Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker (1994) Review

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(More customer reviews)Vassily Vainonen's Nutcracker choreography was probably as influential in Europe as Balanchines Nutcracker was in the United States. Vainonen omitted the Sugar Plum Fairy altogether and instead made Clara's story a Romantic Awakening. Most European versions of the Nutcracker follow Vainonen's lead, although they may retain the Sugar Plum Faiy. From the Royal Ballet version (available on several videos, the latest with a truly enchanting Alina Cojocaru as Clara) to Grigorivich's dreary Bolshoi production and Nureyev's more surreal one, the Vainonen influence can be found. On the other side of the pond, Baryshnikov's film with Gelsey Kirkland is also based on the Vainonen, although with considerably darker overtones.
The Kirov video is the only tape I know that is actually Vainonen's choreography. Unlike the Bolshoi video with Maximova and Vasiliev, the Kirov's video is blessed with excellent production values. The costumes, sets, and performance are all pretty, sumptuous, and well-organized. I particularly love the Snowflakes scene in the Kirov, with its background of evergreen trees. The Kirov corps is as usual elegant and their use of their upper bodies is a real plus for the ethnic dances in Act 2.
I also like the cast for the Kirov video. A very young, waiflike Larissa Lezhnina is very believable as a teenaged girl. Of the "adult" Clara/Mashas only Gelsey Kirkland and Alina Cojocaru can match Lezhnina's youthful, innocent persona. Merle Park (on the Nureyev video), Ekaterina Maximova (Bolshoi), and Lesley Collier (Royal Ballet) are all way too mature to be believable as a teenager. Viktor Baranov is a very handsome, dashing Prince, who both looks like and dances like a young Mikhail Baryshnikov.
How is the Vainonen choreography? Generally, I like it a lot. The only thing I don't like is the abandonment of the original Sugar Plum Fairy kingdom concept -- in Vainonen's version, Masha and the Prince fall in love and marry in the Kingdom of Sweets. I think there's a way to preserve the Kingdom of the Sweets concept while also preserving a sense of romance between Masha and the Prince. But I think the divertissements are well-choreographed, and the Kirov dances them with the usual elegance and aplomb. I particularly like the Arabian dance in this video. While not as family-friendly as George Balanchine's (no Mother Ginger here!) once you get past the convnetion of adults playing children, I think the choreography is very beautiful, and emphasizes the more romantic aspects of Tchaikovsky's score. I also really liked the choreography for the Waltz of the Flowers -- it seems to mirror actual ballroom waltzing, with couples waltzing away. The effect is sweetly romantic.
That being said, there were a couple things which annoyed me about the video. One is the fact that in the Party scene there's little sense of a real family party. Everything seems a bit too grand, as if this were the Emperor's ball rather than a Christmas gathering. Balanchine's Nutcracker still is the gold standard in setting the tone of a real party. Second of all, there was a decision to have all the "children" danced by adults, and even more strangely, to have all the boys danced by female corps de ballet in long, Beatles-like wigs and pants. The Vaganova Academy has plenty of children, why not use them in the party scene? (And they have real boys too.) Also, the grand pas de deux is really a grand pas de six, with four cavaliers assisting Masha and the Prince. Lezhnina looks pretty being lifted from one cavalier to another, but the piece loses some of its romantic intimacy when there are so many people dancing with Masha in addition to the Prince. I also wonder why Soviet choreographers had to delete so much original Ivanov choreography, such as the Prince's mime, the dance of the hoops and Mother Ginger, things that were lovingly preserved in the Balanchine production.
A Nutcracker as a child's dream fantasy filled with sweets and fun (Balanchine) or a romantic dream of a teenaged girl (Vainonen)? It all depends on what you prefer, I guess. I like both. Unlike the Baryshnikov video there's no darkness here (the Baryshnikov video suggested romantic feelings between Drosselmeyer and Clara). The Kirov has since abandoned the Vainonen version for a darker Nutcracker so I count myself lucky that this is on videotape.

