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Amelia

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  1. Amelia
    Scenes from "Romeo & Juliet” at Bolshoi last week with Elizaveta Kokoreva & Daniil Potaptsev. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AivVmc2QT8s Still a teenager, he doesn't have much acting experience yet, but he dances beautifully, like his more experienced partner. This is not only his debut in the role, but also the first opening night entrusted to him at the Bolshoi. You can feel how careful he is to avoid making a mistake. And the future is open to him. It will be so interesting to watch his artistic development.
  2. Amelia
    Still available.
  3. Amelia
    More Daniil Potaptsev. Today in competition he danced a variation from Taglioni’s "Le papillon” remounted by Pierre Lacotte:
  4. Amelia
    Yesterday, Lavrovsky's original production of "Romeo & Juliet” has returned to the Bolshoi's vast stage, starring Elizaveta Kokoreva and Daniil Potaptsev. I can’t show the final scene, but the curtain calls are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiwDs0qZOPw Other casts will follow: Obraztsova - Ovcharenko, Sevenard - Rodkin, Zakharova - Belyakov, Krysanova - Lantratov.
  5. Amelia
    FOR SALE: Danses Concertantes / Different Drummer / Requiem Saturday 13 April 2024, 7:30pm Amphi Row C Seat 41 (full view) £ 29.00
  6. Amelia
    I found the very first piece that Daniil Potaptsev danced in the 1st tour. Variation of Tahor from "Pharaoh's Daughter" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYffGnCyT5w
  7. Amelia
    The ‘Grand Ballet’ TV competition in Moscow is continuing. I am trying to find and watch what is available on internet. A 19-year-old boy from the Bolshoi Theatre DANIIL POTAPTSEV became a revelation for the distinguished judges and, of course, for me. A graduate of the Boris Eifman Ballet Academy, he competes in the junior group (19-22). He has wonderful physique, an easy, light jump and he is very ‘danceable’ - doesn’t just perform steps but really dancing. This is what he has shown up to now: Variation of Siegfried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOx-LQ8TStk “Vestris” by Yacobson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9iLD6NjMP8 Variation of James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDw0Pv5wDGE
  8. Amelia
    Hello again, Geoff. After talking to three Russian ballet critics I contacted a ballet historian Andrei Galkin who has several published works on the history of Swan Lake original and later productions. This is his answer to your question: "There are no documents directly indicating negotiations with Tchaikovsky regarding a new production, but there is clear indirect evidence that Swan Lake was planned to be staged during his lifetime. November 19, 1893 I.A. Vsevolozhsky* submitted a report to the Minister of the Imperial Court with the proposed program for the concert in memory of Tchaikovsky, and it stated: “One act from the ballet “Swan Lake” op. Tchaikovsky (to be staged in the next season).” If we discard the extremely unlikely option in which it was decided to stage “Swan Lake” in the 1894/95 season between October 25** and November 19, then it follows from the report that the issue was decided when Tchaikovsky was alive." --------------------- * I.A. Vsevolozhsky - Director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters. ** Tchaikovsky died on 25 October 1893.
  9. Amelia
    It will be very good. In Ballet / Dance news & information we already have the topic: RB Summer Period Casting So there will be no need even to open a separate thread.
  10. Amelia
    Tried to buy a ticket for the RBS matinee on 6 July and saw this below. Managed to buy it only after my third attempt. Why can not they improve their system?! Technical error (error 500) Sorry, we are currently experiencing a few technical issues. Please return to the homepage or try again shortly.
  11. Amelia
    I remember very well, Geoff, that I owe you an answer to your question. It took time because I contacted several people whom I could trust on this issue. My good old friend who for decades had been providing the monthly "Letter from St. Petersburg” for The Dancing Times decided first to confer with a colleague who is an expert on XIX c. Russian ballet. This is his reply: "I had a long conversation with O.F., she is super. So, she says that there are no documents regarding the negotiations, since everything was verbal, in thoughts among plans about The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker." I became intrigued myself: if there are no documents regarding the negotiations with Tchaikovsky, then from which source is it known about the verbal negotiations and how this information has survived for over 130 years? I am waiting for a response from another expert, this time in Moscow. He's incredibly meticulous.
  12. Amelia
    The ticket has gone, thank you.
  13. Amelia
    Black dress in 1901! More than a century ago. This seems to be the end of the discussion about when the black dress appeared.. Oh, Sebastian, your post compelled me to dig into the original Moscow edition of Maya Plisetskaya’s memoirs of 1994. I hugely respect her but here I find hard to understand (1) what the word “division” means in this case, (2) why it came from the West and (3) why it was the West that reinterpreted Odile as the black swan. When I saw my very first "Swan Lake" at Bolshoi in 1947, with Plisetskaya & Preobrazhensky, there were the “black” and “white” adagios in different acts, obviously they were different. So what kind of division could come from the West? I carefully keep the brochures of the very first tours of the Paris Opera Ballet (1958) and the Royal Ballet (1961) in Moscow. None of them brought "Swan Lake”, so their tours won’t have any impact on the Russian Swan Lake. (There was also a personal appearance of Beryl Grey in "Swan Lake" in 1958). It looks like the accuracy of some facts even in the memoirs of direct participants might be unclear. Regarding the West’s reinterpretation of Odile as the black swan I am also not sure. Why from her first SL performances in 1940s and throughout her career Plisetskaya danced Odile with enormous wing-like black feathers on her head? Was she a black swan or staged a bird masquerade to deceive the prince, who knows? I like bridiem’s conclusion: "Neither are actually swans, but who cares. I think it's a scintillating story." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iQpvZv10q0
  14. Amelia
    FOR SALE: Wednesday 27 March 2024, 7:30pm Danses Concertantes / Different Drummer / Requiem Amphi Row D Seat 76 £ 29.00
  15. Amelia
    Hello, Roberta. You raised several topics in your post. I will only reply to one where you have responded to my previous post. It is quite possible that for almost 150 years, in numerous SL productions, Odile may well have appeared in dark blue and also various colours. However, at the end of XIX c. Petipa immediately conceived white and black swans, which is an indisputable fact and he implemented it on stage. It is proven by descriptions and photographs of ballerinas of the early XX century. This is why I believe that Alistair Macaulay's statement that "Odile was not dressed in black by any company until the 1940s" is wrong. This is a minor issue. I see that much more important issues are discussed on this page now.
