‘Definitive’ interpretations

[Missfrankiecat]

I would only mention a couple of roles/performances which, in my memory, transcend all others.  But I have many other favourites and I would say my overall definitive performer is Nunez - never seen her in anything where she didn't shine;

 

Don Q - Baryshnikov [only time I saw him live in a full length classical role]

Mayerling - Muntagirov [left me feeling completely different about the character]

Giselle - Osipova [completely heart-breaking]

[Jan McNulty]

I've been thinking about this.  Over the years there have been so many memorable performances I have been lucky to see.

 

A performance of Christopher Gable/Michael Pink's Giselle for Northern Ballet is seared into my memory banks and the performances by Charlotte Broom and Daniel de Andrade are my gold standard performances against which all others have been measured.

 

Daniel de Andrade is also my gold standard Basilio with Tzu Chao Chou running him a close second.

 

Ambra Vallo and Chi Cao in Sir Peter Wright's Coppelia - a performance at The Lowry in 2003.

 

Nao Sakuma and Robert Parker in The Two Pigeons.

 

Victoria Marr and Tyrone Singleton in Sir David Bintley's Carmina Burana.

 

[Josette]

Not that I have not seen other superlative, moving performances, but my definitive list:

 

Giselle              Margot Fonteyn

Albrecht            Edward Villella (no, Fonteyn and Villella did not dance together)

 

Odette/Odile   Margot Fonteyn

 

Mayerling       Mathieu Ganio with Ludmila Pagliero

 

La Sylphide    Eva Evdokimova

 

Swanhilda      Carla Fracci

 

Mercutio         David Blair

 

Tybalt             Gary Avis

 

Kingdom of the Shades        Fonteyn, Nureyev

 

 

[Josette]

Adding other definitive, revelatory performances to my list:

 

Tatiana            Marcia Haydee

 

Onegin            Pierre-Francois Vilanoba 

 

Le Jeune Homme et la Mort        Nicolas LeRiche

 

Serenade Walz Girl                      Yuan Yuan Tan

 

Fall River Legend        Isabella Guerin with Laurent Hilaire

 

Raymonda, Act III        Elisabeth Platel 

 

[Guest Alexis]

Ballet is love and  emotion and my favourite is Mrs. Lamb but technically this is my "dream team": 

With Sergej Polunin.....

Giselle: OSIPOVA

Swan lake: NUNEZ

Don Q: NUNEZ

Corsaire: NUNEZ

Sleeping B: ZAKHAROVA

R. and Juliet: FERRI

Manon: GUILLEM

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

Hello @Alexis and welcome to the Forum!

[Geoff]

This thread has been going for weeks now yet so far no one has chosen Viviana Durante for any role. Really? She was by far the most gifted and expressive ballerina of her era at the Royal Ballet and thankfully some, at least, of her greatest performances are captured in good quality recordings. If I had to go for just one, I’d pick her pairing with Irek in Mayerling but her Giselle and Aurora are also still burned into my memory.

[Jan McNulty]

5 minutes ago, Geoff said:

This thread has been going for weeks now yet so far no one has chosen Viviana Durante for any role. Really? She was by far the most gifted and expressive ballerina of her era at the Royal Ballet and thankfully some, at least, of her greatest performances are captured in good quality recordings. If I had to go for just one, I’d pick her pairing with Irek in Mayerling but her Giselle and Aurora are also still burned into my memory.

 

I think I only ever saw her dance once and I can't remember what it was in so I couldn't choose her.

 

We can only base our replies on whom we have seen.

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, Geoff said:

This thread has been going for weeks now yet so far no one has chosen Viviana Durante for any role. Really? She was by far the most gifted and expressive ballerina of her era at the Royal Ballet and thankfully some, at least, of her greatest performances are captured in good quality recordings. If I had to go for just one, I’d pick her pairing with Irek in Mayerling but her Giselle and Aurora are also still burned into my memory.

 

She was undoubtedly gifted, but I was never convinced by her apparent expressiveness which to me was always only on the surface.