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Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)Uliana Lopatkina was one of the last proteges of legendary Kirov ballerina (and, later, pedagogue) Natalia Dudinskaya. Lopatkina is so loyal to the memory of her teacher that she refuses to dance in the "new-old" reconstructions of Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadere, as she considers the reconstructions a betrayal of Dudinskaya's husband, Konstantin Sergeyev, whose stagings of Swan Lake, the Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere and Raymonda were considered the standard stagings in the old Soviet Union.
This Swan Lake is the third full video version of Sergeyev's Swan Lake from the Mariinsky in twenty years. I think that, all things considered, it is also the best, although the film with Yulia Makhalina and Zelensky is also very fine. The reason I give this film the slight edge is that it was filmed in front of a live audience, and thus has a frission and excitement missing from the Makhalina/Zelensky video, which was a "canned" performance. Also, Makhalina in 1990 was a lovely dancer, but very young, and her O/O in my opinion was beautiful but not a fully developed portrayal. Lopatkina also handles the technical challenges of the ballet better than Makhalina.
Sergeyev's Swan Lake, despite employing a jarring happy ending and an annoying jester, remains one of the most elegant versions of the ballet anywhere. The Mariinsky corps de ballet dances Swan Lake as if it were in their blood, making Ivanov's famous "white" acts a hypnotically beautiful experience. The national dances in Act 3 are danced with an impeccable vigor and sense of character. This is Russian ballet at its best.
As for the leads, I admit I find Danila Korsuntsev good-looking but a bit vapid. I wonder if he was chosen because he's one of the few dancers tall enough to partner the 5'10" Lopatkina.
Indeed, from the minute we see her bourree onto the stage, with her long arms flapping slowly like a swan, it is the Lopatkina Show. She is so tall and long-limbed that she makes Syvlie Guillem look petite and stubby. She is the most regal Swan Queen I have ever seen, with strong emphasis on the Queen part. Her Odette has an air of remoteness and inscrutability. You have the feeling that Odette has been a swan for a long, long time, and this is not her first heartbreak. Perhaps to give the idea that this Swan Queen is so very Sad, Lopatkina even eschews the traditional jete of Odette's entrance. Lopatkina's ultra-thin arms give her the illusion of absolute weightlessness. On the one hand, this is incredibly beautiful, with each hand gesture seemingly designed to accompany a note of the score. On the other hand, sometimes it can seem like a lot of "fingers stretch to the left, eyes glance to the right" posing, albeit beautiful posing. There's little sense of spontaneity - indeed, Lopatkina's Odette at times barely seems to be aware that she is dancing *with* Siegfried. The "Love Duet" is danced so slowly Makarova would check her watch, with Lopatkina assuming a trance-like expression from the first unfolding of her arms to the last penchee. It's all a bit marbelized. I wish that there was more warmth behind the magisterial beauty, yet it's an undeniably commanding portrayal, and one that I'm happy was caught on video.
If Lopatkina's Odette has an air of almost supernatural remoteness, her Odile is arrestingly hard, like a diamond. She does not smile seductively -- instead, she has an air of a "touch me and you die" femme fatale, much like a film noir heroine. Whereas her Odette seemed to be a showcase of adagio dancing, her Odile has traces of her teacher Dudinskaya's famed technical brilliance. Her long legs swing through the air like knives. Her Plisetskaya-like red hair seems to glow and clashes brilliantly with her shiny black tutu. Her fouettes are brilliantly executed, with several doubles thrown in. Her long bravas at the end of the act are well-deserved.
I must admit that I really dislike the tacked-on happy ending of Sergeyev's Swan Lake, choreographed to please the Soviet era bigwigs. The beginning of the fourth act is breathtaking beautiful, with the formerly energetic swans of the second act transformed into sad, elegiac creatures. Indeed, there couldn't be a ballerina more unsuited to the happy ending Swan Lake than Lopatkina. Her remoteness works to her advantage in Act IV. Odette has become unreachable, despite Siegfried's pleas. Lopatkina has such a grand air of tragedy in the fourth act, that her sudden transformation to a smiling human is unforgivably jarring. But I suppose no version of Swan Lake is ever fully satisfying, and we should all be grateful that Lopatkina's Odette/Odile was captured on film for posterity.

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Minkus - La Bayadere / Kirov Theatre Review

