this is copied from a thread in MISCELLANY titled 'You Too Can to Write a Review'. NOT that this is meant to be any example(!) - i'm afraid i was too lazy to write a separate review for CD, after having written mine for Dance Australia magazine (THAT one will be up, here, after it's been published).<P>this just came up in conversation over there...<P>saint petersburg ballet have been/are touring australia for 5 months with their production of swan lake, with kirov principals.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>re saint petersburg ballet: well, it was 'interesting' as we are wont to say.....VERY old-fashioned production of swan lake, like a throwback to RB in the 50's or early 60's: genuinely quaint... SOME extremely capable dancers, as cold as ice the lot of them(!), especially odette and seigfried(!).....lavish costumes, fabulous gothic sets which drew applause on curtain-up.<P>leads were tatyana serova and dmitri zavalishein: never made eye contact the whole ballet! zavalishein clearly could not lift her, so all lifts were changed to promenades.<P>wierd interpolated choreography, especially beginning of act 4: literally pedestrian: walk, walk, walk, roll head, walk, walk, walk, roll head..etc, ad infinitum ....horrible big swans choreo: full of dog-leg-shaking .....<P>iouri Glukhikh (spellings as in our cast sheet) danced the pas de trois, which (to my shame) i missed. i missed the whole prologue : public transport 'accident', as it were.....never missed ANYthing i had to review before, but..you know...it's swan lake!!!!!!!!

<P>there was one hunk in the tarantella, but all the names in the cast list appear to be female (maria, anna, tatiana, elizoveta, arina-?)..so no idea who HE was! is arina a boy?! if so, he's the hunk!<P>and the demise of rothbart was so pathetic i LAUGHED: seigfried ripped off a wing and flagellated him with it on the floor: pathetic!<P>i thought serova had a nice line, but my companion (a former prima ballerina) disagreed with me, so i bow to her superior knowledge and taste....sort of, but not really ... i also think that 'i saw what i saw', and 'she saw what she saw'!<P>i.e. "all views are valid", some are just more so... <P>after all that, i enjoyed it immensely ....just really because we get so very few full-length traditional productions, here at this end of the earth....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BR>Maggie responded: <P>Oh, poor Rothbart being beaten by his own wing? That is too funny, the more so since I'm sure it's not intended that way.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by grace (edited August 13, 2000).]