Estreiiita

I was lucky to be last Friday at ROH to see my first " Mayerling" (I saw this ballet before but on DVD), and I was so glad to see Vadim Muntagirov as prince Rudolf and all his beautiful female colleagues - Yasmine Naghdi as Mary Vetsera was superb, of course, and Fumi Kaneko also impressed me with her interpretation of countess Marie Larisch, and Itziar Mendizabal was very convincing in her role as empress Elisabeth, and Isabella Gasparini showed very sensitive princess Stephanie, and Claire Calvert was brilliant as Mitzi Gaspar. I also liked David Yudes as Bratfisch, Bennet Gartside as Colonel "Bay" Middleton and Thomas Whitehead as emperor Franz Joseph. From the first moment, when the cemetery scene was revealed and until the last cemetery scene I had an impression that I witness the real story, all dancers were acting so well, it was almost like hearing their dialogues and conversations! And of course Vadim and Yasmine were the main reason of my mood. How lucky the ROH is to have such a brilliant constellation of artists! I came out of the Royal Opera House wishing to come back - for Mayerling or for another performance.

Quite soon it'll be possible to watch the Royal Danish ballet: https://facebook.com/events/s/world-ballet-day-the-royal-dan/1283990019023404/

Sorry for reporting somewhat late, but still I think it's appropriate to share my impressions from seeing " Giselle" on the 18th of September in Berlin - I was both at the day and evening performances. The main roles at the day performance were danced by Ksenia Ovsyanick and David Soares (it was his debut). I liked them both. Ksenia Ovsyanick was impeccable both in her dancing and interpretation of the character. Albrecht of David Soares looked very young and noble and made a very good impression - there were a lot of cheering and applauses for both dancers in the end. Myrtha was danced by Vera Segova, a beautiful dancer with wonderful lines. It was also her debut and a couple of times she seemed to be a bit careful and unsure, but still quite good dancing. Alexei Orlenco was Hillarion and for me he looked a bit too beautiful and fine for this role. The peasant pas de deux were danced perfectly well by Yuria Isaka and Dominic Whitbrook. The evening performance happened to be even better as it was practically a perfect set of dancers: Giselle - Iana Salenko, Albrecht - Dinu Tamazlacaru, Myrtha - Elisa Carrillo Cabrera, Hillarion- Erik Swolkin ( his physical appearance was more suitable for this role in my opinion than the dancer's from the day performance, gave an impression of the real peasant). The peasant pas de deux was danced by Aya Okumura and Murilo de Oliveira. Moyna in both performances was Alizee Sicre and Zulma - Luciana Voltolini. The corps de ballet danced beautifully. While I was watching the evening performance I couldn't but keep thinking that it could be put in a " Giselle" textbook as an example of how should you dance. But well, luckily we have no such textbooks and every dancer has right to suggest his own interpretation and accents. To my mind Berlin has a very strong ballet now and I'm looking forward to see both " Sleeping beauty" and " Swan lake" there in the beginning of January.

https://www.opernhaus.ch/en/auditions/

Wonderful news! I plan a trip to Berlin on the 18th of September to see both the day and evening performances of " Giselle", I hope to see Lizi Avsajanishvili there amongst other dancers and maybe Evelina Godunova as well; I also adore Yana Salenko and Polina Semionova but I believe they are engaged somewhere else (probably some Gala). Oh, just checked the website - they have already put the cast : Ksenija Ovsyanik and Yana Salenko will dance Giselle, so I'm really looking forward to it!

In Denmark we have a ballet " Blixen" created by the principal of RDB Gregory Dean about the life of Karen Blixen (well known if not because of her books, then at least because of "Out of Africa" film). By the way, there'll be several performances of this ballet in the autumn and the approximate cast can be seen on Det Kongelige teater web page. I hope I'll get Astrid Elbo as Karen Blixen, she should be amazing in this role! Also, some of us surely watched "Sibelius" of the Finnish ballet, about the famous composer from Finland. Alexei Ratmansky's " The flames of Paris" is also based on the real events. " Come fly away" of Twyla Tarp is based on the life and songs of Frank Sinatra.

