"Sleeping Beauty"

Just Wonderful !

This is all that I can really say.

Viktoria Tereshkina -- Aurora. She was Lovely, Brilliant, Beautiful....Everything !

Anastasia Kolegova -- The Lilac Fairy. I have read about her, but have never seen her before. What a beautiful surprise ! She is absolutely beautiful and her dancing was as graceful and impressive as one could wish for.

Oksana Skorik -- Princess Florine in the Bluebird duet. This very young lady just continues to amaze me with her grace and dancing prowess.

Dmitri Gudanov -- Prince Desire. Guesting from the Bolshoi, he did some very fine dancing, featuring splendid airy jumps and finely controlled spinning.

Alexei Timofeyev -- The Bluebird. He wowed the audience with his breathtaking aerial grace.

And on and on I could go.

This year the Stars of the Mariinsky just seem to get brighter and brighter.

The new young talent is astounding.

Galina Stolyarova reviews "Le Parc" in the St. Petersburg Times.

St. Petersburg Times

Thanks, Francis. I have read this review. I certainly agree with the praise offered in her opening statement.

"The Mariinsky Theater created a sublime and detached rendition last week of Angelin Preljocaj’s ballet “Le Parc,”...."

I would say that some reviewer/previewers have been quite descriptive about the narrative or intended meaning of "Le Parc." Along with Benjamin Millepied's "Without," which might also have a very definite intended message, I have simply watched what was going on in front of me and the effect was ecstatic !


"Romeo and Juliet"

The amazing quality of Mariinsky talent shone through from top to bottom -- everyone.

Olyesya Novikova -- She danced beautifully throughout, acted her heart out and was marvelous as the vibrantly innocent young Juliet and the Juliet so overwhelmingly in love.

There were some other undeniably powerful moments of beauty. One was at the ending when the two old rival clan leaders, the once again incredible Vladimir Ponomarev (Capulet) and Pyetr Stasyunas (Mantague) finally embraced each other in a heart-wrenching display of forgiveness and friendship.


[spelling correction made]

"You ask me if there'll come a time
When I grow tired of you
Never my love / Never my love" *


"Le Parc"

Ekaterina Kondaurova

Everyone Else


All Things Beautiful



*(sung by The Association)

Thanks for your reports & thoughts, Buddy. I'm been very busy 'slaving' in the office all week but have popped into this forum periodically for a little bit of happiness. Now THIS is the Le Parc that I'm most sorry to have missed. I'm also so happy that you saw what I saw in Kondaurova's Swan Lake. What is the Mariinsky waiting for to promote this incredible artist to Principal? Ridiculous.

It's too bad, Buddy, that you won't be overnighting to Moscow for Obraztsova's Odette-Odile debut...Tonight! Fingers crossed for her. She should prove a gorgeous Odette-Odile, even if of a totally different variety than Kondaurova.

A Blessed Easter/Pascha and Passover to those who celebrate those Holy Days!

Alina Cojocaru


Humbling !!!!

Just Absolutely Humbling !!!!


"Giselle"

I have no idea what Sarah Bernhardt was like, but if she was considered one of the greatest stage persons ever, then Alina Cojocaru tonight would have to stand alongside her.

Alina Cojocaru was great as Giselle in London last January, but this performance rose to another level.

If she is like this when she comes to New York to dance with the ABT, NYC fasten you seat belts !

She has for years been a regular Mariinsky Festival Guest Star.

The final ovations were huge tonight with numerous curtain calls.

I haven't even talked about her dancing yet. I will try to do so when I get home and settle down for a few days.


Daria Vasnetsova -- Myrta

She was remarkable !

Her jumps, for one thing, just sailed through the air like I have never seen before.


Johan Kobborg -- Great !

Kseniya Ostreikovskaya -- Monna

Absolutely Beautiful, statuesquely magnificent dancing.

Anastasia Nikitina -- Zyuma

Just fine with some wonderful follow up positioning.

Corps de Ballet -- A Dream.


The uniform quality of this Festival is as good as I've seen in seven years.

