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Sergei Vikharev RIP


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I just heard, too. So sad. Only 55...and was working on new recons for Ekaterinburg + the revival of the Petipa Coppelia at the Bolshoi. Heard the news from Vaganova Today blog's FB. Maybe they'll update w/ details:

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1868958386690110&id=1400884116830875

 

My condolences to Sergei Vikharev's family, friends and close-working associate in the reconstructions, Mr. Pavel Gerzhenson. 

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A loving tribute to the art of Sergei Vikharev & his collaborators, courtesy of "DarkDancer06"! It includes Tsarist-Era "grand ballet" excerpts from SLEEPING BEAUTY, RAYMONDA, COPPELIA and FLORA's AWAKENING:

 

 

Rest in Peace, Sergei Vikharev. Absolutely the most satisfying and complete restorer of Marius Petipa's grand ballets. The most luxurious. The most faithful to Imperial Russia of the Tsars! No "El Cheapo" productions associated with Sergei Vikharev...ever! GOD SAVE THE MEMORY OF TSAR OF BALLET RECONSTRUCTION!

 

 

 

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37 minutes ago, Amy said:

I made that tribute video to Vikharev; it was the least I could for him. Thanks Natalia for posting it here.

 

Bless you, Amy. (So you are "DarkDancer06"!) Below is an excerpt from another grand Vikharev recon not included in the compilation - BAYADERE:

 

 

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6 hours ago, Natalia said:

A loving tribute to the art of Sergei Vikharev & his collaborators, courtesy of "DarkDancer06"! It includes Tsarist-Era "grand ballet" excerpts from SLEEPING BEAUTY, RAYMONDA, COPPELIA and FLORA's AWAKENING:

 

 

Rest in Peace, Sergei Vikharev. Absolutely the most satisfying and complete restorer of Marius Petipa's grand ballets. The most luxurious. The most faithful to Imperial Russia of the Tsars! No "El Cheapo" productions associated with Sergei Vikharev...ever! GOD SAVE THE MEMORY OF TSAR OF BALLET RECONSTRUCTION!

 

 

 

 

Definitely no El Cheapo with the revivalist of so many Imperial era gems.  Vikharev's passing is quite a tremendous loss for all of us lovers of the Tsarist era ballet splendor.  Ironically we can now see that much of his great effort to bring back ballet the way it was intended to be presented...as a grand spectacle where scenery and costume designs were as important as the dance itself, current management at the Mariinsky-(where many of this works were created)-insists on reverting his labor of love by dropping his productions and substituing then with Soviet era truncated mockeries-(eg. Bayadere).  Hopefully some day Vikharev's productions will grace the Russian stage again. 

RIP

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Well said, Cubanmiamiboy! At least Vikharev is seen on some Russian stages, including the Bolshoi, Ekaterinburg & Novosibirsk...just not at the Mariinsky. :unsure:  That won't happen until the colleagues, students & followers of K. Sergeyev & Dudinskaya pass on...and a lot of them remain and wield influence (and include great artists that we've loved for a long time). Re-read Tim Scholl's Sleeping Beauty: A Legend in Progress...as I did on the bus to NY this morn. 

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I'm devastated to learn of Seriozha's passing.  He was courageous.  He staged Petipa's reconstructions in a Theatre which didn't appreciate him, or his efforts.

Through it all, he never lost his pleasant personality, or his love for life.  Nor was he dissuaded, discouraged or deterred from his goals.  RIP Sergei Vikharev.  

You will be sorely missed :crying:.  

 

 

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Just wanted to thank you, Gnossie, for putting the Markitenka (La Vivandiere) video on this thread.  Vikharev was such a great dancer, and so much to be admired for all his work on reconstructions of ballets, coaching, teaching, and of course as a dancer - so much... but for me, when I think of him dancing, it is in this piece that I remember him the most.  I have watched it on video so many times over the years, since I also love Pankova.  I love both of them in this piece.  Thank you... 

Edited by MadameP
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Thank you for the Kommersant link, Gnossie. I'm glad that Kuznetsova had the courage to write truths about the oppositions to the recons in the MT (esp. Bayaderka, one of several Vikharev-recon premieres that I had the honor of attending).  Indeed, it's amusing how certain hypocrites crawl out of the woodwork. 

 

Yessss, Vikharev was a wonderful dancer, too! I will especially remember him in Balanchine's Bizet/Symph in C but all of the above excerpts are great, too.

