THE MARIUS PETIPA SOCIETY

[assoluta]

5 hours ago, FLOSS said:

 

 

I know it is only early September but does not anyone think it strange that there appears to be no hint and certainly no official indication that a serious biography of Petipa, comparable to the work which Ivor Guest wrote about Perrot,  is in the offing ? I find it hard to believe that no one is writing one but then as Wiley's book about Ivanov is the only study of his work in any language perhaps it is not that surprising after all.

 

I can't help wondering why no one has written one in the century since Petipa's death and what the problems are? Are there problems over access to archive materials because Wiley does not seem to faced any when researching Ivanov or is the problem one connected with preserving the reputation of major Russian dance institutions  as conservators of Petipa's ballets and his choreography ? Even if Western dance scholars might have experienced problems over access in the past and might do so now  there does not seem to be a biography and evaluation of his work in Russian either.

 

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.

[Amelia]

2 hours ago, assoluta said:

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.

 

Yes, I heard about this too. I wonder if a similar sort of prohibition exists anywhere in the world today where the Director can forbid the use of the state-owned archives and Music Library by researches, specialists and scholars? What kind of law allows this particular director to act like this?

Edited September 2, 2018 by Amelia
added a few words

[Lynette H]

Oxford University Press has this information on its web site about a forthcoming biography of Petipa by Dr. Nadine Meisner.  Note that the estimated publication date is in 2019. 

 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marius-petipa-9780190659295?cc=gb&lang=en&#

 

The overview describes this as

• "First biography in English of the creative genius behind Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.
• Richly illustrated with archival photographs.
• Uses never before seen original material from Petipa's 63 years in Russia."

 

There is a chapter listing and a few other further details. 

 

[Fiz]

For O.U.P, that’s not a bad price at all!

[toursenlair]

3 hours ago, Fiz said:

For O.U.P, that’s not a bad price at all!

that's an amazingly good price for a book for a niche market!

It's not exactly going to have a print run like Fifty Shades of Grey, is it?

[assoluta]

4 hours ago, Lynette H said:

Oxford University Press has this information on its web site about a forthcoming biography of Petipa by Dr. Nadine Meisner.  Note that the estimated publication date is in 2019. 

 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marius-petipa-9780190659295?cc=gb&lang=en&#

 

The overview describes this as

• Uses never before seen original material from Petipa's 63 years in Russia."

 

 

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."

Edited September 2, 2018 by assoluta
a typo

[Fiz]

10 minutes ago, toursenlair said:

that's an amazingly good price for a book for a niche market!

It's not exactly going to have a print run like Fifty Shades of Grey, is it?

That is what I mean. O.U.P is usually fiendishly expensive.

[assoluta]

2 minutes ago, Fiz said:

That is what I mean. O.U.P is usually fiendishly expensive.

 

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.

[assoluta]

5 hours ago, Amelia said:

 

Yes, I heard about this too. I wonder if a similar sort of prohibition exists anywhere in the world today where the Director can forbid the use of the state-owned archives and Music Library by researches, specialists and scholars? What kind of law allows this particular director to act like this?

 

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

[Fiz]

15 minutes ago, assoluta said:

 

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.

They published my edition of Katherine Mansfield’s Letters and Journals in the 1990s. The cheapest of the five books was £35. The last volume cost me £55. They are now out of print and cost a great deal more secondhand.

[assoluta]

3 minutes ago, Fiz said:

They published my edition of Katherine Mansfield’s Letters and Journals in the 1990s. The cheapest of the five books was £35. The last volume cost me £55. They are now out of print and cost a great deal more secondhand.

 

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

[Fiz]

Oh no, it wasn’t my book! In my dreams! I merely bought them! 

[Jane S]

58 minutes ago, assoluta said:

 

PrestigiCAMBRIDGEndon Press, scholarly monograph)s 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.