Just Wonderful !


Thanks so much, Natalia, for your thanks and for your thoughts. Happy Holidays to you also. I was looking forward to seeing you here. Hopefully next year. JPC also next year, I hope. I would have seriously considered taking the fast train, which I was told has actually been in service for a year (3 1/2 hours) to Moscow to see Evgenia Obraztsova, if I didn't so want to see what I saw tonight. I wish her the greatest success.

Added mention:

Pas de Deux duet

Maria Shirinkina -- Beautifully graceful.
Alexei Timofeyev -- Aerial prowess and grace -- The Bluebird revisited.

Two more rising stars, for sure, at the Mariinsky.

Alina Somova


Beautiful !

Mind Boggling !


"Diamonds"


She danced this like

A Balanchine-Robbin's Angel from Swan Lake.


A lady nearby, about eighty years old, who looked like she might have spent her last dime to be at this Gala, had tears in her eyes.


I will try to write more at another time.


A Wonderful Gala Evening !

The Gala Program


"Camen Suite" (Alberto Alonso)

Carmen: Viengsay Valdés (National Ballet of Cuba)

Jose: Ilya Kuznetsov

Torero: Yevgeny Ivanchenko 





Divertissement

"Morey" (Marco Goecke)

Friedemann Vogel (Stuttgart Ballet)


"Nirvana" (Emil Faski)

Olesya Novikova
Maxim Zyuzin


Scene from "Mayerling" (Kenneth MacMillan)

Alina Cojocaru (Royal Ballet, Covent Garden)
Johan Kobborg (Royal Ballet, Covent Garden)
Tim Matiakis (Royal Danish Ballet)


"Dance Of The Blessed Spirits" (Frederick Ashton)

David Hallberg (American Ballet Theatre)


"Tarantella" (George Balanchine)

Ashley Bouder (New York City Ballet)
Denis Matvienko


"The Fragments From One Biography" (Vladimir Vasilyev)

Ulyana Lopatkina
Marat Shemiunov (Mikhailovsky Theatre)


"Grand Pas Classique" (Victor Gzovsky)

Anastasia Matvienko
Igor Kolb


"Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux" (George Balanchine)

Viktoria Tereshkina
Vladimir Shklyarov




"Diamonds" (George Balanchine)


Alina Somova
Danila Korsuntsev

"Some Enchanted Evening"


"I have often walked
down the street before
but the pavement always stayed
beneath my feet before"

"Does enchantment pour
out of every door
No it's just
on the street where you live"

"My Fair Lady"


**** Enchantment ****

This has to be what so much of what I saw is about.



Ekaterina Kondaurova -- Alina Somova


Both these ladies still fill my mind with beautiful, lingering images of Enchantment.

Both are statuesque beauties.
Both are constructed like long rays of light.
Both move like rays of sunlight across gentle, watery currents.
Both seem to be part of the air.

Both remarkable ladies are young and growing wonderfully as artists.


Ekaterina Kondaurova

In "Swan Lake" and "Le Parc" she became almost the complete center of my attention.

In "Swan Lake" I felt that she danced perhaps the most 'Magnificent' lakeside duet that I have seen. Why 'Magnificent' ? It maybe had to do with the way she postured herself, carried herself, positioned herself. It wasn't necessarily airy flow, which she can do beautifully, but more a 'Greek Goddess Statuesqueness' that radiated 'Magnificence.'

In "Le Parc" it seemed that because of the dominant image that she created, often the other dancers, as individually fine as they were, became echoes and extensions of her all embracing feminine expression and of all that she was performing. Here she was part of the air and she moved like currents of air. She established her airy presence immediately, her head seeming to sit weightlessly on her shoulders, and she floated through everything that was happening. She seemed to almost be taking a voyage through what was going on, rather than being a part of it, and it was compellingly beautiful.

Alina Somova

She is definitely of the air.

In my mind, along with Ekaterina Kondaurova, she remains a dominant image from the Festival, reaching out, caressing, defining and filling the space around her.

