BalletChat

[balletchat]

Do you have any information on carlotta grisi? I have to do an essay on her and am struggling to find information. It would be a great help, but if you don't have any, please don't go out of your way to find any.

Hello and sorry for late reply. Yes I do have but I am on holiday until Saturday, if it is not tooate. Good luck and thx for your question!

[balletchat]

Could ballet feuds really go that far?

Since the appalling attack on the Bolshoi's artistic director Sergei Filin, most of the media focused on the insidious rivalries within the world of the famous company as the presumed main reason behind it. Articles revolved around "ballet politics", "jealousy", "professional resentments", "poisonous infighting" and "power struggle", in short, all the dark side of the company which had its share of scandals over the last years.

The Bolshoi management itself immediately pointed in that direction, so why wouldn't we believe them? Historians and ballet veterans agreed that, although shocking, the attack was not that surprising, giving the long tradition of feuds inside the Bolshoi: the bits of glass found inside a rival's pointe shoes, the threats, the beating and all that. But one ballet dancer, Gedeminas Taranda, and others, told the media that this is unprecedented, that even in Soviet times , nothing like this happened. Even in Soviet times. (An era during which the Bolshoi was dominated by the choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, ousted in 1995 and made a comeback in 2008 as ballet master.). By throwing acid on Filin's face, compromising his eyesight, somebody did not want to kill him as a person, but put an end to his career. So jealousy might appear as a logical reason for daring to attack a People's Artist of Russia.

(a nice video showing Filin and prima ballerina Maria Alexandrova in La Fille du Pharaon)

Rivalries within the Bolshoi are an open secret, not only to Russian but also international media. Despite his attempt to marry tradition and innovation, by maintaining Grigorovtch's ballets and introducing new modern works such as Wayne McGregor's, his method seemed to have irritated the conservative camp within the troupe. Chief among these were the high profile principal Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who is known to want Filin's job for himself (and the post of general director too). But --and I might be completely wrong and the world has gone mad-- I cannot believe one second that anybody immersed since his tender age in the ballet world, is behind such a gruesome crime against a fellow artist. Even if he is gone mad with jealousy. The ubiquitous Anastasia Volochkova, a ballerina dismissed by the Bolshoi in 2003, talked about a "fight for roles". A lot of people talked about how the decisions of an artistic director regarding the repartition of roles could create resentment. But that is normal in any company in the world, it is not a reason to throw acid on the boss's face. Somebody clearly is not happy with each director who comes with modern ideas, not about ballet, but about the management of the troupe. And that is why the comment made by ex-Bolshoi artistic director Alexei Ratmansky, who left his post in acrimonious circumstances, is important. He said on Facebook: "Many of the illnesses of the Bolshoi are one snowball – that disgusting claque which is friendly with artists, ticket speculators and scalpers, half-crazy fans who are ready to slit the throats of their idol’s competitors, cynical hackers, lies in the press and scandalous interviews of people working there," he wrote. "The cause of it is the lack of theatrical ethics, which were gradually destroyed in the Bolshoi by specific people. This is the real trouble of this great theater." The fact he talked about claque, those annoying people hired to applaud every single pirouette by dancers, ticket speculators and scalpers caught my attention. The management has many times expressed its will to eliminate these lucrative practices and Filin may have tried to put an effective end to them. So who is behind these practices within the Bolshoi since decades? Who are those "specific people"? Why they have never been rooted out? How dangerous are they? If the truth is (and we may never find out the truth) that those "specific people" are indeed behind the attack, then we, as admirers of this revered company who has become synonymous of ballet itself, are allowed to say that after the costly revamp of its big stage, there should be a serious revamp of the Bolshoi ethics.  I wonder what David Hallberg thinks of all that. The first American dancer to ever join a Russian company was delighted when Filin asked him to make this leap in 2011 and was tweeting before incident how he "can't wait to get back to Bolshoi" after a pause in the States.  People might think he is trapped in a vipers' nest. I would like to think about him as a part of a company that will continue to make us dream.

[balletchat]

Firebird, In the Night, Raymonda Act III (Royal Ballet)

There is always a special sense of anticipation when you go to see a Royal Ballet's mixed programme. Forget the Swan Lakes, Nutcrackers and Sleeping Beauties; you are to be delighted (or deceived) by completely new modern works, by short ballets paying tribute to a specific choreographer or others that were kept away from the public eye for a long time, sometime for years.

Those evenings (and matinees) are enticing because they often present such a diversity, like the triple bill shown on December 22 at the Royal Opera House in London, featuring Michel Fokine 1910's Firebird, Jerome Robbins's In the Night and the third act of 19th century ballet Raymonda: a Ballets Russes icon, a wonderful neoclassical ballet about the ups and downs of a relationship and a classic with a twist of folklore set in the times of the crusades.

