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'The Glory of the Bolshoi Ballet'


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If you are a subscriber to Medici tv you may have already enjoyed this.  If not, it's worth joining Medici even if you cancel afterwards.  There are a number of historic films of legendary Russian performers, many of poor visual and/or sound quality due to the time they were filmed, but all worth watching and quite an education.
 

 

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Is there any acknowledgement of who produced these?  I think there are a couple of compilations with much the same titles.  I was responsible for the ones entitled 'The Glory of the Bolshoi' and 'The Glory of the Kirov' - some time in the 1990s.  With a colleague I went to St Petersburg where a Russian film enthusiast had collected a mass of material from Russian archives and chose the best items which we then edited together in London.  I believe a firm named NVC put them out originally as video cassettes, but the rights could well have been acquired later by Medici tv - if they are the ones I am thinking of.

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The Glory of the Bolshoi  - Historical extracts from 1913 to 1968

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue9qZe-98wk

Soloists include: Natalia Bessmertnova, Vakhtang Chaboukiani, Ekaterina Geltzer, Musa Gottlieb, Pyotr Gusev, Mikhail Lavrovsky, Olga Lepeshinskaya, Maris Liepa, Ekaterina Maximova, Asaf Messerer, Irek Mukhamedov, Maya Plisetskaya, Marina Semenova, Vasili Tikhomirov, Galina Ulanova and Vladimir Vasiliev.

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  • 1 year later...

I came across the film about Ludmila Semenyaka made in 1979, which I haven’t seen before, and was captivated by it. It contains 6 scenes from ballets, mainly duets: Legend of Love, Swan Lake, Spartacus, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty. The ballerina sparkles there with her technique, temperament and physical perfection. There are no commentaries in the film, and only in 2-3 sequences you can hear the tweeting voice of Lyudmila, telling about her roles and about her teacher, Galina Ulanova. The scenes from the performances are interspersed with clips of Ulanova coaching Lyudmila for Giselle. In my view, it is a treasure, an echo of the "golden age" of Bolshoi Ballet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbTvGqKh3Lc&t=25s

 
Edited by Amelia
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  • 3 weeks later...

It is interesting to compare different productions of ballets with the same title and the same music. While I was waiting for my first “Cinderella” in the current block, I remembered the very first “Cinderella”, which I saw at Bolshoi in 1948 with a very young Raissa Struchkova.
After "Romeo and Juliet" was staged at the Leningrad Kirov (Mariinsky) Theatre, Prokofiev, who was greatly impressed by Galina Ulanova’s Juliet, decided to write a ballet especially for her and chose Cinderella. However, due to theatrical political shenanigans, on the opening night in Moscow in November 1945, the dashing and daring virtuoso Olga Lepeshinskaya danced the leading role. Later Ulanova danced and also Marina Semyonova. In order to see each ballerina Prokofiev came to performances 3 times and every time watched one act only.
Much later, in 1960, a ballet film "The Crystal Slipper" was made on the base of this production, with Raissa Struchkova who was now 12 years older and her raven-black hair were made blond. Prince was Gennady Ledyakh, the Spring - Katya Maximova and the Summer - Elena Ryabinkina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIo1bdJLPZc
 

 

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6 hours ago, Amelia said:

Much later, in 1960, a ballet film "The Crystal Slipper" was made on the base of this production, with Raissa Struchkova who was now 12 years older and her raven-black hair were made blond. Prince was Gennady Ledyakh, the Spring - Katya Maximova and the Summer - Elena Ryabinkina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIo1bdJLPZc


This is really interesting Amelia, thank you. May I cross post this on the Cinderella thread so more people can watch it? 

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