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Bolshoi Onegin


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Has anyone seen the Bolshoi Onegin yet? it premiered last Friday or Saturday. According to their website they seem to have several strong casts, finishing  with David Hallberg on the 21st. I wish they were dancing it here.  Joan

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There are some excerpts of Smirmova and Lantratov (?) on You Tube.  I thought the dancing in the mirror pdd was lovely but it looked a bit safe to me.  There again, it is the premiere and I am sure they will grow into the roles during the run.

 

At talks over the years both David Bintley and David Nixon have said that the first night is not always the best as dancers grow into roles during the run.  I noticed this with Great Gatsby recently where my performances were spread throughout the tour and wonderful though the start of the run was by the end it was sensational!

 

I wish the Bolshoi were bringing it here too!

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I believe no company other than Stuttgart is allowed to tour Cranko rep outside of the company's own country. That is, the National Ballet of Canada could tour its Onegin, R&J, and Shrew within Canada but not take it to London, for instance.

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I believe no company other than Stuttgart is allowed to tour Cranko rep outside of the company's own country. That is, the National Ballet of Canada could tour its Onegin, R&J, and Shrew within Canada but not take it to London, for instance.

 

 

That ruling must have changed, Katherine ... as I well remember seeing the NBoC in Oneign at the Met in New York which I think - even now - is not YET part of Canada ... LOL

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This is spooky because I was just thinking about Onegin on my drive home today - I am finding the business over where you can/can't perform Onegin and no video of Onegin performances being allowed really annoying, petty and very small minded of the Estate of Cranko whom I believe put the blocks on these things - please correct me if I am wrong. Why is this such a crime? Was it actually written in Cranko's last Will and Testament that this had to be so or is it just his Executors or family essentially being mean?  Surely a choreographer's aim is to get his work seen by as many people as possible?  I love Cranko's Onegin it's such a good ballet and would dearly love to have a DVD.  Could a modern day choreographer do a new Onegin "after" John Cranko or is that not allowed either?  Sorry if I have gone off topic.

Edited by Don Q Fan
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This is spooky because I was just thinking about Onegin on my drive home today - I am finding the business over where you can/can't perform Onegin and no video of Onegin performances being allowed really annoying, petty and very small minded of the Estate of Cranko whom I believe put the blocks on these things - please correct me if I am wrong. Why is this such a crime? Was it actually written in Cranko's last Will and Testament that this had to be so or is it just his Executors or family essentially being mean?  Surely a choreographer's aim is to get his work seen by as many people as possible?  I love Cranko's Onegin it's such a good ballet and would dearly love to have a DVD.  Could a modern day choreographer do a new Onegin "after" John Cranko or is that not allowed either?  Sorry if I have gone off topic.

 

I'm not sure if it is a choreographers aim to get his work seen by as many people as possible, but maybe as good as possible? Every estate of a dead choreographer is interested in keeping the integrity of the ballets, I'm pretty sure that other companies have been denied Balanchine, Robbins or MacMillan ballets for different reasons - company too small, dancers too bad, whatever.

 

Stuttgart Ballet is invited all over the world with the three Cranko story ballets - why should they give away that advantage, if every other company can tour with Onegin? It may not be fair, but I think it's understandable.

 

There are other Onegin ballets by different choreographers - Boris Eifman, Deborah Colker, Richard Wherlock. John Neumeier is working on a "Tatyana" ballet, premiere next July at Hamburg. I have no idea if any of them wanted to use the Stolze/Tchaikovsky score, but I honestly think they all wanted to use different music. There is no copyright to Pushkin's novel.

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At least there used to be a video once distributed of Onegin, by National Ballet of Canada, starring Frank Augustyn. (which was of very good quality) Unfortunately this is out of issue but I don't have the impression that the Cranko estate is denying of any Onegin DVDs, they might record one in the not so far future. 

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Stucha, I'm not sure if you're allowed to put the links up but if not, then maybe you could post the names of the dancers with their Russian spellings and also the Russian spellings of Onegin, so people can cut and paste into the YouTube search bar? If it's not too much trouble, obviously! :)

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I think the Kaptsova snippets are all on lenaruses' channel on you tube. If you just search that name it will bring up the channel and these are some of the most recent additions. The videos on the channel that say they were posted one day ago are of the Obraztsova performances. The ones that as of today show as from three days ago are the Kaptsova performances.

 

Much of the good Moscow material that gets posted is on a handful of channels and it is worth just subscribing to them and then the new videos just appear in your feed. Fiordililia2, lenaruses, tuteetuteetu seem to post a lot of decent quality material within hours of Bolshoi and Stanislavsky shows ending.

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Angela and Naomi - thank you for your informative replies - I can see what you mean.  I would love to see Stuttgart perform Onegin but they don't seem to tour much it is long time since I saw them in London with R&J - I wish they would do an Onegin DVD themselves - they are after all Cranko's company.  Maybe I will just have to go to Stuttgart - mind you I'd want to see Friedemann Vogel, not just anybody LOL!

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Angela and Naomi - thank you for your informative replies - I can see what you mean.  I would love to see Stuttgart perform Onegin but they don't seem to tour much it is long time since I saw them in London with R&J - I wish they would do an Onegin DVD themselves - they are after all Cranko's company.  Maybe I will just have to go to Stuttgart - mind you I'd want to see Friedemann Vogel, not just anybody LOL!

 

You've just answered a question I was going to ask on Monday!

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It's not Onegin but the Stuttgart Ballet will be performing Taming of the Shrew at Saddler's Wells in November, with a fabulous mixed program as well.

 

Currently I have just watched Bolshoi perform Onegin, with the leading dancers Evan McKie, Alicia Amatriain, Freidemann Vogel and Anna Osadcenko. It was just wonderful, bringing Pushkin back to his country. I could say after seeing so many Onegins, Evan McKie is the best Current Onegin and I wish they would film the whole ballet with him, he is just Onegin himself, living the role. The other leads were fabulous too, especially Alicia's emotional Tatiana. And Bolshoi was doing beautifully.

 

I will see one more performance tomorrow, David Hallberg and Evgenia Obraztsova.

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I have recently spoken to my friend who staged "Onegin" for the Bolshoi Ballet and she concurs that companies with Cranko performing rights (at least for the full-length works) can only perform his ballets in their own country.  It is most likely for the reason suggested by Angela, that it allows the Stuttgart Ballet to tour these works all over the world.  It only seems fair that the company that Cranko more or less created should be allowed this one concession.  Interestingly, the Stuttgart Ballet performed at the Bolshoi in May with "Romeo and Juliet" and a mixed bill.  As Naomi reported, some of their stars returned to dance in "Onegin". 

 

Here is the information from the Stuttgart Ballet's website:

 

"The premiere of John Cranko’s masterpiece Onegin at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow last Friday was a great success. For the first time, Cranko’s ballet was danced by a Russian ballet company.

On July 20, 2013, Stuttgart Ballet Principals Alicia Amatriain, Anna Osadcenko, Evan McKie, Friedemann Vogel and Soloist Nikolay Godunov will be giving a guest performance at the Bolshoi, dancing the five leading parts in Onegin. The same cast will also be dancing in Stuttgart on July 18, 2013, in this season’s last performance of Onegin, giving Stuttgart audiences a chance to see what audiences in Moscow will have the pleasure to see just 2 days later!"

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