The Firebird: a very peculiar ballet

Inspired by a Russian folktale, the Firebird represented a break from the traditional 19th century ballet classics to become the essence work of the Ballets Russes, the notorious avant-garde company at the dawn of 20th century.

Here the princess, or rather the Tsarevna, is not the star of the show, she has a shallow role, merely performing some steps on the stage with her companions; her prince is even more self-effacing than the classical princes, not dancing a single solo. They are dominated by the Firebird, the only female performer on pointe. It is not a bird under the spell of an evil magician, like Swan Lake's Odette, it is a powerful, free-spirited bird, jumping across the stage as it likes, commanding the fate of the Tsarevich as it pleases.

Spanish ballerina Itziar Mendizabal offered a very dramatic performance, despite some moments of forced expression. She conveyed the quivering nature of the bird with her steely arms and fluttering hands, her head moving sharply from one direction to another. Her wide eyes, magnified by a judicious makeup, captures the eerie moment when the Tsarevich gets hold of her. Tamara Karsavina, the first Firebird and star of Ballets Russes told the Royal Ballet prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn when she taught her the role that the Firebird should show its hatred to the Tsarevich "for daring even to touch her". We could see that on Mendizabal's face, although the hatred resembled disgust at times.

For the anecdote, the triangle in the ballet (Firebird-Tsarevich-Tsarevna) has been interpreted as the projection of the original cast's real life, Karsavina has been Fokine's lover before he was married to Vera Fokina, the first Tsarevna.

Bennet Gartside gave a rather unexciting interpretation of the Tsarevich. Instead of the wonder he is supposed to feel when he sees the Firebird --"awe-struck, as Fokine puts it--, he looked like a little boy happy with a new toy. And the erotic tension implied in his pas de deux with the woman-bird is not palpable.

Gary Avis, the indispensable character artist in most of Royal Ballet's works, is unbeatable as Kostcheï, the evil magician who has cast a spell on all the travelers who pass his castle, and his mime is so in tune with Igor Stravinsky's exuberant and colorful music.

This music, which made the Russian composer famous and forever associated with the ballet, is not a mere accompaniment to the choreography, it has become so famous that one would rather say it is the ballet. The frenzied music of the Infernal Dance at Kostcheï's castle is so wonderfully in osmosis with the choreography that you feel part of an extravagant ritual (wonderfully performed by the corps de ballet).

At the coronation scene, the music is beyond glorious; you wish to thank Fokine for exempting the finale from any dance just for the pleasure of enjoying the score and Natalia Goncharova's iconic background settings, with the Russian churches' onion domes rising from afar.

In the Night: l'amour dans tous ses états

The second part of the program takes us  to the 1970's In the Night, by American choreographer Jerome Robbins, not performed by the Royal Ballet for several years.

It is a deeply emotional portrayal of three different relationships. The first pas de deux, is a superlative expression of romance was danced by Federico Bonelli and a luminous Sarah Lamb. She is swept off her feet by his love, her light dancing responding to Chopin's delicate score and to the attention of her dutiful chevalier. The dance is fluid and harmonious and the girl is often carried in the air, as if to express the lightness of love at its early and most innocent stage.

In the second pas, the couple (Zenaida Yanowsky and Nehemiah Kish) is more mature, the dancing is more sophisticated, more measured. They weigh each other, performing more down-to-earth steps. Love is still there but it is a bit more guarded; the performance of Yanowsky and Kish seemed even a bit too reserved. I am still wondering why Marianela Nuñez and Rupert Pennefather did not showing despite being on the cast list.

In the Night is considered to be a follow-up of Dances at a Gathering, created a year earlier. But within that year, Robbins' personal life has in the middle of a torment, torn between the woman he was living with and a married man with whom he was having an affair.

For him, love is still shining in the middle of darkness and you can see this through the same settings for the three dances, a background of black sky lit with innumerable stars.

The third pas de deux is perhaps where Robbins has poured most his emotions, revealing the vicissitudes of love. It a is tumultuous relationship, brilliantly danced by (real life) couple Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg. They go and off stage, she runs away, he follows her, they hold one another and reject one another with the same passion. She touches his body from tip to toes, before begging for his forgiveness, her torso on the floor, a passage which angered George Balanchine, the 20th century genius and Robbins' mentor who always put women on a pedestal in his ballets.   

The denouement is kept unclear, where the three couples come on the stage, look at each other. There is perhaps a hint of Robbins' complex relationships when at some point, the couples switch and you see two men and two women facing each other.

This ballet is simply a wonderful statement of love, in all its forms. 

Raymonda (Act III): Viva Zenaida!

After these two exciting pieces, the third act of Raymonda came a bit of a downer, with the exception of an astounding performance by Zenaida Yanowsky in the title role.

Despite Glazunov stirring score, Petipa's inventive choreography and Nureyev's 1969 sumptuous staging, the troupe looked as if it was not at ease, though the piece is often performed at Covent Garden.

