assoluta

Regarding the sudden decision of Fateev to show Stepanova 'her place', maybe it has something to do with the fact that Skorik and Fateev were furious when they saw upon their arrival that the Hochhausers made Stepanova the 'face of Mariinsky'.

She is ordered to dance in the corps de ballet until the end of the tour. She replaces Zlata Yalinich. The replacement was totally unexpected both to Stepanova and Yalinich (who is not injured or ill).

The name of the man who did her disservice is Fateev. He fed the press with the notions that Stepanova was an inexperienced beginner. They bought it. Some were even wondering why Xander was given such an unworthy partner. Tonight Fateev placed Stepanova unannounced as one of the Swans. Happy?

Very similar thoughts to mine. When all the Swans go out, there are 32 of them.

Whatever slips they were tiny in comparison to their two previous «Swan Lakes».

To prevent that I may be misunderstood, I decided to be more specific: compared to their joint debut in March, Xander greatly improved his lifting skills, and compared to both the debut and the July repeat - he visibly improved in the supported pirouettes. On the two previous occasions, instead of adding to the spinning he was rather obstructing it.

Whatever slips they were tiny in comparison to their two previous «Swan Lakes» (one needs to remember that Xander was dancing with Yulia only the third time!). On their two previous occasions in Petersburg I saw Prince Siegfried visibly in love with Odette. Yesterday, however, he was too distracted by everything that has been going on around him in London to think about Odette. A pity, since on July 6 they formed a very tender couple, in spite of the supported pirouettes needing much further work (yesterday that element was clearly improved).

"Regarding his recent performances, Jann Parry's comments about partnering were interesting for me as I have always assumed that the male partner was at fault if the partnering was clumsy."

And you were right, Jann Parry wrong. I saw both of them many times by the way, how many times did Parry see both?

"It struck me how amazing it is that the Mariinsky can put on such a matinee and please the audience. If RB went to Japan and looked to put on a soloist and a first artist as the leads in Swan Lake I thing there would be an awful lot of very unhappy fans. It says a lot of the Mariinsky's strength in depth that they can do this."

No Bruce, it only says a lot about how utterly abnormal has been the personnel policies during Mariinsky's Acting Director reign. Most promising young dancers imprisoned forever in the corps de ballet, very rare debuts in principal parts made as difficult as possible, and so on.

What you, Assoluta, wrote about the different treatment of Vaganova's and other schools’ graduates is worrying. It is regrettable that Mariinsky didn’t use its seigniorage to enroll such talents as Olga Smirnova, Xenia Zhiganshina, Krystyna Shapran (although the latter finally arrived there after two disappointing for her experiences in other theatres). I always feel sorry when talents are wasted.

It is very worrying indeed. Fateev just signed up Bondareva as a leading solist (a graduate of Dnepropetrovsk). When she won the gold medal a year ago at the Moscow Ballet Competition a Moscow ballet observer remarked: "gymnastics won, ballet lost". I am not picky and I have room for various "schools" of classical dance, but thinking that Fateev prefers Bondareva who is lacking in anything that can be termed "finesse" over any of the Vaganova graduates, including Zhiganshina, seems to be sheer perversion.

Thank you. That was very nice of you. I am late to this topic but in response to the discussion that was taking place here some time ago, I would like to say that in the case of Mariinsky the most important reason to see their performances, and especially so their «Swan Lakes», is the Mariinsky corps de ballet. One has to see it in order to appreciate what I am saying.

One thing that certainly is not in "decline" at Mariinsky is the quality of the corps de ballet. I doubt it was ever better. The current Acting Director as a matter of policy makes sure than no Vaganova graduate is ever promoted in his company to a soloist level (there is only a single exception, Batoeva, promoted to Second Soloist, but in reality even she is not an exception, becuase she is given only inferior parts). During 6 years that he has been the perennial "Acting" Director of the troupe, he has been relentlessly enforcing this policy by having for all the Vaganova graduates only one place to be in: corps de ballet. Soloist positions are reserved exclusively for his favorites who always come from other schools (Perm, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk). During those 6 years he did not contribute to developing talents even of a single Vaganova Academy graduate. The most talented among those who graduated within last 7-8 years is probably Stepanova, and she is still a member of the corps de ballet. I can't think of any company in the world that would have so much talent and so many highly trained dancers buried in their corps de ballet as Mariinsky has had under Yuri Fateev. So, I will be happy seeing whoever is a soloist as long as I will be able to admire those 32 insanely trained swans.

Why did they change their name?

The Mariinsky Тheatrе was founded in 1783 and only 1935 it was named after one of the bolshevik leaders whose revolutionary pseudonym was Kirov. In 1992, as soon as the Soviet Union ceased to exist, they reverted to the original name.