Growing artistically -- In the last two years it seems that she is really exploring and refining the possibilities of her huge vocabulary of dance artistry. Her focusing seems very evident.

This year it was her facial expression and overall appearance that immediately caught my attention. When I saw her first in "In The Night" I absolutely did not recognize her. I concluded, "That isn't Alina Somova dancing tonight." I had to have it confirmed twice afterwards that it was indeed her that was dancing. For me she was a different person. Her neck was not as long and her face had softened considerably and taken on much more of a Jerome Robbin's dancer's aura, totally, and I'm sure quite intentionally, in keeping with the Balanchine/Robbins/Millepied works that she was performing at this Festival.

'Refinement' is also something that she seems to be emphasizing. Last year in "Sleeping Beauty" it looked like she was really trying to create very definite ways of moving. This year in "Diamonds" her flowing motion was more beautiful than ever. Her large, magnificent jumps were also more beautiful than ever. Even her rather high developpes, her lifting of her leg from the side towards her head, seemed very carefully thought out, not at all exaggerated and beautifully consistent with her overall gracefulness. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. This was Balanchine, after all, that she was dancing. She knows how to wow and she knows how to let you know that she knows how to wow. Yet it was all done with an amazing and overall sense of 'living and breathing' refinement and with airily, 'mind boggling' expressiveness.

In Benjamin Millepied's "Without" she moved with beautiful gracefulness.

In "Diamonds" she moved like an angel.


Both Ekaterina Kondaurova and Alina Somova shone Wonderfully at this year's Festival.

I greatly look forward to experiencing many more years of their Marvelous Expressions of Beauty.

I am still living my memories of the Festival as much as possible. It's a beautiful place to try to keep myself.

In Saint Petersburg I would also try to keep myself as up as possible between the performances. Watching the children is always a wonderful way to do this. It also keeps my perspective on life in balance. The way that folks can be so nice in Saint Petersburg is something else that is very wonderful. It seems sometimes in Russia that when someone decides to do something they put their entire heart into it. For example, I had a program in russian for one of the performances. I asked the lady next to me a few times if she could translate some of the character names for me. She then proceeded, in the nicest way, to translate the entire list of character descriptions. There were a few other times when I was almost in tears because of how warm and helpful some individuals were.


"Le Parc"

This was the first performance that I saw. It was almost a complete unknown to me and I wasn't necessarily expecting a lot.

I was 'Knocked Over' !

All the way home I was floating on air. My feeling at the time was that the only way to convey what it was all about was to try to create a parallel experience on paper. I did this partially. Maybe if it seems appropriate sometime I will try to post it somewhere.

I didn't get to Saint Petersburg in time to see Diana Vishneva's performance, but I did see the ones by Viktoria Tereshkina and Ekaterina Kondaurova. After the Viktoria Tershkina evening I immediately bought a ticket to see the other one. Both performances were quite different, because of these two ladies, and equally fine.

The Mariinsky interpretation of this work is magnificent. I have read and since sensed by watching a video clip on the internet that this work was probably intended to be more sensual than the Mariinsky presented it. In any case, for me, the Mariinsky presentation was a Masterpiece.

The difference between Viktoria Tereshkina's version and Ekaterina Kondaurova's was that Viktoria Tereshkina seemed fully integrated into the total concept. In the second performance, after a short while, Ekaterina Kondaurova was often all that I could think about, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

There were two things that most defined "Le Parc." One was the absolute brilliance of the use of human motion and the other was the Poetic Dream State created by the interaction of the Dancing and the Magnificent Music of Mozart.

There was also an interaction between the pastoral dream world of 18th century France and the throbbing techno pulse that can be found in today's world. This was done by costume differences and periodically introducing modern electronic sound music.

Angelin Preljocaj doesn't use a particular dance style. He combines all varieties of dance possibilities. Although there is beautifully graceful ballet related dancing involved, I don't believe that any of the dancers were ever on point or ever wore point shoes. I'm not sure if there was even any turn out involved. This worked great for me in that it showed that the beauty of ballet can be accomplished without necessarily using much of it's literal vocabulary.