 

I doubt it - the book has 514 pages and is based on her doctrinal thesis (University of Cambridge)

[FLOSS]

While I agree that a book about Petipa is unlikely to be a runaway best seller the fact that OUP is proposing to sell it for under £23.00 suggests that the company is convinced that the book will sell reasonably well and will continue to sell for years to come as the price is closer to that for a new copy of the publisher's  "Complete Works of Shakespeare" than for an academic work on a genuinely obscure subject with a truly limited potential readership. I say this because £22.99 is very cheap for a hardback academic book. If you want to buy the Wiley book "The Life of Lev Ivanov and his Ballets" new from the publisher it will cost you $250.00 which currently converts to £213.03. If you want to own a new  copy of Nigel Saul's " Death, Art and Memory in Medieval England" , which you may think an even more obscure topic than a book about a major nineteenth century choreographer like Ivanov, you will have to pay $155.00 or £119.95.

 

Only time will tell whether the Clarendon Press has got its pricing right. One thing I would recomend is that if you want a copy you buy it as soon as it becomes available as the Lev Ivanov book cost about £60.00 when it was first published and now costs nearly four times as much as its original published price.

Edited September 2, 2018 by FLOSS

[assoluta]

12 minutes ago, FLOSS said:

While I agree that a book about Petipa is unlikely to be a runaway best seller the fact that OUP is proposing to sell it for under £23.00 suggests that the company is convinced that the book will sell reasonably well and will continue to sell for years to come as the price is closer to that for a new copy of the publisher's  "Complete Works of Shakespeare" than for an academic work on a genuinely obscure subject with a truly limited potential readership. I say this because £22.99 is very cheap for a hardback academic book. If you want to buy the Wiley book "The Life of Lev Ivanov and his Ballets" new from the publisher it will cost you $250.00 which currently converts to £213.03. If you want to own a new  copy of Nigel Saul's " Death, Art and Memory in Medieval England" , which you may think an even more obscure topic than a book about a major nineteenth century choreographer like Ivanov, you will have to pay $155.00 or £119.95.

 

Only time will tell whether the Clarendon Press has got its pricing right. One thing I would recomend is that if you want a copy you buy it as soon as it becomes available as the Lev Ivanov book cost about £60.00 when it was first published and now costs nearly four times as much as its original published price.

 

"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.

[Amelia]

3 hours ago, assoluta said:

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

 

It is not a secret at all. That is why I asked which LAW allows the Director to make the state-owned archives inaccessible? What a shame.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Amelia
a typo

[assoluta]

47 minutes ago, Amelia said:

 

It is not a secret at all. That is why I asked which LAW allows the Director to make the state-owned archives inaccessible? What a shame.

 

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.

[Amelia]

It is quite intriguing that in the Amazon’s "Top customer reviews” the 5 stars given by the first reader/customer 10 days ago was followed today by a slashing review where one star is awarded reluctantly. Looks as a controversial book.

[AYSHEL]

I have posted the following review on Amazon regarding the Peter Koppers book which is for sale on Amazon.

 