It's not actually a promotion, but I have seen a message that Olesya Novikova, Mariinsky's prima, recently gave birth to the son. If I remember correctly, it's her 4th child; she surely is the only acting prima with four children!👏💐 Also, speaking about primas, I was touched by the recent Instagram post of Alena Kovaleva, I think, the youngest Bolshoi prima; she put her photo (a very beautiful one) and dared to write :" Photo from the photoshoot which took place in London even before the Pandemic began and so before the nightmare that's started next. Hard to believe that it was the same life, that it was our reality. So simple it was. Hope, we will return to that reality soon. With all my soul praying and (as on the photo) reaching for the brighter future, where the World is living in peace and is open for everyone again."

I have recently been to the 47th Ballet days in Hamburg and to my mind the Hamburg ballet is in a great shape; it was a pleasure to watch " The winter's tale" with Felix Paquet (Leontes), Ida Praetorius (Hermione), Silvia Azzoni (Paulina), and many others; " The Glass Menagerie" with Alina Cojocaru, accompanied by Edvin Revazov (Tennessee), Felix Paquet (Tom), Patricia Friza (Amanda) and Christopher Evans (Jim) was superb; " Sylvia" with Madoka Sugai (Sylvia), Anna Laudere (Diana), Alexandr Trusch (Aminta), etc. has become a true revelation for me, beautiful dancing, stylish costumes for most of the participants, with a touch of decadence in a 2nd act and a lifelike ending; " The Sleeping beauty" with a prince from the present (Alessandro Frola) and a beautiful princess from the fairytale (Madoka Sugai), the mighty Thorn (Karen Azatyan) and tender Rose (Anna Laudere) was marvellous and at last " Hamlet 21" - this one I should watch again as I don't think I appreciated it as much as previous ballets - maybe because I was overwhelmed by impressions during the first days. But all actors showed a lot of skills both dancing and acting and Edvin Revazov (Hamlet) was quite convincing, Ophelia (Anna Laudere) very disturbed and Geruth (Yaiza Coll) torn between two brothers - Horvendel (Florian Pahl) and Fenge (Felix Paquet). I love Ida Praetorius very much and I think she 's a wonderful ballerina, actually I hoped to see her in more ballets, but maybe she is still adapting to the new team and way of dancing as in Copenhagen you can only rarely have several different ballets in a row; at least she was employed only in " The Winter's tale". The dancers I liked most were, first of all, Madoka Sugai, who also danced Perdita in " The Winter's tale", besides Sylvia and Aurora; then Alessandro Frola, a young dancer with a great future, I believe (he also was Endymion in " Sylvia"), Anna Laudere (Diana, the Rose, Ophelia) - but well, actually all dancers were great! I'm looking forward to the next season in Hamburg, especially to Nijinsky Gala as it will probably be the farewell of John Neumeier with the ballet. Though some of the works planned for the next Ballet days in Hamburg are under question as Neumeier wanted to bring the Bolshoi with " Anna Karenina" and the Royal Danish ballet with " Othello" , but now " Othello" is substituted with " A Midsummer night's dream" as some dancers in Copenhagen complained about the racist nuances in " Othello".

I do certainly hope that Valeria Kuznetsova will be invited either to Mariinsky or Bolshoi, as there is a very little chance that I'll see her in Perm (without mentioning that now it's an unexisting chance for me to see anything even in Moscow or StPete, but "dum spiro, spero"). I remember wth a great nostalgia my trip to Russia in 2019 when I managed to visit all three of Bolshoi, Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky theatres. As to Mariinsky theater, Victoria Tereshkina is an uncrowned queen there, she's absolutely perfect in everything! And I love beautiful Ekaterina Kondaurova. Some day I would love to see younger ballerinas from Mariinsky - Maria Iljushkina, Maria Bulanova, Maria Khoreva, Maria Koshkareva - it looks like Maria is a brand name for this generation!

I am going to see The Winter's tale performance next week (especially as I'm very fond of Ida Praetorius) along with 4 other ballets - many thanks to John Neumeier for giving this possibility to ballet lovers!