"Le Parc" is not representative of a school or style of dance, but rather the result of the genius of one man. Anyone could probably create the motions and positionings involved, but only an Angelin Preljocaj could combine them into a Masterpiece.

The Mariinsky dancers interpreted and presented all this Magnificently !


I wrote this down quickly afterwards with some minor changes later.

"Everything possible filtered through the soul of Mozart. Traveling the edges of reality with the linear grace of a seagull gliding overhead across the shorelines of our imagination. A bridge is meticulously constructed to travel across the sea of everything."

"Van nova eesconee sovluta yayayva. Dooree varnaylee sola novee zarovee."

Among many other things, these sort of lyrical sounds from my make believe russian played in my mind on the way home. They temporarily embraced the abstracted dream world created by Angelin Preljocaj, as performed by some of the finest dancers in the world -- and the place where this all happened in the russian soul.

I highly recommend seeing this work and taking your own voyage of wonderment.


[minor word change made]

I could probably sign off now, as I may have covered many of the highlights, as I saw them to be, but I honestly don't want to. Who wants to let go of something beautiful -- The Festival. Who wants to fall out of love.


Alina Cojocaru


"Giselle"


She may have had the best received performance of the Festival.

(I only missed the first one because I didn't arrive until late that evening.)


Quite simply, she was a theatrical giant !


From the moment that she appeared on stage, she had a knowing presence that dominated the entire evening. It was written on her face exactly where everything was going. If you ever saw "Giselle" before, you could already see her final exiting of the stage as an otherworldly spirit, still the embodiment of pure love.

Her facial expressions could probably have been read from the furthest seat in the theater, without the use of theater glasses. This is sometimes accomplished by having to exaggerate the expressions, which can be seen close up. Remarkably, when I looked at her through my theater glasses there was no sense of exaggeration at all ! This is the first time that I can recall having seen such a thing.

There may have been a bit of Garbo in her face as well. Just compelling !

Somewhat like I sensed with Ekaterina Kondaurova in "Le Parc," she had an aura of just passing through.

It was beautifully done. Every situation still range true. She was at first the totally young innocent. Every following phase of her life was completely believable.

Her demise scene at the end of Act I was sublime. I had read years ago in a review, that she had ended this act like a gentle breath of air, but I had not seen this from her in any subsequent performances. This is the way that I've read that Gautier, the author of this work, had intended -- she leaves the way that she had arrived, still the gentlest embodiment of innocent love. Her loose disheveled hair and her searching circlings of the stage said all that had to be said about an ending, but her face was a sea of measureless depth, of a knowing 'calm,' and then she was gone.


Her entrance as a dancer was every bit the classic Alina -- Natural, vibrant, expressive, technically beautiful and exciting, brilliantly her own....

She was as physically strong as I've seen her.

It was at the ending of the performance, though, that the Remarkable occurred.

In the final famous duet and all that followed, the sublimeness of the portrayal and the dance merged together completely.


It Was All Profoundly Beautiful -- Just Magnificent !


[spelling correction and minor word change made]

Some very nice words for Tatiana Terekhova from Ashley Bouder at the Mariinsky site.

"And my coach Tatiana (Tatiana Terekhova, editor’s note) makes everything so easy, she doesn’t make me perform in another language and bend my will to the company, she gives me freedom…"

( From the way that Alina Somova continues to develop so beautifully, I would have to think that this legendary woman is doing something quite right ! )

Also from Ashley Bouder about Denis Matvienko.

"I really would like to speak about my partner, Denis Matvienko, who is so responsive and merry. He also speaks English, which is important and great for me! Maybe if it had been someone else I would have found it harder."

And from Roberta Marquez

http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/news1/interv ... w_repliki/

And from David Hallberg

http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/news1/interv ... _hollberg/


[typo corrections]

These are a few quotes from the comments and interviews reference posted before this one.

