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I have several of his annual ballet photo-chronicle editions from around 1950 to the early 1960-ies.

60? Can you explain your figure? 2 to 3 weeks rehearsal for a typical one-act plotless ballet is fine in most cases.

I wish more people posting here followed suit, sharing their enjoyment of ballet rather than feeding negativity, especially about the dancers they can't stand (which usually has little to do with how good they are).

I am afraid quite a number of people will be put off, and not just by a review that is, by the way, in every way reasonable and written in a professional manner, but also by your responses to it here, which are not. "Possibly due to pressure from all the fuss" ? Nonsense. He did what he intended to do. Sorry for being forced to tell you, Amy, things that are basic but this is not an acceptable form of address among polite people, certainly not in academia. The reviewer has an OBLIGATION to state up front clearly her relation to the work she is reviewing. You failed to do that.

I would like to thank Geoff W for his very helpful review. I was rather surprised that the author of the first review failed to mention that she was, actually, an editor of the work she was reviewing.

Amelia, this is one of the questions I wish (cowardly) newsmen and critics were asking Mister Gergiev when he comes, for example, to London. And why, for many years, he has been treating Mariinsky Ballet the way the Evil Stepmother treats Cinderella.

"Lev Ivanov" — "a major nineteenth century choreographer"? I think he would be surprised to hear this himself (and Marius Petipa would probably be furious). Wiley's monograph on Ivanov is, by the way, available online for free, if you are affiliated with an academic institution with a sufficiently well endowed library.

Clarendon Press, isn't it? And a hardback. I adore such scholarly editions. Thank you for your work!

This "particular director" is a friend of Mister Putin (I am not divulging any secrets, by the way).

Prestigious Clarendon Press, scholarly monographs destined mostly for purchase by state and private college libraries, yes. Popular inexpensively printed books for wide circulation, not necessarily. The book may be targeted at a wide audience of average ballet goers, to be purchased along with your Swan Lake or the Sleeping Beauty programs.

A catalogue of this year's exhibition at the Bakhrushin's Museum in Moscow, of archival materials in Russian state archives, is an ample source of "never before seen original material from Petipa's 63 years in Russia." I could easily write a "biography" of Marius Petipa based on a few authoritative sources from the past and the material made public by the exhibition. To quote FLOSS, this "first ever biography" "looks suspiciously like the product of someone trying to cash in on the Petipa bicentenary."

No authoritative biography of Marius Petipa exists because Marius Ivanovich, as I indicated in my posting, made every effort to confound his eventual biographers even before he died, by inventing, obfuscating, and hiding, numerous facts from his own biography. This affects especially circumstances of his early life and career before his travel to Russia in 1847. His, so called, Memoirs, were composed by him primarily as a pamphlet in which he voiced his grievances against everybody he disliked while representing himself in the most favourable light. As a result, numerous published and online "biographies" , including Wikipedia, are replete with confabulations and disinformation that is then perpetuated, as is in the nature of internet, infinitely. Regarding your second question: today, I am afraid, Professor Wiley wouldn't be able to conduct his studies in view of Mr Gergiev barring scholars from using resources of the Music Library in St Petersburg. This badly affects scholarly work on the ballets produced by Marius Petipa for the Imperial Theatres.

Thank you, Sebastian (I am at a loss why, when I press that little 'heart' icon under your posting, nothing happens...). The book's description starts, ominously, with the words 2018 is the year of the 200th birthday of Marius Petipa, the father of classical ballet. While the first part is true, which, by the way, remained unknown for a very long time, thanks to Marius Petipa's habit to hide, obfuscate, and invent, various essential facts from his own biography, the second part is demonstrably false: Marius Petipa had many children yet he certainly cannot be called "the father of classical ballet". This doesn't augur well for the possible value this book may offer to a serious student of ballet history.

Can anybody shed some light on who is Peter Koppers, and what the word "Conversations with" in the title mean?

Before the "Swan Lake" series of the St-Petersburg ballet is over, I would like to offer a few comments. Irina Kolesnikova is a dancer from another planet, or another era. There is absolutely nobody like her anywhere. Her dancing and acting is so replete with feeling, with meaning, with drama. She easily overwhelmed Dennis Rodkin in their final performance. She also seems to overwhelm the critics, who seem not to get it at all who do they see. The Black Pas de deux in the palace, today nearly always a vehicle for empty displays of tours de force by leading dancers, with Kolesnikova becomes a game of entrapment and submission of Prince. Everything Kolesnikova's Odile does serves exactly this purpose. Two days ago Kimin Kim debuted as her Prince Siegfried. This was possibly the most convincing duet of the whole series. Kim's variation and coda, with jumps, tours, pirouettes and jettés en tournant that defy description made that performance for me unforgettable. Last evening Kim was partnered again by Yulia Stepanova, whose delicate, untainted beauty reminds me of damsels of Burne-Jones, or Pre-Raphaelite angels. The landscape of medieval tales of chivalry seems to be the only place where her Odette belongs. She danced very well, at times exceedingly well, particularly Odette's entry, the action scene with the Prince, Odette's variation and coda, the third act was very dramatic. Her Odile was executed with easy precision and it was thrilling to see the musical accents perfectly observed, a contrast with Irina Kolesnikova whose body seems to be guided more by her internal flow than by the actual punctuation of notes in the score. Compared to Kolesnikova's, with her dense web of ensnarement, Stepanova's Odile felt more like the alter ego of those Pre-Raphaelite maidens, a siren, La Belle Dame sans Merci of Keats and Waterhouse. With Kim displaying consistently excellent form this was yet another memorable evening. I find the decorations, which are designed, by the way, by an accomplished scenographer, quite satisfactory, and the medieval setting to be far more preferable to the 'historical' transposition of Scarlett's production. I find weaknesses in the first palace scene, and in the character dances. The white scenes are generally fine, when one's eyesight is not exposed to some of the less shapely legs of the corps de ballet. I hope that my comments help undecided to go and see the artists I mentioned in the last three performances of the series. What if we may not see Irina Kolesnikova again?