It is not made clear in the description on the website that this book is ultimately a work of fiction with three 'conversations' ascribed to the subjects but as if they were alive in 2018 with all the information - much of which took place after their deaths. It is not three genuine conversations with the artists concerned taken from journals of their time. Much of it is pure supposition and fiction. The illustrations are mostly small and not especially clear. The footnotes and some of the basic historical facts related to the ballets themselves which are discussed are interesting - although often uncited, an apology the writer makes clear in his introduction. But on Page 7 when he lambasts the Vikharev choreographic reconstruction of Petipa's Sleeping Beauty as 'not differing much from the Kirov version in 1952' ( by Konstantin Sergeyev) he is very clearly adrift from reality. The version staged by Vikharev for the Maryinsky has some immense changes to the Prologue and elsewhere. As for what Pavlova, the Legat Brothers and Petipa actually say in these 'conversations' can only be taken with a pinch of salt. The never opined anything in such a way. I hope this fiction will not be taken as historical fact by anybody. Were it not for the use and convenience of some of the footnote material I would have no hesitation in returning the book for failing in its advertisement. The slight hint of 'fiction' is misleading. It is a total work of fantasy, fiction and conjecture. It appeared from the website description (as at 3 September 2018) to be three conversations and I was expecting some reprints of genuine contemporary interviews given by the subjects and not some fictitious, and in many cases, opiniated remarks about dancers achievements which would not have been witnessed by the subjects themselves. A case in point in the promotion of Vaganova to ballerina status, which did not happen during Petipa's lifetime. Also that Petipa considered Vaganova to be only about technique and is not valued for her artistry. I am sure the 'Queen of the Variation' as she was known would have something to say about that... There is some fairly tasteless language - referring to Diaghilev as 'Fatso' and so forth...a line from Sergei Legat on Page 96 where he is reported to say 'b*ll*cks to that'. This prevents me from considering this work as a serious assessment of that period in an attempt to bring these people to life in the 21 century. I would not recommend it unless you know this subject matter very well and can see through the fiction.

I am giving it one star - only for the use of the footnotes - and because Amazon need a star rating. There is a wealth of material about these three personalities written by witnesses and from their own words which will give a truer representation of the people rather than the creation of modern versions of what we may assume them to be like today.

 

It really does not offer anything NEW and the conversations themselves are totally fictitious as above. The only other review is by the editor herself lauding its academic qualities. as a Dance Historian with a specialty for the Maryinsky I have to take all the above ussies into account and my assessment is that proceed with caution. The footnotes as stated are quite good, albeit from relatively easily obtainable sources but in view of the unprofessional language contained within it - very much of the 21st century - including the expletive mentioned above, please do not take the suppositions as remotely close to fact. 

 

We should be welcoming any work that improves seriously academic knowledge with open arms and I am sad to say that I really do not feel able to offer much endorsement to this.

[Geoff]

1 hour ago, Geoff W said:

The footnotes as stated are quite good, albeit from relatively easily obtainable sources

 

Thank you for your comments, very helpful. However several times you mention the useful footnotes, although it seems relating only to "easily obtainable sources". Can you explain further, maybe with an example or two?

 

Did you spot any footnotes to any newly discovered historical material? In fact is there anything in this book which is both historically accurate and also not previously known? I am always interested in new research but am not sure if there is any in this book.

[assoluta]

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.

[Sebastian]

4 hours ago, Geoff said:

I am always interested in new research but am not sure if there is any in this book.

 

I for one would be interested if he has any new discoveries regarding The Sleeping Beauty.

[AYSHEL]

To answer Sebastian, Assoluta Amelia and Geoff - in one go!

 

Sebastian - I couldn't say I found anything NEW about the The Sleeping Beauty - There a good assessment for that in Tim Scholl's book - check it out on Amazon. It too has a few issues but is well informed and well written - rather academic in tone of course!

 

Amelia - the first review on Amazon was by the editor herself.

 

Assoluta - Thanks for your kind words

 

Geoff - I didn't find any footnotes citing newly discovered historical material or primary historical sources. A few examples of the footnotes come from readily available sources such as Theatre St by Tamara Karsavina, Petipa's Memoirs, Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figues, Various books by Ivor Guest, Roland John Wiley's books, Joel Laubenthal's book on Alla Osipenko. The lesser known but available on the second hand book websites include Ekaterina Vazem's Memoirs - from a German Translation; Great Russian Dancers by Gennady Smakov; The 1971 Russian Petipa book from its German translation. As I said before the footnotes are quite explanatory about certain historical facts and places.

 

Hope that helps and thanks to you all for reading

[Amy]

Geoff W, I would like to thank you for your review; I'm sorry that the book wasn't to your liking, but there are some things I would like to clear up.