Roberta Marquez (Royal Ballet)

"Arguably the greatest difference in traditions is in the acting and how the image is conveyed. In London we dance a lot of MacMillan, where typically you perform the role in a more natural and lively style, like in everyday life, not studied and intentional. We are used to different styles. But in Russia there is more drama, more emotions, more theatricality and imagery."

"You could say that an old dream of mine has come true. When I was young I would often watch videos of the Mariinsky Theatre’s ballets, and now, at last, I’ve had the opportunity to dance here with magnificent dancers."

David Hallberg (ABT)

"A few days ago I was fortunate enough to attend the Vaganova Academy graduation exam. It was very interesting and curious. I noticed the incredibly refined movements, among the girls in particular. Everything was so delicate, attentive and technical. That is what sets the Mariinsky Theatre apart. It is a theatre of incredibly high standards."

"I owe Yuri Fateyev a lot for my presence here. He is the most wonderful coach that I have ever worked with. He has raised the quality of my dance to a new level. It is very hard work, but he constantly urges me on and points me in the right direction."

"My partner [Yekaterina Kondaurova] is simply magnificent! And it’s such a pleasure to dance with her. Our movements and our silhouettes compliment one another. Soon I will be dancing Swan Lake with Yekaterina at Covent Garden."

"I will remember every one of my performances here as long as I live."


A personal note.

I was chatting with a very nice guest at the reception after the Gala, who knew many of the faces. "Who's that?," I asked, thinking that she might be Olyesya Novikova. "Oh, that's.... She's in the Corp de Ballet." My eyes immediately moved on searching for the presence of the 'star' dancers. I gave myself a good talking to when I got home.


[typo correction]

Here are some very nice pictures from the rehearsals of Benjamin Millepied's "Without" that he created for the NYCB in 2008. Go down to bottom of page and there is a short video clip.

If you want to see what I meant about Alina Somova's exceptional ability to change personas, look at this photo, the 4th photo after the title photo, she's is blue

http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3539505.html

and then compare it to the way that she usually looks.

http://www.mariinsky.ru/company/ballet/ ... ny/somova/


Also some very fine video clip glimpses of "Le Parc" with Diana Vishneva.

http://www.tv100.ru/news/11-j-mezhdunar ... nke-39253/

http://www.tvkultura.ru/news.html?id=648408&cid=178

http://www.zakon.kz/culture_news/209603 ... j-lad.html


(referred to these sites by sophia's posts at Dansomanie (in french))

I noticed when looking over the program for "Le Parc" that there were very few names that I recognized, aside from the lead dancers. It seems like there may have been a lot of Corps de Ballet dancers involved and they did wonderfully.

Here are a few nice comments about the casting in a Google translation. If you bear with it, I'm sure that you will get the gist of it.

Question- At the rehearsal the impression that the company is extremely keen on working with Preljocaj. Is it really so?

Yuri Fateyev - Yes, all very excited, this does not always happen. And passionate about not only the soloists, but the corps de ballet. Angela himself spent casting. The theater offered him about three times more people, and he selected the performers very carefully looking over the entire corps de ballet, not just the soloists, and chose those whom he felt someone was "its". How many tears were those who did not get! Especially the girls experienced. Everyone wanted to work with him. From the first rehearsal, as soon as the show began the first movement, I saw the guys eyes lit up. And it's not gone, not dim during rehearsals, not [растряслось(?)] until the premiere!

http://www.fontanka.ru/2011/04/13/092/



Naomi Perlov, Assistant Choreographer

"I worked with artists of the Mariinsky Theatre one a and a half months. And, you know - I put the ballet "Park" in Paris, Berlin and Milan, but I had never seen such a complete understanding with the dancers, a willingness to work. Stars of the Mariinsky Theatre were present at all rehearsals - not formally, but really. Sometimes I chose the rehearsal, which did not appear on the schedule - so artists working in the evening in other productions, have come to me already in costume and makeup - and with complete dedication to develop new moves for them. "

http://www.tv100.ru/news/11-j-mezhdunar ... nke-39253/

[several words clarified]