Ivy Lin

Thanks for the kind words. Here's some more recent ballets I've written about in NYC: The Prodigal Son/La Sonnambula/Firebird bill: http://poisonivywalloftext.blogspot.com/2017/01/winter-season-diaries-nycbs-academy.html Ratmansky's Russian Seasons/Namouna: http://poisonivywalloftext.blogspot.com/2017/04/spring-diaries-beautiful-pies-babes-in.html

Hi everyone, I know this is a British-based blog but I thought it'd be fun to start a thread about performances in the U.S. I'm based in NY and NYCB is my home company. The Big Event everyone's been talking about is the new Ratmansky work for NYCB: Odessa. Here's my impressions: http://poisonivywalloftext.blogspot.com/2017/05/spring-gala-new-ratmansky-old-gala.html

I've read a number of books on that era. I read Tamara Karsavina's Theatre Street, where she has some very kind things to say about Mathilde K., and also a lot of fond memories of socializing with Mathilde. Also have read Margot Fonteyn's memoirs which again contain some fond memories of Mathilde. I've read Ballet's Magic Kingdom, a collection of reviews by Akim Volynsky which describes Mathilde's dancing in very awed terms -- while acknowledging that she had an imperfect looking body and "flat feet" he described her par terre technique as the best there was. I've also read biographies about Mathilde and her own memoirs. Mathilde K. was pregnant when Anna Pavlova was picked for La Bayadere. This delicate condition is the reason her memoirs gloss over the incident. And I don't see anything in her memoirs to warrant such a harsh and subjective opinion of her. She seems like a woman who was justifiably proud of her career and like most superstars has a healthy ego. She was also a survivor. During the Russian Revolution she packed her bags and left Russia with her son and husband Andre forever. She went from living in a mansion set up by the czar to a much reduced lifestyle in Paris. But people like Margot Fonteyn admired her courage, her strong will, and the fact that she never complained about her poverty. She obviously was of a very strong constitution and lived till she was 99, and whenever asked said "My life was beautiful." IDK, she sounds like the type of person I would have admired.

But the films in 1936 and 1968 also followed the murder/suicide pact. I think that was always the theory about what happened at the hunting lodge, given things Mary had said to her family and confidantes around the time. Also, Rudolf had wanted the suicide pact with another mistress.

The video clips don't belong to the site owner either. They were uploaded by another YT user named "artdecochicgirl" whose account was under threats to get terminated/suspended because of her uploading those clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epbkT7Lm-k8&t=1s Not saying the site isn't a useful resource of information. But it's a fan site and don't have the cooperation of either Ratmansky or Fullington.

The website also contains color commentary like this: and and Where are the sources for this information? It reads like Twilight fanfic.

No it isn't. The owner of the site is a ballet fan with her own YT channel "darkdancer07." https://www.youtube.com/user/LightSpirit06

"Dancing on Water" is absolutely one of the best ballet memoirs ever written. Tchernichova saw so much -- the Communist era of the USSR, the ABT under the Baryshnikov era, and her memories of some of the most famous names in ballet are priceless. Natalia Dudinskaya, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Alla Shelest, Natalia Makarova, etc. are all very vivid figures in her book. It's not just a ballet book, the memoir is also an unsentimental look at Cold War Russia. Really a great read. Also this book benefited from some tight editing. It's one of those books where you wonder which stories got edited out because it's such a compelling read.

I'm interested that there's so much fondness for the Nureyev version. I've seen it done by the POB and I have the RB video and find that Nureyev's usual obsession with giving more for the Prince to dance really ruined the work in a way that other works were not ruined as making Drosselmeyer/Prince the same figure gave a sort of creepy, Freudian sexual vibe to the ballet that is not in other versions.

Hi I am writer of one of the negative reviews on Amazon (American). I'm writing to say that I didn't give a negative review of Peter Wright's book because I don't respect his accomplishments (I do). I just felt that the book showed off the author in a very petty, unflattering light. For instance Peter Wright can't understand why Svetlana Beriosova cooled towards him but goes into such detail about an embarrassing incident in her career? He says Ashton waved at him in a "homosexual" way? It's not fun to read a memoir of someone who seems so ungenerous in his views towards other people. It's not the same as being candid -- I have no doubt that Sylvie Guillem or Rudolf Nureyev could be difficult. It's just Wright's constant negative, ungenerous opinion of others (and his inflated view of himself) that I found off-putting. I very much looked forward to his memoirs so I was very disappointed when it was little more than a gossipy diatribe.