 

First of all, it's quite clear that you didn't read the book well because for one thing, regarding your comment on what Mr Koppers says about the Vikharev choreographic reconstruction of Sleeping Beauty, it's common knowledge that Vikharev did retain many of the Soviet passages, possibly due to pressure from all the fuss that stirred up against the reconstruction by Dudinskaya. Mr Koppers states that while Vikharev's Sleeping Beauty resembles Sergeyev's stepwise, it mainly differs in stage direction.

As for your comment on what is written about Vaganova, it's common knowledge that Petipa didn't like her as a dancer - in two of his diary entries, he writes that she was "awful in Raymonda" and "dreadful in The Pearl". As for Diaghilev being called "fatso", the Legats were dancers and they undoubtedly would have, amongst one another, used words worse than that.

 

Second of all, so what if I didn't mention I was an editor? The only editing I did was help Mr Koppers with his spelling and grammar because he wanted to make sure his English was perfect. I never contributed any material to the manuscript.

 

Geoff W, it's quite clear that you are a Mariinsky/Vaganova fan and this all seems to be some sort of hate action against Mr Koppers. In fact, it seems to be something of a personal grudge. I wouldn't be thinking it was anything personal had you just written your review on Amazon and left it at that, but the fact that you felt the need to post it on this forum and warn people not to buy the book indicates that there's something more to this than someone who was genuinely disappointed with this book. Whatever your reasons were for taking your criticism of the book this far, deal with it elsewhere and frankly, if you were confused about what kind of book it is, you could've asked questions on the Petipa Society website before you purchased it. If you had, I would've been very happy to answer them for you.

 

So anyone who has questions regarding Mr Koppers' book, you only need to ask and I can assure you all that this book is not something to be wary of. It was always intended be to a new type of historical book with a combination of fact and fiction.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Amy

[AYSHEL]

Amy - as a dance academic and the administrator for the Marius Petipa website  I also understand that you are an MA Graduate from Roehampton. You have the credentials to be a dance historian. This is not history in any sense. The cover of the book does not use inverted commas as to these conversations. They are not conversations, they are 'conversations', creating work of fiction which finds its base in a lot of good knowledge and well researched fact. The title is misleading. Please do not presume I am a ballet fan with a personal vendetta. I do not know and have never heard of Peter Koppers. I think you seem to be clutching at straws if you think that. Rather like the 'Conversations' that is just pure conjecture and unfair. My goal is for the historical truth. I was curator of the Anna Pavlova Memorial Museum for 7 years and am editor of 'Choreologica' the journal of the European Association of Dance Historians.

 

'So what if I didn't mention I was an editor' -  As the editor of this tome it is professionally questionable to attempt to publicise the book as part of a glowing review of it. 

 

As you state from Petipa's diaries he was not a fan of Vaganova. However he did not as this book states 'live to see the day she was granted the ballerina title'. This part of the 'conversation' on Page 20 (just as one example) is not founded on any fact at all. It is just supposition and conjecture. I am really not sure how this book can assist in how 'we can learn how ballet can be restored to its former glory.' as stated in your review on Amazon. The writer with some truth could easily have drawn on Vladimir Teliakovsky's writings where Petipa would have easily vented his spleen on real events. But that isn't really covered at all.

 

We have no written evidence from the mouths of the Legat brothers calling Diaghilev 'Fatso' or any other such insult either in print or publicly. This is a prurient book. The language on Page 96 is totally inappropriate in academic discourse. The suggestion on Page 130 of Pavlova 'french kissing' has nothing to do with any assessment of Pavlova, either as a dancer or as a private individual. 

 

As for the 1952 vs. 1999 of Sleeping Beauty. The 1952 prologue is COMPLETELY different to that of the 1999 reconstruction. There is plenty of video evidence of both available. The solos and pas de deux are also quite varied from Konstantin Sergeyev's reworkings. Vikharev went back to Nikolai Sergeyev's notation (sold to Harvard by Mona Inglesby) and produced something closer to the RB working version up to 1977. The remainder of the ballet is quite different and would take far too long to explain here.