The corps de ballet and the soloists did not show the exuberance required for this finale, which is supposed to be Raymonda's wedding with an imaginary crusades hero, Jean de Brienne.

Unlike other companies, The Royal Ballet stages only Act III, which is the most exciting part of a typically odd XIXth century ballet plot.

But unlike the spark which stand out in russian performances for instance, the solos were performed sometimes without zest, somehow hesitant. First Soloist Yuhui Choe was impeccable though, as always, and Helen Crawford showed at least some enthusiasm. The men's pas de quatre was okay, but it was a pain to see one of them missing his tours en l'air systematically.

Kish is a reliable partner (and of perfect height for Yanowsky) but his leaps lacked a bit of lightness, his turns en attitude a bit of sharpness during his solo.

I was almost relieved to see Yanowsky starting her solo, which she mastered. She towered above everybody else, not only because of her height but also thanks to her regal port de tête and port de bras, her pauses.

She was clearly enjoying herself, allowing herself even a half smile and a bold look at the audience in the middle of turns. In the series of slow than fast releves during the apotheosis, she seems to stay happily on one pointe forever. Quite a treat.

[balletchat]

A very modern Little Mermaid

No, it is not Disney, though I saw little heads at the Stanislavsky theater on December 10 who seemed to have enjoyed the show. But John Neumeier's The Little Mermaid is a psychological ballet about a brutal rite of passage from teenage years to adulthood.

The Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale was almost an excuse for the American choreographer to explore a theme dear to his heart -- already seen in his Sylvia -- the love awakening, with its illusions and especially its disillusions.

Magnified by the wonderfully dissonant music by Lera Auerbach, written especially for this ballet, Neumeier's choreography and theatrical staging are heavy in emotions. One may not grasp instantly the steps, the mime, but you are gradually moved by this very modern interpretation of a universal theme, the unrequited love.

The seven-year old ballet, commissioned by the Royal Danish Ballet then revised for the Hamburg Ballet, has an indefinable poignancy, and it is not because of the sad ending. Like when the Sea Witch, brilliantly incarnated by Dmitry Khamzin, fulfills the mermaid (Anastasia Pershenkova)'s dream by transforming her into a human. And what a metamorphosis. The siren's body is twisted with pain, her face is the ultimate depiction of suffering. It is almost as if her innocence is raped during her frantic undressing by masked men in black before her tiny legs are flung into the air. A kind of sacrificial girl reminiscent of McMillan's Rite of Spring.

At the end of the ballet, the mermaid, disillusioned and heartbroken after her beloved prince logically marries a princess, feels trapped in her tiny room (intelligently designed in perspective) and starts beating the walls in an attempt to break free. A claustrophobic scene which mirrors the modern man's feeling of being trapped in his little office, his little screen, his longing for nature.

The sea creature anxiously removes her ballet shoes --interestingly presented as the symbol of her human condition-- as she yearns to go back to her ocean. In the underwater scenes, she danced, like other mermaids, in wide-legged pants evoking the tail. Costumes were designed by Neumeier himself, inspired by Japanese and Balinese clothing during an Asia tour of his company, the Hamburg Ballet.

One would have wished for more "balletic" dancing, but then Neumeier's works are not only about steps. Neither are they intended to blow a message in your face. You can define them as neoclassical, or expressionist, but they are essentially poetic in their mixture of unexpected gestures, touching pauses and a wonderful return of the leitmotivs which usually characterize classical works. In Sylvia, it was the repetition of the huntress nymph's steps with her arch which summarized her independent feminine spirit. In The Little Mermaid, it is the siren's wavy arms and fluid body movements which expressed her nature, unspoiled by the superficiality of society.

Pershenkova manages to convey this innocence throughout the ballet. Her arm movements may not match those of San Francisco Ballet's star Yuan Yuan Tan (whose performance is astonishing, see following video), but her disappointment is sincere and her unconditional love is genuine.

Georgi Smilevski, one of the Stanislavsky ballet's stars, is a very spontaneous and playful prince, so at ease with Neumeier's steps that the role seems tailored for him.

Neumeier made an interesting addition to the original story by adding the Poet character and through him, introduced the homosexuality aspect. The Little Mermaid is believed to have been based upon the unreciprocated love Andersen felt for his friend Edvard Collin, when the latter decided to get married. The Poet, in love with the Prince, is Andersen himself and the mermaid's agony for the unreturned love is his.

In a ballet created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Andersen's birth, Neumeier has then expressed on stage what the Danish author could not have dreamed of putting into explicit words in his century. As the choreographer says himself in an interview, "I wanted to use Andersen's disappointment and personal loss as the jumping off point of my work".

A work remarkable above all for being, like most of Neumeier ballets, a narrative one, in a 21st century where few would embark on such lengthy journey.

