DrewCo

Thanks very much for these reports on ABT's Sleeping Beauty in Paris. I enjoyed the production a lot when I saw it and I hope one day also to see Trenary's Aurora which I have not seen. I don't know if there was a mistake in the French cast lists, but did want to mention that it's "Hee Seo" not Sao or Soa.

I believe the rake in the ROH is better than in the Mariinsky. I would not sit in the stalls (orchestra) at the Mariinsky unless I was very, very tall indeed. Whereas I have done more or less okay at the Royal Opera House. In the first level boxes (the Benois level I believe it's called), there are three rows within the box, but the second row is not higher than the first, so those seats seem quite terrible. When I was in the front row of one of those boxes the people behind said they couldn't see anything and moved to the (then empty) third row of the box which was perched on an elevated step. I think this may be different on the different levels though. You can also find information about the theater/seating on Tripadvisor. I don't know the rules here about links, but google the three words Tripadvisor/Mariinsky/Seats and various discussion threads on Tripadvisor will come up... The banking in the new Mariinsky is altogether much better. Seats are more comfortable too. But it's not the same ballet-history thrill to be there -- nor anything like as simply magical a space. Still, when going to the ballet, there is something to be said for being able to see over the head of the people sitting in front of you! Fountain of Bakhchisarai is an orientalist Soviet fantasy; for my taste it's not the most sophisticated choreography in the world, but has its charms for sure. And there are two big, contrasting ballerina roles. I think you have to enter in to the spirit of it...but if you do, probably would enjoy it. Hope you have wonderful trip!

Just catching up with this thread. Since Stalin has been pictured enjoying this ballet, I thought it was worth making explicit (what people may just be thinking everyone knows) that...uh... Stalin would likely NOT have cared for the Ratmansky version of Flames of Paris which pretty substantially changes, re-orders, and adds to the original libretto in ways that rather undermine its celebration of revolution (sensational pas de deux notwithstanding). My understanding is that Messerer's staging for the Mikhailovsky tries to stay truer to the (partially lost) original. It is a rip-roaring celebration of revolution with, for example, a revolutionary (not an aristocrat) as the ballet's martyr. I've seen and enjoyed the Messerer in the theater, but the Ratmansky only on video so I can't compare their theatrical impact. But I'm not sure the more consistent 'propaganda' approach doesn't have a very compelling energy that's actually lost - or at least changed into something else - in Ratmansky's approach. But in any case Ratmansky's ballet is more commentary on the ballet and its history than straightforward attempt to revive it. The performances sound very enjoyable!

Very much appreciate reading about these performances. Thank to everyone posting. Kretova--not on this tour to London I think?--is also a skilled and charming Bolshoi Kitri. At least I found her so. (There are others, of course, but a number are on maternity leave as may already have been mentioned.) Vaziev has also indicated in interviews that he was the one who first cast Smirnova as Kitri and now thinks she 'was born' to dance the role. Interviews are not always altogether candid and, not being lucky enough to see any of these London performances, I have no opinion about the casting, but I tend to think it does reflect his choices... Of course, sometimes the young, unknown, non-principal dancer turns out to be the tour sensation!

This past year the Mariinsky toured the Sergeyev production to west and east coasts of the U.S. I saw it in D.C. and loved it, but it's for hard-core fans of nineteenth-century ballet-spectacle. (I had seen full length Raymondas before--Nureyev's, Holmes's, and Grigorovich's--but not live in the theater for some years...) If you enjoy Petipa and Petipa-derived classical pageantry--the whole shebang (mime, character dancing, vision scene, pas d'action, variation after variation after variation)--and, too, enjoy late nineteenth-century Medievalist fantasy, lushly pretty music, leisurely pacing -- if you enjoy all those things taken almost, I might say, to the edge of decadence...well, then seeing Raymonda is like dying and going to classical ballet heaven. As I say, I loved it. It's also a stupendous ballerina vehicle: as mentioned earlier in the discussion, the ballerina has one set piece after another, each one requiring different qualities--and each one, in a different way, a killer.