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(More customer reviews)If any ballet can truly be associated with the Kirov/Mariinsky, it is La Bayadere. This is the ballet that made Anna Pavlova in instant star. Even the Kirov defectors (Nureyev, Makarova) could not forget about La Bayadere, as both of them staged the ballet in the west. Petipa's ballet about the doomed affair between an Indian temple dancer and a warrior is such a part of the Imperial Ballet's history that it's a surprise that to date this is the only official video of the Kirov's Bayadere.
But rest assured, despite being old (filmed in 1977), it's an excellent document of the ballet. You can tell this is a ballet the company has danced for ages. Each character dancer really SELLS his/her part in the Grand Betrothal Act, from the Golden Idol to Manu (the girl with the vase over her head). The Kirov dances the ballet as if it were in their blood. This is particularly apparent in the famous Kingdom of the Shades, in which Solor, high on opium, hallucinates Shades descending down the Himalaya mountains, one by one. Each shade lunges forward in an arabesque, then stretches backwards. Notice the almost nonchalant way the 32 shades descend down the ramp, in complete unison. It looks easy, although any ballerina will tell you it's probably the most terrifyingly exposed choreography in classical ballet.
The two female leads (Gabriela Komleva as Nikya, Tatiana Terekhova as Gamzatti) are very strong. The Kirov nowadays favors very tall, imperious looking dancers like Uliana Lopatkina as Nikya, so if your idea of Nikya is a Lopatkina or Svetlana Zakharova, you're likely to be disappointed with Komleva who is considerably smaller and more compact (and less glamorous looking). But she's a delicate, vulnerable Nikya, with a pliant back and expressive face, and she handles the treacherously difficult part without any technical problems. If I have one criticism of her it's that in the Shades scene she isn't quite as otherworldly and ethereal as the best of Nikyas. Tatiana Terekhova is simply astonishing as Gamzatti. She simply drips hauteur and evil. Her confrontation with Nikya is exciting, and in the Betrothal Grand Pas she steals the show with her spectacular grande jetes and series of Italian fouettes. The weak link is the Solor. There is tragedy behind Rebdan Abdyev's Solor -- originally the telecast was slated to go to Yuri Soloviev, but Soloviev died in an apparent suicide, an event that devastated the company. Abdyev is an appropriately macho Solor, but he has a distinct lack of finesse, and one does long for the incredible elevation and elegance of Soloviev.
I would say this is *the* Bayadere to get as an introduction to the ballet, but it also faces some stiff competition on video. The Royal Ballet video has Altynai Asylmuratova on loan from the Kirov dancing the Makarova production (see below). Asylmuratova, exotic, beautiful, and heartbreaking, is probably the best Nikya on video, and Irek Mukhamedov is a wonderful Solor, but I dislike the Makarova version. The Paris Opera Ballet video boasts the POB Shades which are as stunning in their own way as the Kirov's, beautiful sets and costumes, and wonderful performances by Isabel Guerin, Laurent Hilaire, and Elisabeth Platel. There is also a video from La Scala starring Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle in the Makarova production. I'm not a huge Zakharova fan, but Nikya is probably her best role.
*The Kirov dances the Chabukiani version of the ballet, which debuted in 1941. This ballet dropped the last act (in which the ghost of Nikya destroys the temple during Solor and Gamzatti's wedding), and instead ends the ballet after the Kingdom of the Shades. This was probably for technical rather than artistic reasons -- even without the lost act, the ballet is over two hours long. After the Russian Revolution, the theater could not afford the elaborate stage machinery required to depict a destroyed temple. Years later, Kirov defector Natalia Makarova staged her own La Bayadere for the American Ballet Theater, in which she streamlined the mime and the character dances in the Betrothal Scene considerably, and then recreated the "lost" act by some creative reshuffling of music and barebones choreography. Then in 1992, a dying Rudolf Nureyev staged La Bayadere for the Paris Opera Ballet. His version is almost a carbon copy of the Kirov/Chabukiani version. In 2002, the Kirov finally staged a reconstructed Bayadere based on the 1900 production, which contained the "lost" act. This version is not available in commercial video.

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Here is La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) a ballet in three acts performed by the company that first brought it to the West. Filmed at the Kirov Theater (on the stage where it was premiered in 1877), La Bayadere stars Gabriella Komleva as the pathetic temple dancer, Nikia; Tatiana Terekhova as Gamzatti, the Rajah s daughter, and Rejen Abdyev as Prince Solor. Based on an ancient Indian poem, the ballet concerns the love between Nikia and Solor. Solor, unfortunately, is obliged to wed Ganeatti, who murders her rival by sending a basket of flowers hiding a poisonous snake. After Nikia s death, the inconsolable Solor envisions Nikia inviting him to join her in the Kingdom of the Shades. In their final dance together, they manage to find a measure of happiness among the phantoms of other maidens who have died of unrequited love. A piece of history, and a work of art, La Bayadere is quite simply a gem to be savored again and again.CAST:Gabriella Komleva ............ NikiaRejen Abdyev ................... SolorGennadii Selyutsky ............ Chief BrahminYuri Potemkin .................. The RajahTatiana Terekhova ............. Gamzattiand the Company of the Kirov Ballet Choreography: Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomarev after Marius PetipaMusic: Ludwig Minkus Conductor: Victor Shirokov

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Ballerina (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the best ballet documentary I have ever seen on the Kirov. It is almost a sequel to "The Children of Theater Street." The Kirov has taken its history and technique and brought it into the modern arena - even the leotards and tights are like amazing costumes from Karinska. These women have incredible technique and artistry - each one very different from the last. They are current and yet old fashioned, in a good way, at the same time. If you're a dancer - you'll love this because its is filled with behind the scenes, rehearsals, class, and life in the reality of being a Russian dancer. Interesting perspective on performance scenes as well.

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In the grand tradition of the Ballets Russes comes a portrait of five Russian ballerinas from the Mariinsky Theatre (also known as the Kirov).Behind any great ballerina lies the discipline and rigour that comes from decades of training and practice. Superstars like Nijinsky, Baryshnikov and Pavlova established the reputation of Russian dancers as the best in the world. The five dancers profiled in this revealing film are tough, insightful and exceptionally talented; onstage they reveal no hint of the sweat, pain and hard work of the rehearsal studio. From Swan Lake to Romeo and Juliet, from the backstage studio to performing on stages around the world, Ballerina captures the sublime beauty of ballet, in all its resplendent glory.FEATURINGDiana Vishneva, Svetlana Zakharova, Ulyana Lopatkina, Alina Somova & Evgenia Obraztsova

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