(you can watch the whole ballet by clicking on this link http://video.pbs.org/video/2177584773/)

[balletchat]

Polunin, ballet's lost prince is back

In Swan Lake, Prince Siegfried hardly ever outshines Odette or Odile, the ultimate expression of feminine vulnerability and wickedness in classical dance. Well, unless this prince is Sergei Polunin.

The rebellious Ukrainian dancer who earlier this year slammed the door on London's Royal Ballet and was taken under the wing of the Stanislavsky Theater in Moscow, was on November 3 the most impassioned of all princes.

It is not only about his elegant lines, airy jumps and impeccable technique. In a ballet where the male role has been deliberately reduced to one solo, spending his time parading around the stage and lifting his Swan Queen and her villainous counterpart, he managed to give an outstanding dramatic performance.

His dancing/acting as Siegfried is reminiscent of Igor Zelensky, the Stanislavsky Theater's artistic director for ballet, ex-international ballet star and Polunin's current mentor after managing to convince the young prodigy to go back to ballet after a short barren run.

But Polunin brings in his own personality so full of nuance, maybe like his real self. "Restless", "mysterious", "unfathomable", yet "adorable", all "kindness and gentleness", were the words used by former director of the Royal Ballet Monica Mason to describe him, quoted by Julie Kavanagh in an article for Intelligent Life magazine last September.

As Mason talked, she could not help wishing that she could tie him to a chair and keep him in her office for 24 hours until he had calmed down and realised what he would be losing. “His talent is so rare that one would have done anything to keep him. But he was adamant.

(http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/arts/dancers-demons?page=full)

As Siegried, he is a cheeky, impulsive yet grave prince in Act I (maybe a bit like him). He flirts with the court girls and jokes with the jester (Dmitry Zagrebin in his role debut had the most dizzying of pirouettes). He is deferential toward his mother the Queen, but looks anxious to be liberated from her shadow.

When he meets Odette, he is truly besotted, as if he has never seen a creature like this before. At the ballroom scene, caught in his own bubble, he is absent, unaware of the beautiful girls dancing for him. In the last act, his Prince is genuinely repentant, asking Odette for forgiveness after he has been dazzled by Odile.

The problem is that the interpretation of the ballerina who performed the ultra-classical double role was not that dazzling. Soloist Erika Mikirticheva is a long-limbed dancer, with strong technique and impeccable fouettes. But her interpretation did not match that of her male partner.

Tall ballerinas with 6 o'clock extensions are not necessarily good Odettes, and less so good Odiles. We want to see the vulnerability and timidity in the former and the malignancy and cunning in the latter.

What I saw in that performance was a dancer a bit in a hurry to get on with it. As Odette, she rarely looks at her beloved Prince who is supposed to break the spell evil Von Rothart had cast on her. There was no spark. Her arms were sometimes too angular and exaggerated, and her face was inhabited by some kind of insincere agony. That all damped a bit Polunin's brilliance.

As Odile, she appeared more assured. She tried to look evil, but had that frozen smile most of the time and some unconvincing seriousness on her face.

Compared to the traditional Swan Lake performed for instance by the Mariinsky, the Vladimir Burmeister 1953 revised ballet (and adopted by the Stanislavsky Theater) is even trickier for the Odile character. It compels the ballerina to display more acting, as this version uses the complete Tchaikovsky score.

Despite the evocative settings and the wonderful variations introduced in this Swan Lake, it is a shame that it does not include more solos for the Prince so that we can enjoy more of Polunin's dancing.

At the end of the performance, 'Seryozha' looked happy. Maybe he does finally feel happy. And free. In a recent interview by a Russian TV, he stated 'I love freedom', alluding that he has chosen to quit the Royal Ballet after being told to remove his tattoos.

Ballet, and ballet companies, can be fastidious on rigidity and discipline. The Italian ex-Royal Ballet star Viviana Durante once denounced the company's 'autocratic managment' and 'lack of communication' http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/1999/apr/19/features11.g22

Polunin, who defiantly said months ago that he would stop dancing at the age of 26, also complained  of feeling 'too comfortable' at the Royal Ballet (which made him principal at 19) and the strain of rehearsals.

Is the rebel tamed in him now at the Stanislavsky? It does not matter really, as long as his performances continue to make us shiver.

[balletchat]

Dancing with the pharaohs

Pierre Lacotte is truly admirable. The 80 year old French choreographer who specializes in reconstructing lost ballets from the 19th century likes to remember how his dance teacher Lyubov Yegorova, who worked with Marius Petipa, made him promise never to forget the original choreography of the classical repertoire.

He is admirable in the sense that he took a lot of risks resuscitating works like La fille du Pharaon (1862), Paquita (1846) or the original La Sylphide (1832), when most of the notations were lost and those who danced them either died or could not remember the steps anymore.