 

There is a history, particularly in Russia and Germany of the historical 'novella' which creates a true story based on fact in the form of a novel. This book falls somewhere within that genre but differs in the fact that opinions are ascribed to the posthumous 'interviewees' which are not supported by factual evidence. 

 

I stand behind everything I wrote on Amazon and here professionally. There were questions on this forum relating to this book and my concerns are all validated by what I have found within it. Like any review it is only my opinion but it is an informed one, not just one of a ' Mariinsky/Vaganova fan and this all seems to be some sort of hate action against Mr Koppers' or 'personal grudge' as you erroneously presume. But presumption seems to be rife throughout this very misguided and potentially misleading book. 

Edited September 4, 2018 by Geoff W
typo needed changing

[Amy]

Well I am sorry that it came to this and that you were not satisfied with this book, Mr Whitlock. Perhaps you were given the wrong impression of the book's intentions, but it cannot be called "misguided" and "potentially misleading".

 

The intention of this book was always to be a combination of fact and fiction, in which the author himself "speaks to" Petipa, the Legat Brothers and Pavlova. It is true that parts of the conversations were created by Mr Koppers, but it is by no means a work of fantasy. I assure you that Mr Koppers is very serious with his historical research and knowledge and you may agree or disagree with the concept of this book, but it is certainly not a novel or a novella. It tells us the stories of these four icons, but in a very different way than one would probably expect, however, please take note that this book is not a quadruple biography, nor was it meant to be.

 

In relation to the Vikharev and Sergeyev productions of Sleeping Beauty, the Prologue in Vikharev's reconstruction certainly differs from Sergeyev's (a fact that Mr Koppers is well aware of), however, Vikharev retained nearly all of the Soviet revivals of the fairies' variations. The only one he didn't retain was that of the Lilac Fairy. In the other acts, nearly all the Soviet choreographic passages from Sergeyev's revival were retained. If you wish to see Sleeping Beauty with all the notated choreography, I recommend Ratmansky's reconstruction.

 

My word to everyone is that this book is a very different type of historical book; you may like or not, but my advice would be to read it with an open mind. For some of you, it may not bring something new, but for others it will and it can direct to resources that you are probably not familiar with. History can come to us in many ways, some that we are not perhaps used to or how we would expect. The purpose of this book is celebrating Petipa and really speaking about him since, as written on the back cover, everyone speaks his name, but not many really understand him and why not have something different on the year of his bicentenary? This is a different way of "getting to know" these four legendary figures and you can enjoy it or not. And why not celebrate Petipa in as many ways as we can?

 

I hope that no one here will be put off by one bad review, or put off by the fact that I was an editor on this book. I have had the pleasure of reading it and it is a worthy read; I certainly learned some new facts from it. Even those of us who have degrees in dance studies learn something new as time goes by.

 

I would also like to apologise for my poor response and if anyone else here feels they were not given enough information about the book, so if anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. For those of you who are interested in the book, I hope you enjoy it and it succeeds in giving you a new insight into Petipa, the Legat Brothers and Pavlova.

 

Thank you.

[Geoff]

4 hours ago, Amy said:

so what if I didn't mention I was an editor? The only editing I did was help Mr Koppers with his spelling and grammar because he wanted to make sure his English was perfect. I never contributed any material to the manuscript.

 

Amy, might I gently suggest that you are not helping yourself by repeatedly calling yourself an "editor" of the book. Those of us who are familiar with publishing know that editors are rather significant figures (often they come up with the idea for the book; provide support throughout the research; perhaps even producing additional sources; and then frequently, though less often these days, reshape the original manuscript in ways which can extend to rewriting the entire work). For that kind of editor to comment on their book without including a reference to their involvement would indeed be a faux pas. 

