Can anyone tell me anything about Tatiana Tkachenko and Vitoria Tereshkina, both of whom are coming with the Company to the ROH?

Both dancers are aged only 20 or 21 at the most. I saw Viktoria Tereshkina's debut as Odette/Odile during the Kirov's tour to Manchester in April, and she was quite good. Both Tereshkina and Tkachenko danced Gamzatti during the tour, but I only saw Tereshkina's performance. I think I saw Tkachenko as one of the shades soloists in La Bayadere during this year's Mariinsky Festival, but I can't remember clearly.

The casting is now also on Victor Hochhauser's website.

http://www.victorhochhauser.co.uk/

Thanks Kevin. Here is the direct link to the casting page:

http://www.victorhochhauser.co.uk/casting.htm

Hope we can use this as the definitive source for up-to-date casting information.

thanks for your insights Kevin on the young dancers

And one, and two, and... No, toes turned in!
When two historians set about teaching Nijinsky's 'difficult' steps to the Kirov, they faced a big challenge, says Jenny Gilbert of The Independent

more...

Kirov Ballet looks to its noble bloodline
By Clement Crisp for The Financial Times


St Petersburg. Greenand ochre facades glowingin the pearly light of a northern winter; spires flashing in summer; an imperial (and haunted) city, whose dancers incarnate in their manner something of its splendour of scale. Its history - under tsars and commissars - is reflected in the changing titles of its grandest theatre. Named after an empress, renamed after one of Stalin's henchmen, the Mariinsky Theatre, later the Kirov, is the Mariinsky again, and its ballet visits London to mark the tercentenary of Tsar Peter's creation of the city.

The Kirov Ballet - as it still calls itself on foreign tours - first came to London in 1961, heralded by the scandal of Nureyev's leap to freedom in Paris the week before.

click for more

Article from The Times.

MORE

Maryinsky magic
Having reclaimed its Tsarist name of Maryinsky, the Kirov Ballet, here for the summer, has now lovingly returned La Bayadère to its pre-Revolution glory, writes Nadine Meisner for The Independent

It must be summer, because the fabulous Kirov Ballet is back again - or, rather, the Maryinsky Ballet, even if the presenters, terrified of scaring off audiences with unfamiliarity, are clinging to the Soviet name. Indeed, the Maryinsky has not only reclaimed its Tsarist name, but is continuing to rediscover Russia's balletic history.

It brings to London the recent acquisitions of Nijinsky's legendary The Rite of Spring, and his sister Nijinska's overwhelming Les Noces, both created for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, yet intensely right for the Maryinsky in their Russianness.

click for more

<small>[ 17 July 2003, 12:32 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Nadine Meisner's article is published in "The Independent", while "The Times" of the 15th of July published Debra Craine's "New Steps for Old" .
Looking back at the earlier mentioned article "Kirov Ballet Looks to Its Noble Bloodline" by Clement Crisp in "The Financial Times" of the 11th of July, I can not help wondering who on earth advises the FT on the captions under the photographs. The Crisp's article is illustrated with two photographs and both have wrong captions. The first one, "Makarova and Nureyev", features Nureyev with Alla Sizova. The second one, "Ayupova, Tsiskaridze and Ostrikovskaya", does not feature Tsiskaridze at all. The man in the centre is Danila Korsuntsev.
I am really curious who wrote those captions?

Thanks a lot coda - I've made the change above. Shame about the incorrect captions in the paper edition of the FT.

It's too bad that papers often get the incorrect info in captions. I know that writers don't often get to check the accompanying photos for their articles, which means that sometimes the wrong photo entirely gets put with a story.

The Bayadere sounds intriguing, although I have to say, I really would miss the Bronze/Golden Idol part...

You raise a good point Mary Ellen. I think it is interesting to reconstruct the original productions and get them on film as a permanent record.

However, whether these are the versions people want to see is another matter. Reconstructions of productions of Shakespeare from 100 years ago would be interesting to see, but the acting style would be far too "large" fpr modern tastes.

As our interview with Vikharev shows, this reconstructed "Bayadere" is a compromise with some of the male solos from Chabukiany left in.

<small>[ 24 July 2003, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Hello everybody !
So, you won't see Yulia Makhalina. Such a pity... I have just opened a topic about her in the french part of CD "Danser en francais". If you have any information about her, and especially about this cancellation, that would be lovely to let me know. I don't know this ballerina so much, but the few I have seen from her (Swan Lake and Paquita) let me enraptured.

<small>[ 24 July 2003, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: AurelieC ]</small>

Can someone remind me when I last saw the Kirov? The Bolshoi has come through the US in the last couple seasons. I wonder what or how made that possible and why the Kirov hasn't been to the West Coast in recent memory. I am glad though that they are finally heading out to California and making a big splash at it by performing at three venues: Orange County, LA and SF Bay Area.