How would you indeed recreate almost 90% of a grandiose ballet like La Fille du Pharaon, which marked Petipa's breakthrough as a choreographer at the Mariinsky and was the precursor of the era of the ballets à grand spectacle (including the holy trinity of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and the Nutcracker).

The task is even more daunting when very little of the original choreography survived, based on notations found in the Harvard University Theater Collection.

Performed for the last time in 1928 (before it was cast away by the Soviets for its 'negligible artistic value'), La Fille du Pharaon was recreated in 2000 by Lacotte for the Bolshoi Theater, 138 years after the premiere of the original work which is based on a libretto by Jules Henri de Saint Georges and inspired by a Théophile Gautier novel, Le Roman de la Momie (the same duo who gave us Giselle).

It was set at a time Europe, especially France and Victorian Britain, was swept away by Egyptomania, fuelled by Napoleon's campaign, the latest excavations and a fascination by the culture of ancient Egypt. At a time where cinema did not exist, one can imagine the awe of St Petersburg public when they saw the pharaonic columns, the imposing (fake) statues, dazzling costumes and almost 400 performers on stage.

(Below is a photo I took during one of the five performances of La Fille du Pharaon presented at the Bolshoi last week)

In Lacotte's version, the show is still there, with the most exquisite costumes and imposing sets, despite their kitschiness (the curtain marking the passage from one scene to another looks like coming straight from a Disney production). The public is also entitled to see a stuffed monkey, a toy lion which is supposed to be scary, a fake cobra in a vase, a live horse, and the so not politically correct little black(ned) slaves.

The story, which sounded so exotic for 19th century audience, and although revised by Lacotte, may fail to grip today's public imagination. An Englishman, Lord Wilson, traveling in Egypt with his servant John Bull, smokes opium and is transformed into an Egyptian, Taor, who falls in love with the beautiful Aspicia, a powerful pharaoh's daughter, who is also desired by the evil king of Nubia.

One might argue that the libretto is no less odd or anachronistic than other classics like La Bayadère or Le Corsaire. But the problem is that production, although lavish, has kept too many cartoonish elements, in an attempt maybe to be faithful to the original.

On the Bolshoi stage, so suitable for bombastic productions, the love scenes and subsequent pas de deux, appear lacking a bit of intimacy (lighting could have been worked out to heighten the romance passages).

The dancing is delightful and exhausting. The ballet, which spans on almost three hours, has enough variations to fill whole repertoire. Some of them are charming, other are seriously tricky, and you really need to concentrate to have the steps printed in your mind.

It does not matter if the dancing seems sometimes to be "copy pasted" on the scenario. What is particularly interesting is the batteries used in the new choreography, which we don't see much in other ballets, theses successions of entrechats, jetés,petite cabriole, small and fast piqué and assemblés.

In an interview about La Fille du Pharaon, Lacotte insisted on the importance of preserving the allegro dancing which is "tending to disappear". The virtuosity of the "petits pas" (small steps) "must still dazzle the audience", he says.

Particularly challenging are the main roles, especially Aspicia's, brilliantly performed by dance goddess Svetlana Zakharova who seems to relish the role of Aspicia, performing it with clear confidence and an unflinching smile. More than 100 years ago, a prima ballerina of the imperial era in Russia, Mathilde Kesshinskaya (famous otherwise for having been the lover of the last tsar Nicolas II) liked the role so much that she demanded she was to be the only lead in this ballet, according to Russian ballet critic Anna Gordeeva.

In the role of Taor, Ruslan Skvortsov is an efficient and very light partner, quite suitable for the famous petits pas. Is it is a shame that the role of Ramze (Aspicia's nubian slave) has not been developped enough just for the pleasure of seeing always delightful Nina Kaptsova. The same could said about Denis Medvedev as Passiphonte (Taor's servant) who has only one (brilliantly funny) variation.

I am not quite sure what to think about Cesare Pugni's music, which was also revived and was partly lost. It is most of the time predictable, occasionally irritable and sometimes quite pleasant, especially in the variations.

In the Bolshoi DVD bonus of La Fille du Pharaon, Lacotte, dubbed 'the archeologist of dance', said that he "strived to reconstruct the ballet, true to the style of that era, in the same way that Marius Petipa did". A bow then for his attempt to fill the shoes of the great master, because such loyalty to the past, with its success and its flaws, is not so often found.

[balletchat]

Giselle and the new Romantics

A rite of passage for every ballerina, the archetype of romantic ballet, a relic of a lost world, Giselle is, and hopefully will continue to be, one of the most bewitching ballets in the classical repertoire.