I think Fanny Elssler, too, has to be given a lot of the credit for turning Act I of Giselle into a dramatic tour de force--I'm thinking of the mad scene in particular which dance historians have credited to her 'version' of Giselle. A great dance actress who took over a lot of Nora Kaye's roles at ABT was Sallie Wilson. She would be on my list of great dance actresses that (uh...unlike Elssler) I actually got to see. Dance actress is a meaningful category to me, but I don't tend to oppose it to dance technicians. Actually, I'm always made a bit uneasy by the opposition of acting skills to technique. I suppose it depends what someone means by the word "technique." But when non-narrative choreography is substantive, the dancing usually calls for more than technique even if what it calls for isn't acting. For example--there are qualities of musicality, phrasing, line, power, lyricism etc. that the word "technique" alone doesn't usually imply.

Off the main point you are making which I am very sympathetic to...but in fairness to Nunez: by no means everyone who saw her in Song of the Earth in NY was "baffled" by the ballet -- speaking for myself I was seeing it for the first time, and plenty liked both the ballet and Nunez' performance (which for all I know was modified from her London performances which I remember were criticized by fans--'too smiley' etc. --I saw nothing like that). I went to all three performances of Song of the Earth in NY, and enjoyed the other leading ballerinas as well (Morera and Cuthbertson)--in my eyes, each bought something different to the table. But, from the social media I saw--and people sitting around me--I know I wasn't the only one who was moved opening night ... (Nunez didn't get dinged by the professional critics either.) If anything got somewhat better between the first and third performance in a fairly clear-cut way, it was the ensemble, which, to my eyes, sometimes looked sloppy at the first performance. The main point, I follow--I remember sitting at a performance of the Bolshoi two years ago and hearing a disappointed couple behind me remark that the ballerina "wasn't a principal." The ballerina they were talking about? Olga Smirnova. And if I could go back in time and see a historic Romeo and Juliet--Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable would be my first pick. Though I must admit I wouldn't exactly turn down a time-travel ticket for Fonteyn and Nureyev ...

I hate to laugh because I find it such a moving part of the ballet--but i suppose lack of observational skills is one way of explaining his confusion during Act III...

Those things do give me away! I live in the U.S. -- I have been fortunate enough to do a little ballet-going in London when work took me there and (a little more often) to see the Royal Ballet on tour.

I'm a balletomane who would attend almost every performance of my favorite companies if I could, living along with the life of those companies in all their vagaries, watching dancers develop their interpretations etc. But...back in reality I live far from major centers of classical ballet, and I often plan trips to see a cluster of performances in a particular city. Sort of a mini-festival approach. This has slightly altered my onetime "inside baseball" approach to casting and performances especially since I can't always choose exactly the dates I am able to attend. Sometimes I am interested in seeing a less-experienced dancer or a close-to-retirement one--that may even be the reason for attending a particular performance--but the performances I see are limited enough that I don't want to find myself constantly making allowances or saying to myself "oh well...I guess xyz was having an off night" or (something I sometimes hear of companies in New York) "well, it's the end of the season and the dancers must be exhausted" etc. (I'd like to say that money doesn't factor into my attitude, but I'm sure it does at least a bit...) I hope I'm not without compassion! I know perfectly well dancers are only human and I certainly expect careers to have trajectories. Also, companies have to take some risks with casting or younger dancers especially may never develop. But, in my experience, it can add to one's disappointments as a fan to see something that should not be but is well below par and know that that particular cluster of performances may be pretty much IT for quite a while.

I would love to see the revamped Cinderella, but I would be sorry to lose the variations for the four male seasons as well as some of their other choreography...Choreographers' second thoughts are not always better than their first, though in this case I would be happy to have the chance to compare. Peculiar costumes (or what seem to a lot of viewers peculiar) are rather a consistent Ratmansky trait and his Cinderella is more "fractured fairy tale" than conventional one -- which any designs should reflect. ("Fractured fairy tale" I owe to Rocky and Bullwinkle.)

She has danced it at least once before. (I say this based on what has been posted on youtube.) Thank you for the review. I have seen Ratmansky's Cinderella just once, w. Pavlenko and Sergeyev, and found it very enjoyable and choreographically compelling if uneven, though I think I share some of the reservations expressed by others about the designs--at least in the ballroom scene. Wish I could have seen this performance...

I just wanted to say that while I try not to let professional or amateur critics influence me--while also being willing to learn from them (I hope)--I have been impressed at the amount of press coverage dance events get in London as compared to what I tend to find for New York. Trying to find (professional, print) critical comment on the Mariinsky in London, I have found more than I was ever able to find on the Bolshoi in New York just a week or two earlier, especially concerning second and third casts. I don't know how long that situation will last, but I find it enviable. One obvious problem in NY is the minimal number of major daily newspapers altogether ...