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

5 hours ago, Amy said:

Hello Ivy, if you wish to find backup for this information, I advise you to read Petipa's diaries and Kschessinska's memoirs Dancing in Petersburg. Obviously, she doesn't say any of the negative things I have said on this page, but her memoirs really give an insight into how full of herself she was as a person, though there are times when you do feel sorry for her. There are a couple of times where she actually lies about certain things - for example, she claims that she was the one to notice Anna Pavlova's potential and that she had to repeatedly beg Petipa to let Pavlova dance Nikiya because Petipa repeatedly refused to let the young dancer dance the role. That, however, is a lie because it was Petipa who noticed Pavlova's potential and it was Kschessinska who didn't want her dancing Nikiya - in reality, Kschessinska returned from holiday and was not happy to find that "her role" was being given to a younger dancer.

 

Also, if you ever manage to read Olga Preobrazhenskaya's biography, as one of my team has, it's not difficult to notice who was the better person.

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. 

7 hours ago, David said:

Talking about historical inaccuracies, I don’t think the amazing Freeman/MacMillan reconstruction has been properly recognized - sifting through all the varying, often conflicting accounts, memoires, biographies, police and medical records available to them at the time, rejecting speculation regarding political assassination, botched abortion and the like and settling on the narrative outlined in the Ballet. They didn’t have the benefit of the forensic examination of Mary’s remains in 1992/3 or Mary’s farewell letters discovered only 2 years ago but as far as I can see all the subsequent evidence has supported the MacMillan/Freeman narrative. It was a remarkable piece of research!

 

Incidentally, when I get the RB programme tomorrow I will be interested to see if it has been up-dated to take account of the public release of Mary’s letters since the last time it was performed by the Company.

 

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

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...if not the last time then at least for a long time. Without going into specifics because I'm certainly not losing sleep over it, just telling it straight, I've gotten flack for posting certain videos (Ratmansky productions/ ABT). The flack I had gotten wasn't done in a direct manner but in a roundabout manner. Whatever.

If and when this channel gets shut down as the complaints threaten to have yt do, I won't in all likelihood make another channel and upload videos. There are more important things in life than deal with threats about terminating yt channel over ballet videos, of all things. 

My original intent of starting this channel was to have a platform for dance discussion where the focus isn't ballet claque wars where one's favorites get pitted against another's favorites. Instead, it was to have interesting, at times educational yet opinionated discussions about ballet and whatever related topics that get thrown into the mix. Hope you guys have enjoyed some part of it. In case this channel is not terminated, it will nevertheless be on hibernation for an indeterminate amount of time as far as uploading videos is concerned. 

Please do not post disrespectful comments bashing me or the people who made the complaints, this isn't why I shared the reasons for why I won't be posting more videos or for the likely termination of channel. Thank you.

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:

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Through these relationships, Mme. Kschessinskaya obtained strong links to the Imperial Russian Court, which she would use as a means to get what she wanted. Despite her great talent, she owed much of the success in her career to the Imperial Court, including her rise to the rank of Prima Ballerina Assoluta, a rank that she did not rightfully earn. Petipa gave this rank to Pierina Legnani, whom he considered to be the superior ballerina, which only made Mme. Kschessinskaya all the more jealous and resentful of her Italian colleague, as she would settle for nothing less than to be the pinnacle of the Imperial Ballet. When Petipa did not give her the rank, Mme. Kschessinskaya appealed to the Imperial Russian Court to obtain it and her appeal was successful. In 1896, she officially became the second ballerina to become Prima Ballerina Assoluta, which did not sit well with Petipa, as he had not been consulted on the matter.

and

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Mme. Kschessinskaya’s connections to the Imperial Court did a lot of good for her career, but it cost her many friends at the Imperial Theatre. Her proud, vain and spiteful nature made her unpopular among her colleagues and even Petipa, himself, thoroughly despised her; in several of his diary entries, he calls her “rotten”, “spiteful” and “a nasty swine” and even goes on to say that a local critic should have beaten her rather than compliment her. While Mme. Kschessinskaya could be kind and charming to some, to others, especially her rivals, she was utterly ruthless and even refused to share her roles with rivals who were just as deserving of them as she was.

and

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On the 4th February 1929, due to financial difficulties as a result of gambling, Mme. Kschessinskaya and her husband sold their villa in Cap d’Ail and moved to Paris, where she opened a new ballet school. Among her students were Tatiana Ryabouchinskaya, Dame Alicia Markova, Dame Margot Fonteyn, André Eglevsky, Tamara Toumanova and Maurice Béjart. However, unlike her former Imperial Ballet colleagues, Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Nikolai Legat, Mme. Kschessinskaya did not earn a good reputation as a teacher, nor did she leave behind a great pedagogue. This was primarily because she would often invite her friends to watch her classes and would spend more time chatting to them than focusing on her students.

Where are the sources for this information? It reads like Twilight fanfic.

2 hours ago, nickwellings said:

Is this a Dr D Fullington offering? If so, essential reading. The Works and Process videos consistently illuminating, Fullington's commentaries therein concise and helpful.

 

Lovely resource.

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

As a very happy recipient of an Amazon gift voucher and after a certain amount of deliberation (!) I've just ordered 'Dancing on Water' by Elena Tchernichova. There are so many books available that I would love to buy and I was particularly torn between this one and Sir Peter Wrights autobiography...

 

The book should arrive by the 6th of Feb ! I'll let anyone who is interested know my opinion !

"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.