LMCtech wrote:
Are you saying the DANCERS don't want to do the reconstructions?!
Yes. For example, Lopatkina has gone on record, and to this day she has refused to dance the Lilac Fairy in the 1890 production. She hasn't danced the '52 Lilac for a number of years, so this is moot. But, when the 1890 premiered and was in rotation she vocally boycotted the role. Fateev has never liked the recons and he's gone on record as well. He's basically put the 1890 recon in mothballs. Right now, the production is in some kind of "suspended animation:" If they perform it, it's once or twice a season - if at all. They don't take it abroad. They did tour it as a box office draw/novelty to Covent Garden, Germany, the Met, and Kennedy Center in the early 2000s. However, the production's scope and the logistics required for it are extremely expensive to tour so they pack and peddle the '52. They brought the "Bayadere" recon to Covent Garden in the early 2000s too. Since then, they've retained the recon sets and costumes as an "upgrade," and dance Vahktang Chabukiani's version, the Soviet version, where there's no earthquake or destroyed temple. Act 3 is the finale. Sometimes in Act 3, the corps alternates between the recon Shade tutus (circa 1900), and the standard issue modern ones.
There are several reasons why the company doesn't like the recons. When the 1890 was mounted, the dancers
and the specialists didn't see the need for two productions. They felt that the choreographic text was "questionable" as authentic Petipa. "Beauty" had been preserved and handed down through Fyodor Lophukov's 1922 edit, and then Konstantin Sergeyev. Both men incrementally deleted the essential mime, until the work was a pure dance experience. The Soviet authorities called this "balletic symphonism." They also believed Nikolai Sergeyev's notebooks containing Stepanov's notations of the classics were suspect. They were taught from the beginning that he was a traitor, who took (some say stole), the Theatre's best works and smuggled them illegally to the West. Another sore point was that this notation was coming back to them from the Harvard Theatre Collection. There was wounded national and company pride in play here. It was as if everything they had been taught was a lie. Tensions and emotions were high in the studios and the Theatre. Petersburgers, critics, dance historians and cultural elites from all over Russia were curious about the reconstruction. In 1999 Russia was still in financial crisis and the enormous cost to mount it was debated. When it finally premiered on April 30, 1999 the aforementioned parties' opinions were polarized. The majority sided with the tradition that they knew: 1952. The attitude was, as the old slang saying goes, "dance (and leave) with the one who brung you."
Why would they reject the recons? IMO it may be a combination of raw emotion and sentimentality. When the '52 premiered, the city was still devastated after the war. The city had lost +1 million citizens during the 900 day German siege,
and the duration. The company had just recently returned to the city from it's wartime home in Perm. This production, was seen to be, (like the re-opening of Covent Garden in 1946), the resurrection of the city and its people. So, this production is like mom's cooking: For them, nothing can top it. Dr. Tim Scholl's book
"Sleeping Beauty: A Legend in Progress," discusses all these points in great detail.