CriticalDance Forum

Perhaps the most interesting event so far this season is the Gala in Honour of Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev that takes place next Monday, 27th October.

The programme is likely to be as follows:

Part 1

Torelli, Pas de deux chor. Vasiliev
M. Ould-Braham, Emmanuel Thibault (both POB)

Little Humpbacked Horse
Ivan Vasiliev

Rachmaninov
Elegy, chor. Vasiliev
Ryzhkina, Piccone (Rome)

Pages from a Biography, chor. Vasiliev
Galina Stepanenko, Carbone (POB)

Solo from Leili and Medjnun
Ivan Vasiliev

Adagio from Macbeth, chor Vasiliev
Svetlana Zakharova, Andrei Uvarov

Premiere of a duet to music by Mozart, chor. Vasiliev
Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Artyom Ovcharenko

Danced scene from La Traviata, chor. Vasiliev
Zibrova, Tsvirko

Part 2.

Etude de Chopin, chor. Vasiliev
Anna Nikulina, Biktimirov

Scriabin Mazurka
Goriacheva

Narcisse chor. Goliezovsky
Denis Medvedev

Match (chor Vasiliev?)
Natalia Osipova, Ruslan Skvortsov

Paganini, chor. Lavrovsky-Vasiliev
Derevienko Sorrentino (Firenze)

Laurentia
Bolotin

Spartacus
Ivan Vasiliev

Finale – Entire company, chor. Vasiliev

Note the new work that Vasiliev is choreographing for Nikolai Tsiskaridze to music by Mozart. Nikolai will be dancing this with his pupil Artyom Ovcharenko who danced his first major role with the company, Nutcracker, last weekend.

Also of note is POB's Emmanuel Thibault who is dancing in Vasiliev's fiendish Torelli pas de deux, so difficult that I can think of very few dancers that are currently able to perform it, though it shouldn't present any difficulties to the exceptional M. Thibault.

Alexei Ratmansky's last production as Artistic Director of the Bolshoi happened a week ago, with a new production of Paquita "Grand Pas Classique," a production of Ratmansky's own work Russian Seasons, and capping off with Balanchine's Symphony in C.

You can see a video (and the text from that video) on this web site:

http://beta.tvc.ru/ShowNews.aspx?top=5& ... 5e03522f79

By the way, a web site in Japan is following the Bolshoi's current tour of that country right now, with performances of Don Quixote and Swan Lake on that tour. You can see the blog of that tour (in Japanese) on this web site:

http://bolshoi-ballet.seesaa.net/

One thing that made do this was Maria Alexandrova drastically changing her hairdo. You can see this at a signing in a boutique store just a few days ago from this blog.

Sad news to report:

Bolshoi ballerina Olga Lepeshinskaya dies at 92

Associated Press via Google News
December 20, 2008

Read the full article here



Lepeshinskaya was easily the best female ballet dancer in the Bolshoi troupe from the 1930's through the 1950's outside of Galina Ulanova, who transferred to the Bolshoi troupe from the Kirov troupe in 1944 at Stalin's insistence.

Lepeshinskaya was a celebrated dancer (in Moscow) during her career but to describe her as 'the best' is ill-advised considering her dancing overlapped with the likes of Semenova, Struchkova and Plisetskaya.

As far as I'm aware her international impact was limited.

Well, she definitely was among the best despite not being well-known in the West, considering she did win four Stalin Prize awards during the peak of her career.

I've read she could dance very fast even with difficult movements, something that I doubt a modern female dancer could do.

My only major gripe about Plisetskaya's career was because of her Jewish ancestry her career ran afoul of Soviet authorities during her artistic peak, which may have held back her career a bit.

In the Moscow Times, Raymond Stults writes about Alexei Ratmansky's career at the Bolshoi:

Moscow Times

'In Russian'--a long, new interview with Natalia Osipova and Titiana Kuznetsova.

(scroll down to Natalia Osipova's picture)

http://forum.balletfriends.ru/viewtopic ... c&start=15

You can try translating with Google Translate. (60% accurate?, but much better than nothing.)

http://translate.google.com/translate_t ... =ru&tl=fr#

[For the moment this interview has me confused. It seems to be an interview with Tatiana Kuznetsova only, although the topic seems to be titled "New Interview with Tatiana Kuznetsova and Natalia Osipova and the picture does look like Natalia Osipova, but maybe not. Also I have to make an admission. I don't know who Tatiana Kuznetsova is. Apparently in 2004 she was in the "Reserve Troup" at the Mariinsky]

http://www.kirov.com/roster/roster2004/ ... e2004.html

Mystery above solved thanks to NataliaN. It is Tatiana Kuznetsova interviewing Natalia Osipova.

In the Financial Times, Clement Crisp reviews the Bolshoi's newly restored production of "Coppelia."

Financial Times

The only thing that I have been able to decipher so far about Svetlana Zakharova's "Supergame" from Thursday night is this from VeraMit at "Ballet Friends" (basically a Bolshoi discussion forum in Russian).

09.04.09
Захарова суперигра. (Zakharova Supergame)
Светлана - фантастическая балерина!

(Svetlana - Fantastic Ballerina!)

Six sentences later in a new heading....

Дивертисмент (Divertissement)
Светлана - фантастическая балерина!

(Svetlana - Fantastic Ballerina!)

Closing sentence of posted review....

Светлана - фантастическая балерина!

(Svetlana - Fantastic Ballerina!)

They can be fairly critical of their hometown dancers here so don't assume that this is just a rave site.

http://forum.balletfriends.ru/viewtopic ... 7&start=15

Google Translate
http://translate.google.com/translate_t ... =ru&tl=fr#


PS--Apparently the title "Supergame" comes from the fact that the setting for this ballet is inside a video game.

PSS--Some pictures too--scroll to bottom of page
http://forum.balletfriends.ru/viewtopic ... 7&start=15