  16. Amelia
    Thank you, Geoff. You are right that the Swan Lake score has been composed earlier. In fact, Tchaikovsky worked on it at the request/commission of the Bolshoi Theatre in 1875-77 and the opening night of this four-act ballet in March 1877 was a failure. Critics trashed everything about it...except the music. Like you I was also intrigued by the timing of negotiations but didn’t questioned it since as far as I know the articles on the official website of Mariinsky are usually written by selected ballet historians. Just now I have written and passed your question to one of them. I don’t know how soon he will be able to answer but when the reply comes I will post it here.
  17. Amelia
    You are referring to the opinion of Alistair Macaulay, quoted on the Ballet Alert forum. The respected critic was wrong. Even when the Directorate of the Imperial Theatres was negotiating with Tchaikovsky about staging his ballet, Marius Petipa had already made sketches with black and white swans long before the opening night. On the official website of the Mariinsky Theatre you can see a photo of ballerina Vera Trefilova in a Black Swan costume. Her last performance in this role was in 1910, which is much earlier than the 1940s. https://www.mariinsky.ru/about/exhibitions/petipa200/swan_lake/
  18. Amelia
    When I came back to my comp just now, I saw that you, Fonty, already received explanation from Richard LH and swanprincess. I am not an expert on biomechanics but they both are right comparing to what I heard from very well informed professionals. The explanation on x-shaped legs was given to me for the first time over 70 years ago by an experienced ballet répétiteur, when I dared to question why N.D. doesn’t do fouettés. I was told that everyone's body is unique and some people have legs with a curved line towards back, sort of saber-shaped. It is caused by hyperextention in the knees. For some it is a dream but for some creates a problem since it distorts the axis, which affects the balance. As far as I remember it was said that N.D. had the gaps either between knees or heals when standing in 1st and 6th positions. This is how God created her. She was one of the most indefatigably working dancers that was admitted even by the very demanding Vaganova. In fact, she was Vaganova's second favourite pupil after the first, Marina Semyonova. Natalia Dudinskaya compensated for her small physical “defect” with many brilliant technical achievements, some of which she had no equal in. The video above that I linked is from the film made when Dudinskaya was 41 and Konstantin Sergeyev 43.
  19. Amelia
    This is not the first time that a discussion about fouette has arisen on this forum. It has already been mentioned that the two legendary and most technically equipped ballerinas - Dudinskaya and Plisetskaya - proved that performing 32 fouettés isn't integral to dancing Odile. It was Natalia Dudinskaya, who danced on the Leningrad stage for 33 years and had the crowning role of Odile. (In 1930s, Vaganova in her production gave roles of Odette and Odile to different ballerinas.) During her lifetime, Dudinskaya was considered the ideal embodiment of St. Petersburg school but she never was doing 32 fouettés. The reason was the structure of her legs. With X-shaped legs, it is more difficult to rotate, since the axis of rotation is not straight enough, but Dudinskaya did other rotations perfectly and preferred piqué manège, which, by the way, is no less difficult to do. She had phenomenal coordination. Today, when it seemed that dance technique had advanced, ballerinas do not risk dancing at this tempo. Such speed was easy for Dudinskaya because she was short in stature. You can see her piqué manège here in 4 m 35 s: Her student Ulyana Lopatkina recalls: “She instilled in me and all her students with her faith that there are no insurmountable difficulties and that the difficulties themselves are nothing compared to creativity.”
  20. Amelia
    It is open for subscription. New members from different countries join very often.
  21. Amelia
    From Natasha Osipova's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/460304281019738/
  22. Amelia
  23. Amelia
    The VI All-Russian Competition for Young Artists “Russian Ballet” ended on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, bringing together 26 participants from 15 choreographic institutions in the final round. In a long review, a ballet critic for the Kommersant newspaper wrote: “The main discovery of the VI Russian Ballet was a foreigner who was not on the competitors list. Taiga Kodama Pomfret, who accompanied Maria Popova from the College of Art, flew through the sky in Pas d'esclave from Le Corsaire, spinning three saut de basque without any effort. During two of those (with his legs drawn up) he froze in the air, as if lost in thought; on the contrary, he spun around, recklessly and jauntily, but with impeccable purity. This fabulous, temperamental Briton with a Soviet predilection for stunt feats studied the classics in Birmingham from the age of ten, then studied for a year at the Vaganova Academy, after graduating in 2022 he ended up at the Stanislavsky Music Theater and settled in the corps de ballet, unknown to anyone. He is, of course, small in stature, however, for example, Ivan Vasiliev, the idol of the last decade, is no taller than Taiga, and is much more clumsy, which did not prevent him from becoming the Principal of the Bolshoi and Mikhailovsky. It seems that the Briton with an exotic name, who won second place at the International Competition in Moscow in the same 2022, does not have an outstanding career here. So competition is competition, physical abilities are physical abilities, training is training, but luck and the circumstances of the moment in ballet determine everything. And not only in ballet." I wish this boy a lot of luck!
  24. Amelia
    You can add to this visas too...
  25. Amelia
    Kutuzov's Gopak as we saw it last Sunday:
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