Given the fact that the performances meet with wide spread enthusiastic response from the audience, I decided to examine your supposition that the author must have "got paid" in order to write what he did. I looked at his other reviews and found him consistent in terms of the number of stars he gives to the shows he considers worth seeing. Neither him, nor the author of the other review, are professional ballet critics. The other author wasn't moved by what he saw, this was his main criticism, the flaw he considered fatal. I don't know what he is normally moved by, maybe by "Avenger 4" or "Star Wars 9" (just an example of what kind of "Art" he is also reviewing for Express). He on the other hand seems to have been satisfied with the quality of dancing, especially by the principals. The fact that he considers Irina Kolesnikova the company's "greatest weakness" baffles me and suggests that there was a misunderstanding on his part regarding what kind of show he had attended. Reviews written not by professional ballet critics, what value do they offer? To the informed public, I am afraid, none. To the general public, they may indicate whether something is really worth seeing or not. The first author gave an enthusiastic endorsement, the other one — thumbs down. Which one serves the general public better? I believe that an artist like Irina Kolesnikova, partnered by some of the best male dancers on earth, dancing Swan Lake, is really worth seeing. Judging from enthusiastic responses on instagram, and standing ovations, quite a number of people is moved by what they see.

Anna summed up very well my own impressions on every aspect of the performace. The production is fine and enjoyable, one needs to be reminded that scaled down versions of the classics used to be a staple of all the touring companies, including the legendary ones, and the St. Petersburg Ballet is a touring company. Irina Kolesnikova is the reason I am drawn to its performances, she is a ballet artist of a rare kind (for this reason I am prepared to make concessions re. the quality of the corps). This time she is being partnered by the principals of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky: Denis Rodkin whose particular strength is his partnering skills, by the darling of the Mariinsky audience, the "flying Kim", and also by Alexander Volchkov. The added value for me this year is the fact that Irina invited a fellow Vaganova graduate, Yulia Stepanova, whose Odette and Odile I find to be most compelling.

Having read the article I am not sure what to make of it. Does it really reflect what Osipova in fact said, what she truly believes, or it reflects her frustration with the media people writing about dance?

I don't deduce the state of ballet "in the West" or in Germany from a gala. I am first hand familiar with it, and my opinion is that ballet in the West and in Germany is rapidly dying.

Yes, Angela, I appreciate your timely suggestion, I stopped posting, I am so depressed by the ongoing process that is literally killing ballet in the West. At a recent gala "Stars of the 21st Century," where the top dancers from some of the best ballet companies were represented, all the West had to offer were contemporary pieces performed by athletic dancers.

My view of the Benois de la danse award is precisely that: "an exchange of favours between directors". If the nominees and winners are indeed outstanding, consider it pure luck. For this reason I consider Benois de la danse to be a pretext to have a show of grossly varying quality.

A leading ballet critic after the first day of Benois de la danse: "Modern choreography is no more saw it once, and enough, it became saw it, and regretted you did, saw it, and you wish it is erased from your memory."

"The less said about David Dawson's The Human Seasons, the better. In fact, I'd recommend missing it entirely. Everything that is vapid and dreadful about contemporary ballet is present" When the Dawson debacle happened a year ago, I couldn't imagine how faithfully these words would reflect my own feelings after seeing Dawson's new work in San Francisco. It possessed all the qualities of "choreography" created for your average pop or rock "charity" concert, the difference being the exorbitant admission price. Out of 9 works I saw so far during the "Unbound" event, this has to be a strong contender for the distinction of being absolutely the worst.

I agree with the first sentence. Considering the second, I guess it is a quote, and not a particularly thoughtful one. Based on my extensive contacts with my Russian colleagues, and the information I hear from them, I can say that the majority of Russian population has been blaming the U.S. for the collapse of the Soviet Union and, as a result, the hostility levels across the population in Russia towards the U.S. have been running very high for many years. Worrying about this minor incident creating "resentment" in Russia is the last thing to worry.

.............. or the company she will be joining isn't in habit of making public announcements of this kind.