet video, out of focus and not available any more, was performed long ago by Svetlana Zakharova.

Added:

Since you're probably on NY time and won't have read this already I'll mention something else. Thanks to automatic internet video followup I found myself inadvertently  launched into Yulia Stepanova's Diamonds, having just completed her Symphony in C, a pleasant surprise. It's a nice contrast to Alyona Kovalyova's performance. Yulia Stepanova's severity of expression is sometimes commented on, but it seemed to work fine here. Still, most important was her highly expressive timing and nuancing of gesture in addition to her overall lovely and embracing sense of motion and beautiful forming of shapes. 
 

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Buddy
Added

[Buddy]

From a recent instagram from Alena Kovaleva.  (Thanks to Estreiiita at BalletcoForum)

 “Hope, we will return to that reality soon 🙏🏻 With all my soul praying and (as on the photo)) reaching for the brighter future, where the World is living in peace and is open for everyone again 🕊”

Xander Parish, by the way, is still listed as a Mariinsky Principal Dancer, which makes one hope for the better as well.

[volcanohunter]

A little girl with Down Syndrome was among those killed by a Russian cruise missile in Vinnytsia today.

Facile statements on Instagram won't do anything to make that change. So you'll pardon me if I don't fret about the fact that Kovalyova has been deprived of photo sessions in London. 🐊💧

[Buddy]

Volcanohunter, I would have to totally agree with you about the tragedies that are occurring. I can only do what Alyona Kovalyova has done and wish with all my heart that things like this stop happening — everywhere.

One alternative to this sort of thing is the arts, and this is probably where we should focus our attention as much as possible at this Forum, which also seems to be consistent with the feelings expressed by Alyona Kovalyova.

So I will call attention again to what a beautiful artist that I believe that she is, along with being  a kind and caring person, which can hopefully  be sensed as well in her lovely artistry.

 

[volcanohunter]

Well, then perhaps it is better not to mention unpleasant topics.

The point is that in the cited post, Kovalyova did not say that she is opposed to the war. Opposed because killing, maiming and destruction is wrong, because the fragile world order has been upended, because Russia has turned into a pariah state and Russian society is regressing, because bombing cities into nonexistence and raping and pillaging are criminal. Rather, she just wants her old life back, when she used to go on cool tours to cool places and meet cool people, including photographers who took cool pictures of her.

Mourning the loss of her ability to travel against the backdrop of actual events comes across as tone deaf at best. Even people who are not obviously affected by the invasion mourn what we lost as a result of the pandemic. We generally don't illustrate this by posting glamour shots of our past, which would trivialize the great and genuine tragedies. Moaning about the fact that she can't tour the world anymore, just like grumbling about the loss of these tours on our part, is egocentricity and just so much "First-World problems."

[Birdsall]

I wish Russians would speak out about the war too, but I suspect they are afraid of going against Putin. I don't live in that climate, so I am trying not to judge. I also think a young girl is going to say things and post pics of herself on Instagram and not quite think it through. It happens all the time all over the world no matter what is happening in the world. Not everyone can be super serious and deep 24/7 especially a young person. Young people are always looking on the bright side. It is natural and normal and in a way it is beauty. When you see a new puppy running it is amazing. When you see a baby giraffe stand for the first time it is amazing. When you see young people kissing, laughing, smiling, it is beautiful. I think our world needs that energy even if at times it seems deaf to the world. 

[Quiggin]

Quote

One alternative to this sort of thing is the arts, and this is probably where we should focus our attention as much as possible at this Forum ...

I'm always curious about the arts being characterized as a neutral sublime space without political dynamics bearing down somewhere – someplace to escape to. But are they really? "Nutcracker" and "Sleeping Beauty" were written and performed during a period in which Russia was realigning itself with France and the dances of nations in both seem to be about Russia's place within the international scene and there were questions about whether the "Le Marseillaise" would be included or not. In our time Cold War anxieties figure throughout Alexei Ratmansky's "Shostakovich Trilogy."

In the visual arts, at the beginning of the Modernist period, there are Manet's radical-to-this-day paintings about class anxieties ("Olympia," "Luncheon on the Grass" etc) and his proto-feminism (in all his portraits of women and of couples), there are Picasso's Blue Period paintings of displaced persons, his "Guernica" and other anti-war paintings, there is Barbara Kruger's recent work, David Hammon's etc.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Quiggin

[canbelto]

3 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Well, then perhaps it is better not to mention unpleasant topics.

The point is that in the cited post, Kovalyova did not say that she is opposed to the war. Opposed because killing, maiming and destruction is wrong, because the fragile world order has been upended, because Russia has turned into a pariah state and Russian society is regressing, because bombing cities into nonexistence and raping and pillaging are criminal. Rather, she just wants her old life back, when she used to go on cool tours to cool places and meet cool people, including photographers who took cool pictures of her.

Mourning the loss of her ability to travel against the backdrop of actual events comes across as tone deaf at best. Even people who are not obviously affected by the invasion mourn what we lost as a result of the pandemic. We generally don't illustrate this by posting glamour shots of our past, which would trivialize the great and genuine tragedies. Moaning about the fact that she can't tour the world anymore, just like grumbling about the loss of these tours on our part, is egocentricity and just so much "First-World problems."

A lot of judgments and assumptions about Kovaleva's character from one harmless post. 

Edited July 15, 2022 by canbelto