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Sebastian

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Posts posted by Sebastian

  1. Some quotes re “that dress”:-

     

    >>In a review of Kshesinskaya in Swan Lake in 1901, it states: "The ballerina was very effective in the second act, in her elegant black dress, which went so well on her, and danced the famous pas d’action with aplomb and great artistic finish.”

     

    (From Novosti i birzhevaya gazeta (6 Apr. 1901), p. 3. via Wiley, Roland John, The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov)

     

    >>Maya Plisetskaya notes this: "The division into the “black” and “white” adagios came to the Bolshoi from the West. The foreign ballet troupes that began visiting at the end of the 1950s reinterpreted Odile, the daughter of the evil genius Rothbart, as the black swan. This division took root."


    (From I, Maya Plisekskaya by Maya Plisetskaya)

     

    >>Cyril W. Beaumont wrote: "Odile, we are told, is the daughter of Rothbart the magician, but since he makes her assume the likeness of Odette, the expression 'daughter' is more a convenient figure of speech for what is clearly a familiar spirit. That such was the authors' intention is corroborated by the fact that Skalkovsky, describing a performance of Swan Lake at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1899, records that immediately after Siegfried asked Odile - believing her to be Odette - for her hand in marriage, the great hall went dark and Odile changed into an owl."


    (From The Ballet Called Swan Lake by Cyril W. Beaumont)

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  2. More from the costume historian (via BalletAlert):-

     

    >>ART OF THE PRIMA BALLERINA recording says the following: "Today, we usually see Odile dressed in a black version of Odette's costume; but this is a recent innovation. The original Odile was dressed in a brightly colored, festive costume, and she won the prince by her beauty and charm, rather than by virtue of any magic spell. Diaghilev's production featured this brightly colored attire, and Markova wore a yellow tutu topped with gold brocade and trimmed with pearls when she first danced it with the Vic-Wells."
     

    >>In BALLET (magazine) vol. 3 no. 4, 1947, in a review of International Ballet's SWAN LAKE - CWBeaumont writes of Odile: "Miss Gollner wears a dark green tutu decorated with pale green sequins which gives her a sinister snake-like appearance." In vol. 5. no. 2 of the same magazine in the same year, the same author, in an articles about some observations on the role of Odile, notes: "...the present Odile wears black and gold, but i have seen skirts of other colors, such as orange, and mauve."

     

    >>My hunch is that the…photocard, identified in handwriting on the back as having been bought in moscow in 1930, shows a Soviet couple, no later than 1930, as Siegfreid and Odile. Whatever color her tutu, it's obviously not black.

     

     

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  3. 28 minutes ago, Roberta said:

    So... the question remains as to when Odile turned into a 'Black Swan'. 


    One answer, as above, is that her bodice may have looked black - in her midnight blue - from the outset, but with a multicoloured skirt (which was long not a sticking out tutu).  
     

    Cyril Beaumont, in the 1938 edition of Complete Book of.Ballets, refers to Rotbart “dressed to represent a black swan, and his daughter Odile”.

     

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  4. 36 minutes ago, Roberta said:

    Unless she's wearing blue, or gold, or whatever other colours early productions had her in!

     

    Odile wasn't in jet black in the 1895 production and I actually wonder (maybe @Sebastian has some inkling?) when she was first referred to as the 'Black Swan' and the (in)famous PDD became commonly known as the Black Swan PDD.


    @Roberta,  a quick check suggests midnight blue was selected for the original costume (the colour which in the right light appears "blacker than black"). The contemporary 1890s sketches - so says a distinguished costume historian from New York - show “a kind of aurora borealis tutu designed with multicolored rays that fan over the bodice from the waist and that shoot from the waist to the tutu's edge”. 
     

    British ballerinas apparently even wore red on occasion before the 1940s, which might be where Alastair Macaulay got that date from.   
     

    Perhaps also worth pointing out that the west didn’t see Swan Lake as we know it until Sergeyev’s 1934 production for the VicWells ballet, so we really need Russian reports, sketches and photographs for the first forty years. 
     