But what could possibly still fascinate us in the story of a naive village girl somewhere in the Rhineland who dies of a broken heart after she discovers that her beloved Loys, pretending to be a commoner, happens to be Count Albrecht, engaged to the aristocratic Bathilde. She then turns into one of the Wilis, the spirits of girls who, betrayed by their fiancés, die on the eve of their wedding, and who implacably lure every man they encounter into a dance until they exhaust him to death. Is it really the story? Giselle, a symbol of the ballets blancs of the 19th century (named as such because of the white tulle skirts), is like a silent movie driven by Adolphe Adam dramatic score, the equally emotional choreography by France's Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot and the plot written by their compatriots, the novelist Théophile Gautier and librettist Vernoy de St Georges. The premiere of the ballet, inspired by a passage from Heinrich Heine's 1835 poem, De l'Allemagne, was a hit in 1841 Paris. 

(A photo I took of a recent performance at the Mariinsky Theater, the moment Giselle dies) In our more-than-ever-cynical world, some, other than balletomanes, might still be drawn to the enduring themes of the Romantic era, at its height in Europe when Giselle was created: love that transcends death (Giselle protects Albrecht from the revenge of the Wilis), the selflessness of the heroine (by saving Albrecht, Giselle looses him forever) and the redemptive power of love (Albrecht is forgiven for his treachery).  Some have underlined the class aspect (a peasant girl in love with a nobleman), the gender aspect (women --the Wilis-- asserting their power over men) and even the sexual aspect (the repressed sexual desire --implied but never shown in romantic ballets-- is sublimed with the death of Giselle and her transformation into an unattainable creature). But this appeal can have an impact only if the ballerina gives a powerful interpretation of her double role: the simple incredulous girl in Act one (and the challenge is great not to appear ridiculous and childish) and the ethereal, otherworldly spirit in Act II. It is fascinating to see the different interpretations of ballerinas over decades since Carlotta Grisi, the 19th century ballet queen for whom the role was created. The 20th century had its own great Giselle, like Carla Fracci or Galina Ulanova, to name a few. Recently, I saw yet another powerful performance by a young first soloist at the Mariinksy Theater, Olesya Novikova. A porcelain face with a delicate yet steely physique, Novikova reminds me of these 19th century lithographs where romantic ballerinas strike an aerial pose, precisely the one featuring Carlotta Grisi. In the first act, Novikova looks so sophisticated, almost too aristocratic for the earthy role of the naive girl. Rather than playful, her dancing is smooth and slow, as if she was taking her time before meeting her fate. It is in the madness scene and in Act II where she displays all her artistry, her face telling you the whole story.

A handful of contemporary ballerinas have of course portrayed Giselle in a touching and a genuine way (Lopatkina, Vishneva, Cojocaru or recently Osipova) but Novikova is a true romantic dancer of the 21st century: her dancing is elevated but not too grand, sophisticated but not mannered, and so expressive she reminds me of silent movie stars. Her madness scene is poignant, and as a ghost imploring Myrtha, the queen of the Wilis, to spare her Albrecht, she makes the final scene even more heartbreaking.

I find in the following review of the first Giselle, Carlotta Grisi, in 1847, something very touching and very close to what I saw in Novikova's performance: "Nothing can be lovelier, nothing more ethereal, nothing more deeply imbued with poesy than her Giselle (...) it is impossible to imagine you could touch her, so transparent, so fragile is her appearance. She floats along the stage". (A review in The Musical World, quoted by Lucia Ruprecht in the Cambridge Companion to Ballet).

A true descendent of Grisi then. According to a St Petersburg review, Novikova "creates tragic images, intense in eddies of emotion and the pain of losses". I have been lucky to see her earlier this year in "La Sylphide", another great XIXth century romantic ballet, where she displayed the same exquisiteness.

I hope that she is promoted soon to principal. This year, another talented dancer of the Mariinsky, Evgenia Obratzova, left this theater and joined the rival Bolshoi. Maybe because she was still first soloist 10 years after graduating from the Vaganova academy.

The new romantics are also found also in the public who still goes to watch a new performance of Giselle. The russian public in particular knows every single gesture of the ballet, gasps at each perfect -and wrong- movement.

Talking about things that went wrong the night Novikova and her princely partner Filipp Stepin danced, the second soloist Nadezhda Gonchar was very ill-partnered by coryphee Alexei Nedviga in the Peasant pas de deux. Nedviga was so nervous that he missed almost all his turns in his solo and was a bit shaky while holding his partner. Pavel Bubelnikov conducted Adam's score at a very slow-moving tempo in Act I, and heightened the clever leitmotiv introduced by the composer to remind us of Giselle and Albrecht doomed love. So why is Giselle an enduring masterpiece and still moves us, despite the fact that nobody buys the supernatural effect of the Wilis? Because from the Romantic era to our world dominated by small tablets, we are mesmerized by this fresco of feelings, this pure poetry in motion.

My favourite interpretation of the "Madness scene' in Act one, when Giselle discovers the real identity of Loys. The ballerina is Soviet dancer Galina Mezentseva. You can actually see her crying at some point

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Laurencia

For some, watching on stage two of the greatest dancers in the world might be an experience akin to a state of trance. Your hands start to sweat, your eyes pop out at each jump, and your heart palpitates from excitement. This happens when one watches Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova dancing.