 

However from what you say it sounds as if a better description of the work you did would be as a "proof reader", in which case I feel you are exonerated on the charge of somehow having been deceptive. Someone who tidied up the author's English is more than entitled to be simply enthusiastic about what they read: they will after all have read the book very carefully. That said my interest is in new historical research so I won't be buying this book.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2018 by Geoff

[Amy]

Yes, thank you Geoff - proof reader is much more accurate since that's exactly the work I did on the book. All the work that editors are charged with when writing a new book, I did none of it; I certainly never came up with the idea. Unfortunately, it's too late to change this error, so I must apologise for all this confusion.

[AYSHEL]

One cannot take away from the fact that this work still remains conjecture and with artistically fantasised conversations ascribing opinions to those who are not on record as having said them in relation to incidents and associations within their professional lives. It is not based on any kind of historical accuracy. It is not a book for any serious researcher of the subjects contained within it. There is no doubt from the footnotes that Peter Koppers has good working knowledge of the subject and I am not here to deride or defend him.

 

As an Editor of an academic dance journal I agree with (the other) Geoff that it is incumbent on the editor to oversee and challenge where necessary. Proof reading is only a part of the skill required. It may have been prudent to have taken that title rather than editor.

 

The argument relating to historical and current versions of the Sleeping Beauty is far greater than this forum can accommodate with broad brush comment. I am park that - permanently

 

The concept of the book certainly comes close to the genre which was popular in Russia and Germany in the 1930s. Even later Vera Krasovskaya monographs on Pavlova and Nijinsky fit into that category offering a little extra colour to support actual historical fact. In this current case we have a series of fictitious interviews. The book does not do 'what is says on the can'. The cover states CONVERSATIONS. They are not direct conversations and the opinions 'they' express are not those of the persons themselves. The opinions have been created by the writer. Therefore they remain the work of fantasy. That is my issue with the book itself, which only begins to becomes clear in the third from last paragraph on Page 8 of the introduction. Both the cover and the title page lead one to expect something quite different. The simple use of inverted commas for the 'Conversations' would have highlighted that at the outset. Considering the footnotes and some of the accurate information contained within the descriptive text in relation to the ballets themselves it does seem like a lost opportunity.

 

One understands the need today to offer cross-disciplinary approaches to old questions in an attempt to bring the subject to life. This is a very difficult area nowadays. Bringing a sometimes dry subject to life is the goal of any good writer. I fully grasp that idea but concerns remain about its overall application with this particular book when searching for historical truth.

[assoluta]

11 hours ago, Amy said:

I hope that no one here will be put off by one bad review, or put off by the fact that I was an editor on this book.

 

Quote

 

Geoff W, it's quite clear that you are a Mariinsky/Vaganova fan and this all seems to be some sort of hate action against Mr Koppers.

 

 

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.

 

 

Quote

First of all, it's quite clear that you didn't read the book well because for one thing, regarding your comment on what Mr Koppers says about the Vikharev choreographic reconstruction of Sleeping Beauty, it's common knowledge that Vikharev did retain many of the Soviet passages, possibly due to pressure from all the fuss that stirred up against the reconstruction by Dudinskaya.

 

"Possibly due to pressure from all the fuss" ? Nonsense. He did what he intended to do.

 

 

Quote

Second of all, so what if I didn't mention I was an editor?

 

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.

[Sebastian]

On 02/09/2018 at 16:52, Lynette H said:

Oxford University Press has this information on its web site about a forthcoming biography of Petipa by Dr. Nadine Meisner.  Note that the estimated publication date is in 2019. 

 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marius-petipa-9780190659295?cc=gb&lang=en&#

 

The overview describes this as

• "First biography in English of the creative genius behind Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.
• Richly illustrated with archival photographs.
• Uses never before seen original material from Petipa's 63 years in Russia."

 

This is now available to buy as an e-book, for those who would like to read it on a tablet (hard copies appear not to be available until the end of next month):

 

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Nadine_Meisner_Marius_Petipa?id=qNmUDwAAQBAJ

 

Currently at a discounted price of £14.94. 

 

Edited May 6, 2019 by Sebastian

[Fiz]

It’s on my wishlist.