As I understood, the junior group of this competition consists of the dancers aged 14-17 and the senior one - of those aged 18-27. I do agree that Maria Iljushkina and Maria Koshkareva danced beautifully, but in case of senior duets (where Maria Iljushkina was competing) I preferred Elena Svinko's dance (she's from the National theatre of Siberia in Krasnoyarsk that was on tour in England last winter) and a great performance of Camilla Ismagilova, with their respective partners. Anastasia Smirnova (senior group, women solo) , in my opinion, should have won the 1st prize and golden medal, and I especially liked Valeria Kuznetsova from Perm Choreography school (she won the 2nd prize and a silver medal in junior duets). She danced Odette's adagio just as if she was telling the story of the princess doomed by the Evil to be a swan, and she's just 17! To my mind she should have been awarded the 1st place and golden medal, at least!

The Sitter in, if it has nothing to do with the dancers, wouldn't it be better if you show your anger at some other places, and not here? I myself am very much angry at the politicians - and not only russian - I don't think it was done enough to prevent this war, also from the ucranian, european and american side. The politicians in my country spend their days sitting in nice offices, chatting all day long and getting good salaries paid out of my taxes and as I see it, giving very little in return! I honestly believe we could expect more from them! For your knowledge, the travel and stay in Moscow for the participants were paid by the organizers of the competition, not by the participants. And, the last thing, I personally am very much glad that sitting in the middle of nowhere, I can still enjoy the high level ballet presentations and get some joy in these gloomy days! So I am very grateful for the possibility to watch transmissions of the competition. As to the moral and material issues, my country still pays huge sums to Russia for oil, so if the tiny bit of this payment went to the Moscow ballet competition, I'm glad. After all, why not just ignore this topic and not watch the competition if you don't agree with it?

Isn't it a pity that instead of speaking about the performances and at least some talented young ballet dancers we can watch at the competition, the discussion is about the colours of the costumes, attitude to the war and even the utility of the awards? I, for instance, admired the young corean dancer, Yeonjoo Jung (she danced Esmeralda variation and a modern piece) and Valeria Kuznetsova (Giselle pdd and a modern piece with her partner that doesn't compete) this morning, amongst others. Hopefully they both will make it to the 3d round. Besides, if we at all need to mention the war here (I personally prefer to use other sites to do that), in my opinion many modern pieces performed by russian dancers at the competition could have been influenced by the current situation, the names of the pieces say for themselves:" Thornbirds", " Locked", " Metronome" and some others I don't remember. Quite some of the modern pieces presented by the russians were rather gloomy and I like to think that it was their way to express their feelings.

The participants will dance both the classic and modern/contemporary variations at the 2nd round - so you're welcome to watch tomorrow! And yes, a wonderful possibility to be in touch with russian ballet!

The XIV Moscow International Competition (https://moscowballetcompetition.com/ ) started last friday and the first round both in junior and senior groups was held yesterday. It's possible to watch videos of the competition here: https://moscowballetcompetition.com/video/ . The jury consists of the leading ballet professionals and there are some promising participants, mainly from russian theatres, including Maria Iljushkina from Mariinsky, Anastasia Smirnova from Mikhailovsky theatre, Anna Fedosova from Krasnoyarsk State theatre and many other good dancers. The second round of the competition in the senior group will be shown on Tuesday and in junior group on Wednesday and it will be possible to watch it live.

I would like to add that it's possible to buy a ticket to watch a streaming performance (it says May 6-8, 12,50 euro), Maia Makhateli should dance the leading part.

I belive some cast changes are inevitable: Anna Tikhomirova, for instance, is scheduled to dance in " La Bayadere" of Bolshoi theater on the 13th of March, 2 pm; Ekaterina Krysanova is scheduled to dance Nikiya in Bolshoi theater on the 12th of March, evening, but well, she can of course take an early flight and manage to arrive to Gala in time.