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Understood, Gnossie. Dudinskaya was still alive; she passed away six months after the "new/old" Bayadere premiere. I saw her in the hallways of the theater and she seemed very sad. I could understand the sadness, even though I much preferred then, as now, the Vikharev reconstructions.

 

Everything would be solved if the Soviet-era works - which, to me, display their own unique beauty - would be appropriately credited as being "K. Sergeyev after M. Petipa" or "Chabukiani after Petipa," or etc. The "older guard" should stop insisting that the Soviet versions are pure and true Petipa. 

 

p.s. Like you, I was at the premiere of Raymonda in Milan.  And at one of the first Coppelias in Moscow (Sunday matinee w/ Osipova). And Flora in StP...and Lacotte's premieres in Paris & StP...Ratmansky's Swan in your city. Will PM you. Stay strong.

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Gnossie, I suspect that the reason why lots of the ornamentation & details of the original productions were lost was financial. Only a handful of enormous, state-funded theatres could ever produce the Vikharev reconstructions as intended, with the luxurious natural-fabric costumes and the hand-painted multi-layered drop scenery. Those five great Vikharev productions (Beauty, Bayadere, Flora, Coppelia & Raymonda...the FabFive) have spoiled us forever. Once you've seen the highest quality, it's hard to go back to El Cheapo, no matter how great the staging or the quality of the dancers. Once you've driven a Porsche, are you be happy with a Chevy? (How I long to see ABT's Sleeping Beauty in the Mariinsky natural-fabric costumes & sets...banish the La-Z Boy thrones forever! But that will likely not happen.)

 

It's too soon after Vikharev's passing to know if his current commissions for Ekaterinburg and Moscow may be picked up by someone else. If such news may come, please report here. For now, we continue to mourn.

 

 

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Vikharev's productions (only two of which I saw live--Sleeping Beauty and Coppelia) were revelations and, in part, I agree, because of the return to original 'imperial era' sets and costumes.  The sheer splendor of the Vikharev Sleeping Beauty was crucial to its impact--and the chance to see how Petipa's choreography looked in the context of those splendors which, after all, were important to him (and the ballet's other creators) when he choreographed.

 

But Petipa's choreography, however truncated or revised, has survived to enthrall audiences because it has a formal beauty and imaginative seriousness that surpasses any particular production or, in some cases, surpasses even the stories being expressed. (That's one reason he himself could move variations from one work to another.) Because of that choreographic greatness, his ballets are much more than nostalgic luxury items or celebrations of absolutism. (That was more or less Wendy Perron's objection to ABT's investment in the Ratmansky Sleeping Beauty reconstruction.) The reason I want to see the "original" choreography, as best that can be revived and even, on at least some occasions, the original productions--sets, costumes etc.--is because of the greatness of the dancing.

 

A special word of love for the Vikharev Coppelia: I thought that production an unalloyed--and a smashing--success. The Bolshoi dancers danced it as if it had been created for THEM--the whole thing was so alive!  At the same time they didn't seem to me to be pushing against the spirit of the work; they just made this "reconstruction" seem the most natural thing in the world, and the very opposite of a museum piece. (I don't know what specialists thought and I was blessed with outstanding casts.) The three evenings I saw this production in London, with Osipova as Swanilda and Yanin as Coppelius for two of them, make up some of the very happiest memories of my ballet going life. Thank you Sergei Vikharev!!

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2 hours ago, Gnossie said:

It was a very beutiful farewell to a very beautiful person, Pavel (Gershenzon) will not give up on recons, is all I can say and Novikova, poor woman, she was was probably the only person from the Mariinsky crying as much as me, my heart goes to her.


reportage on Russian television http://www.5-tv.ru/news/133109/

 

Thank you so much for this report & link, Gnossie! My husband's sister is one of the last persons shown, standing with flowers, as the camera pans to the right. I see Novikova (for whom SV was the official coach at the Mariinsky...one of very few assigned to him). I also see Selina. 

 

Another article at the bottom of that web page reports that Vikharev's heart failed in the middle of a dental operation, after being given general anesthesia.  As per the headline, Vikharev's sister is filing court papers against that dental clinic. So he died while sitting in the dentist's chair. Wow.

 

link to story of SV's sister taking legal action: http://www.5-tv.ru/news/133176/

Edited by Natalia
Added link to legal action vs dentist
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