All the superlatives have been used to describe those tremendously gifted dancers, ex-Bolshoi stars who stunned the ballet world at the end of 2011 by moving to the Saint Petersburg Mikhailovsky Theatre, which stage can be called 'intimate' compared to the gargantuan Muscovite arena. A year ago, Bolshoi employees were sniping after the real-life couple's departure that the Mikhailovsky Theater is so small that Vasiliev risked leaping into the orchestra.

What Vasiliev demonstrated on November the 18th, dancing the Frondoso character in the Spanish-inspired and Soviet-era ballet Laurencia, is that he can leap higher than ever.

I had the privilege to watch him during his Bolshoi years in Don Quixote, Spartacus and Le Jeune et La Mort (just a few days before his 'defection'). Seeing him and Osipova on the smaller stage -- which magnifies their prodigious leaps and supersonic turns-- one can imagine the sense of loss that the Bolshoi must still feel. Not that the most famous theater in the world is in need of stars. But virtuoso dancers like Osipova and especially Vasiliev come every two or three generations.

Laurencia, a 1939 ballet set by Vakhstang Chabukiani, himself a Soviet ballet star, is not all about mighty jumps. You need the wit of Don Quixote's Kitri and Basilio and the revolutionary feeling of Flammes de Paris to be truthful to the work, based on Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna. Laurencia has the appeal of an easy and clear synopsis: a peasant girl, Laurencia, leads a popular revolt against a ruthless tyrant who has wronged her and the ballet ends in a victory scene very much like la prise de la Bastille.

In a reminiscence of Vasily Vainonen's Flammes de Paris, set more than a decade after the October revolution, Laurencia's heroic theme must have been indeed, as the evening programme states, an "unqualified success" ahead of Russia's entry into World War II. Because soviet ballets LOVE their heroes. In the last two scenes, Osipova's Laurencia is as much the jolly spanish peasant who flirts with her enamorado Frondoso as Marianne in Delacroix's la Liberté Guidant le Peuple.

Both ballets show directly the righteousness of revolutions and nod to the French Revolution are reminds the 'soviet people' of their universality too. (A symbolic moment is when the 'people' kill the despot and his hat is paraded on a pique).

The production of Laurencia has been recently reshaped by the Mikhailovsky's Principal Guest Ballet Master, Mikhail Messerer. The choreography might remind you of Don Quixote's but is liberated from an overdose of the XIXth century mime. Plenty of tasteful dances, exhilarating codas not only for top roles but also for secondary parts like Pascuala, Jancinta and others, all performed faultlessly by the Mikhailovsky's first and second soloists.

I am not a fan of comparing stars over generations (the 'new Nureyev', the 'new Baryshnikov', etc), but the continuity in russian/soviet/russian ballet is quite something. In Frondoso role, Vasiliev's impetuosity is very much like Chabukiani's, who was the first to dance the role he created. As for Osipova, like in Don Quixote which propelled her to stardom, she has the same exuberance, the same rage de danser as Maya Plisetskaya, one of the XXth century's greatest prima ballerinas (and still alive and well).

A Soviet ballet then, shown by a theater whose general director is one of many capitalist figures in today's Russia: Vladimir Kekhman, who according to russian media, once described himself as the banana emperor of Russia. No problem with that, especially that ballet world needs money more than ever. In an article published last January in the Guardian, Luke Jennings was already saying that ' the company is now at a crossroads and the ballet world is waiting to see where Kekhman takes it'. Nearly a week ago, Russian press reports said mr kekhman has sought individual bankruptcy before a London court. Let's hope that there is nothing serious about this and that neither the company or the star couple will pay at any moment the price of business problems.

Read more:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/banana-king-goes-bankrupt/471543.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/01/mikhailovsky-ballet-bolshoi

Watch:

Natalia Osipova in Laurencia (when she was still at the Bolshoi):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QhVWT6Nqbg

Maya Plisetskaya and Vakhtang Chabukiani in Laurencia at the Bolshoi, 1956: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2MQkVeysXQ&feature=related

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Ivan the Terrible

If you want to see the best advertisement for male dancing in (classical) ballet, go and watch one of the Soviet/Russian choreographer giant Yuri Grigorovich's works. A fine example is Ivan the Terrible(1975), revived and presented this week at the Bolshoi theater.

The collective dances of bell-ringers, russian warriors, foreign invaders and boyars exude energy, in one of the rare moments where male corps de ballet can rival any female one. It is helped by Sergei Prokofiev's galvanizing music, some of it originally written for Eisenstein's eponymous film, some other parts a fragment of the same composer's Third Symphony. (And what a sound you get at the Bolshoi's big stage, re-opened only last year after a long and costly six years renovation!).