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  5. 2 hours ago, Amelia said:

     

    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.


    While we wait for hopefully definitive information from Russian historians, here are some interim notes. Wiley, who examined the papers in the 1980s, says there were plans developing before Tchaikovsky died. And Petipa, in his memoirs, writes of Tchaikovsky‘s „delight“ at the thought that Petipa would do Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky‘s death prompted a production of the Odile act as part of a memorial concert, extracted from what had already been set for the autumn 1894 season. 

     

    The costume for Odile is not necessarily a small matter. Contradicting a scholarly critic is best done on evidence so I just had a quick look through The Ballet Called Swan Lake. This book suggests nothing definitive either way but the first illustration of what could be a black costume is a photograph from 1921. As ever, more research is needed. 
     

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  6. Different Drummer is based on what was once very well-known source material, the play by Büchner. Over the years it became almost as ubiquitous a story as Faust or Romeo and Juliet. A useful list of just some of many versions is given on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woyzeck#Adaptations 

     

    Back in 1984 MacMillan may have assumed his audience was familiar with the stark outlines of this drama and so felt free to work variations on it. Some of the comments here - and overheard after the performance - suggest this is no longer the case. Seen in the correct context it is a shattering work, among the most successful of his later creations, as indeed I felt it to be yesterday. 

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  7. Having much enjoyed the rehearsal today I am sad to learn there are two performances I now can’t go to:

     

    — 7.30pm 27th March - Muntagirov, Osipova, Lamb, Hamilton cast - £16 each for end of row E Amphi - two tickets for sale

     

    — 7.30pm 13th April - Rovero, Osipova, Lamb, Lubach cast - £16 each for end of row C Amphi - two tickets for sale

     

    Will sell pairs or singles. If interested please PM as well as posting here. 

  8. 3 hours ago, Balletbloke said:

    Sorry Geoff, but you'll have to explain what "non-idiomatic emotionalism" is.

     

    The matter seems to be resolved but perhaps I can add a few grace notes. First @Balletbloke I suspect you might have got a quicker reply if you had formulated your enquiry more along the lines of "I have done a fair bit of reading about the classical tradition and Petipa in particular, but I am not sure exactly what you mean here, might you be so kind and explain at more length?" After all, the way you put the question could be read as suggesting the phrase used - which seems perfectly straightforward to me - is so obscure that the poster "has to" explain. Which might be taken as rude. 

     

    Breaking the phrase down, presumably you don't need an explanation of the "idiom" of Swan Lake (ie not the French style of romantic ballet but the later classicism as developed from the Italians and reaching a highpoint in the great works by Petipa, and in the case of Swan Lake, also Ivanov). So you already understand what "non-idiomatic" means, ie that which Petipa/Ivanov would not recognise. 

     

    "Emotionalism" is more interesting. There are those who argue that one consequence of years of dominance at the Royal Ballet of what was at the time "new" work from Kenneth MacMillan was to breed a new way of seeing ballet. It is said that both audiences and performers now have at the back of their minds that all ballet strives to the condition of a narrative MacMillan ballet. This is obvious nonsense but one can see how the idea might take hold, even subconsciously. 

     

    As a result we see, even in The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, RB corps members developing "back stories" for their "characters", miming little narratives to keep the "background action" going and trying to imbue people on stage with motives and emotions more along the lines of soap opera than classical ballet. "Emotionalism" would seem to be a striving for emotion where it is out of place. Aurora is not deeply conflicted about which of the four suitors she fancies most - her choice is a symbolic one, representing the four corners of the globe, ie everyone - indeed she is more involved with the rose and her family than with them.

     

    The sort of narrative "emotion" which arouses our empathy is a million miles from the abstract and symbolic court drama of what noble 19th century audiences were familiar with. This, as others have said, does not mean one is not moved, but our response is a higher order one than "ooh she's upset so I'm feeling along with her and feel upset as well". There is a library of literature about the classical tradition - idiom - and these ideas are far better developed there than by me, but perhaps this offers a few clues. 

     

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