It is said that she left the RDB just for one year to be a part of the Hamburg ballet during this period. Her boyfriend Ryan Tomash had recently become a soloist at RDB, so there could be some challenges for both of them. I tried to find some information about the first Ida's performance in Hamburg (I couldn't unfortunately go there myself) and it looks like there was a positive response to the new version of the " Sleeping beauty", for example, this :"Ida Praetorius from the Royal Ballet in Copenhagen starts as the new first soloist in January and took over the leading role in the new version in advance due to an illness. As a filigree Aurora, she made a glamorous debut. Alexandr Trusch, principal soloist with the Hamburg Ballet since 2014, embodies Prince Désiré powerfully elegant, agile and expressive. In addition to the three main roles, Christopher Evans was particularly convincing in the role of the snuggly steward Catalabutte. Again and again, the premiere, which was interspersed with many cabinet pieces, was accompanied by strong applause from the scene, which was by no means limited to the performances of the better-known dancers. The entire ensemble did its job excellently at a high level. Finally, so it can be said, is “Sleeping Beauty” after a sleepy 14 years in which it was not on the schedule of the State Opera stood, back on stage: fully bloomed and more beautiful than ever."

My deepest condolescences to his family, he will be remembered as a very talented choreographer; many danish spectators truly enjoyed his " Queen of Spades" created for the RDB and hoped to see his " Frankenstein" on the stage in Copenhagen the next season (unfortunately that plan was cancelled recently).

A film about Kizzi Matiakis will be streamed online on April, 25th: https://cphdox.dk/film/a-dancer-dies-twice/

It's possible to see " Alice in the Wonderland" performed by RDB here: https://www.dr.dk/drtv/program/alice-i-eventyrland-_-ballet-fra-det-kgl-teater_225477

I've seen the last "La Sylphide" with Wilma Giglio and Andreas Kaas and, though they both left a good impression, something seemed to be missing from the performance. Wilma Giglio seemed to me to be too tragical in her role, too cautious, not quite enjoying her life as sylph and Andreas Kaas is probably still on the way to complete recovery and retraining after his injury, some jumps looked a bit unsteady. Stephanie Chen Gundorf was Effy in this performance and was very touching but Nico Janssen as Gurn looked much too young and wasn't as impressive as Benjamin Buza in the same role. Madge ( Esther Lee Wilkinson) was superb. So, out of the three casts I saw, I prefer the one with Ida Praetorius and Jon Axel Fransson, the one we all can luckily watch as a film.

I'm actually on my way to Copenhagen to watch the last performance of "La Sylphide". I saw already two performances this November, one - with Ida Praetorius/ Jon Axel Fransson and another - with Caroline Baldwin/ Jonathan Chmelensky" . The one with Ida Praetorius/ Jon Axel Fransson ( and Kizzy Matiakis as Madge) was fabulous, Ida so ethereal, the true creature of the other world! Jon Axel was excellent as James, and Kizzy was superb as always! She will have a baby in some months ( it's quite visible by now) and I was wondering, would she be able to create the image of a true Evil? Yes, she could and did it admiringly well. Also, there was a nice Effy ( Stephanie Chen Gundorf), very impressive Gurn ( Benjamin Buza) and a beautiful first Sylph - Astrid Elbo.The second performance somehow didn't impress me; maybe because Caroline Baldwin looked a bit more "down to earth", too flourishing to me; and Jonathan Chmelensky looked too noble, almost Albrecht-kind. But they too danced very well. They had the same Gurn, who again was excellent but different Effy - this time it was Camilla Ruelykke Holst, and I liked her performance more, than Stephanie's. The first Sylph was Eleonora Morris, but personally I liked Astrid's performance more.All in all, a beautiful performance and tonight I expect to see the third cast of performers: Wilma Giglio and Andreas Kaas.

Right now there are again some tickets on sale - also for La Sylphide, including the farewell performance for Kizzy Matiakis on the 14th of November. I've been in the theatre a couple of times in September and everything seem to be well under control: they check the tickets outside, every second seat is blocked, the bars are closed ( bottled water provided free during the breaks). So I look forward to the next visits to the Royal Danish Theatre.

Quite an interesting story about the ballet dancer's moving from one company to another during corona times: https://blog.staatsoper.de/en/post/news/melissa-chapski-joins-the-bsb.html?tx_news_pi1[action]=detail&cHash=3975c2f42d806fbdc30fb44aab885cbb