Like in his other famous chef d'oeuvre, Spartacus (Spartak), Grigorovitch, the current maître de ballet at the Bolshoi, has created in Ivan the Terrible two meaty roles for male dancers, one featuring the young czar at the start of his reign, and another as Prince Andrei Kurbsky, one of the ruler's (real-life) advisors who ultimately betrays him. Both love Anastasia Romanovna, Ivan's first wife whose death was suspected to be a poisoning.

The work is a feast to the eyes, even if one could argue that there is an impression of deja vu: it is almost the same imagery, the same epic-like pattern as Spartacus -- the hero (Spartacus/Ivan), the anti-hero (Crassus/Kurbsky), the woman (Anastasia/Phrygia) -- but mainly the same style of steps and movements for male dancers, very virile, very exalted and all that.

Nevertheless, the cast on the night of the 14th of November was the real pleasure of the evening: to see a whole new generation of dancers at the Bolshoi -- still reeling after the 'defection' of its star (real life) couple, Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova, to the delight of the less-known Mikhailovsky Theater in Saint Petersburg.

First comes principal Mikhail Lobukhin, a Vaganova-trained dancer who joined the Bolshoi just two years ago, and who incarnates convincingly the impetuosity, tenderness and wrath of the young czar grieved by the loss of his beloved wife and infuriated by the treachery of Kurbsky and the boyars.

But the star of the show was definitely Denis Rodkin, promoted to soloist only this September. In the role of prince Kurbsky, his dancing is exudes sheer brio, jumping and expressing jealousy and guilt with the same vehemence.

As Anastasia, the exquisite Maria Vinogradova , also newly promoted to soloist, is all delicacy and ethereal dancing.

It is always an emotional experience to see new dancers coming under the spotlight, along with 'veteran' dancers like Svetlana Zakharova and Maria Alexandrova and new acquisition, ABT dancer David Hallberg. It is even more important to note this regeneration when the world-famous company seems to have gone down the tradition path again in its repetoire selection, after having flirted for the first time recently with modern dance.

This season is dominated by Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible, as well as the uber famous 'Nutcracker' (a Grigorovich version too), plus the Pharaoh's Daughter, a XIXth century ballet à grand spectacle-- though a bit over-the-top, by classical dance genius Marius Petipa.

If the following season does not bring about some innovation --like rival Stanislavsky theatre does-, the same accusations which prompted the departure of Grigorovich in 1995 after dominating the Bolshoi for 30 years (allegedly after having made the theatre to plunge into stagnation ), might creep in again. I wonder how is the relationship between the ballet master -- reportedly bad tempered and who seems to be wanting to haunt the Bolshoi stage again-- and the young artistic director Sergei Filin, credited with bringing modern work to the company.

Whatever it may be, Ivan the Terrible was a true art du spectacle, which what the Bolshoi does best.

Watch:

Spartacus, with Ivan Vasiliev (before he left the Bolshoi):

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76i7ebH0kGI

Ivan the Terrible, with the formidable Nicolas Le Riche of the Opera de Paris:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5G_GxsLIoE

and with Denis Rodkin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCVfWgMN0Zk

Other videos:

Mikhail Lobukhin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVZccuo5YQc

Maria Vinogradova: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzePGBx2-cI

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[balletchat]

I am not a dancer

"It is not easy to be a dancer, you know". Thus remarks the captivating documentary by Pierre Jourdan/John Percival "I Am A Dancer" (1972), featuring the work of the balletmonstre sacré,Rudolf Nureyev. It might state the obvious, yet it is a reminder of the physical and interpreting difficulties of this art that stubbornly refuses to die since the 15th century. Especially in our century which stubbornly insists on making everything easy.

I am not a dancer. I never was and never will, i am just one of the thousands of ballet amateurs around the world who passionately take a few classes per week (in a studio in Beirut), relish watching the newest DVDs from the Royal Ballet or the Mariinsky and reach the ballet nirvana when they watch the alikes of Alina Cojocaru, Svetlana Zakharova or Ivan Vasiliev dance on stage.

This is not a technical ballet blog. I see many blogs are written by professional ballerinas or at least by people working in the field. But this is not a blog that pretends to offer tips on how to improve your turnout or your arabesque or how to heal an ankle injury after a bad fall, although there will be times where professionnal ballerinas will be invited to write down their experiences and recommendations.

It is a blog of impressions (the word itself might sound amateur), whether after attending a class, watching a ballet DVD or a performance --in London, Moscow, St Petersburg, Paris or elsewhere-- or after reading a book or a critique.

Ballet world, especially nowadays, might look elitist, hermetic and even aristocratic and outmoded especially if you get a glimpse of Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake. But ballet is not about tutus, pointe shoes, kings and queens from past times. Look beyond the swan's white feathers: it is beauty in motion, and that is driving force behind this blog.