[JNC]

I’m only going to comment with performances that I don’t think ever will be bettered because of how they made me feel at the time. 
 

Manon - Cojocaru

 

That Bayadere with Nunez as Nikiya, Osipova as Gamzatti and Muntagirov as Solor.

 

These remain the best performances I’ve ever seen and I wonder if I’ll ever see them beaten. I’ve not included DVDs I’ve watched either as think it’s fair to stick to live performances (although incredibly jealous of those who have seen Fonteyn and Altynai and Baryshnikov etc live). 
 

If I widened the net a little more to maybe not definitive but near perfect performances, you’d also get 

 

Gilbert and Marchand (Paris Opera Ballet) in Giselle 

Kaneko as Aurora 

Morera in Cinderella 

Hayward in Rhapsody 

Hayward/Corrales in Romeo and Juliet 

Osipova as Giselle 

[MAB]

Perhaps someone should start a favourites thread.  Definive means to me getting so near to perfecyion in one particular role that you've never seen that role bettered.  After giving it a great deal of thought I was only able to name three damcers that gave such benchmark performances that I very much doubt they will be bettered in my lifetime.

 

The fact is with most of the great ballet roles you will see far more than one interpretation in your ballet going lifetime that will knock your socks off, it that wasn't the case there would be little point in keeping going.

Edited September 27, 2023 by MAB
typo

[bridiem]

5 minutes ago, MAB said:

Perhaps someone should start a favourites thread.  Definive means to me getting so near to perfecyion in one particular role that you've never seen that role bettered.  After giving it a great deal of thought I was only able to name three damcers that gave such benchmark performances that I very much doubt they will be bettered in my lifetime.

 

The fact is with most of the great ballet roles you will see far more than one interpretation in your ballet going lifetime that will knock your socks off 

 

Interesting comment, MAB. But I think that there's a difference between being 'perfect', in which a more objective assessment can be involved, and 'definitive', which will be different for each person depending on what they see in and want from a role/performance. i.e. if an interpretation knocks your socks off, it could be definitive for you even if not objectively perfect.

[capybara]

34 minutes ago, MAB said:

Perhaps someone should start a favourites thread.  

 

Agree. My draft list in response to this thread didn't get posted because there were too many names included for their interpretations to be regarded as definitive.

[Jane S]

I think even 'perfect' is subjective, unless you are only talking about technique - and even then personal preference will influence you even if you don't know it. 'Definitive' for me means a performance which may have been far from perfect but which  I never expect to see bettered. Many I would describe like that were in ballets created for them - Haydee and Cragun in Taming of the Shrew, Lynn Seymour in any number of things - but my own most definitive ever was really pure accident.

 

(Long story, skip if you've heard it before)

 

In the 1990s the Friends of Covent Garden ran what they called the Come and Risk It queue for dress rehearsals - you could turn up without a ticket and if you were early enough - 7.30 a.m. say - you could be fairly sure of getting something, and most often in the Stalls Circle rather than in the Amphi so it was a good deal. They never announced the casts in advance, so there was I one morning queuing up for a Bayadere rehearsal, and thinking quite contentedly that we'd probably get the first cast - Yoshida and Mukhamedov - when a whisper came down from the front of the line: 'The Japanese girl is off and a Russian girl, who's done Nikiya here before, is flying in to replace her'. Could it, could it possibly be Asylmuratova? Surely we couldn't be that lucky.. maybe there's been some other Russian I'd forgotten about? Hours of suspense - but then the announcement from the stage and yes, it was her. (I think the people around me could tell that I was pleased.)

 

She had come to the theatre straight from Heathrow and presumably had spent any spare minutes in warming up - so she wore a dark blue unitard throughout, with a white tutu over it for the Shades,  her hair was pinned up anyhow and she had street make-up at best; and as it was some time since she'd last done the role here, she occasionally had to stop and ask Mukhamedov what came next, and they laughed and went on with it - and she was so wonderful that I remember thinking that if Terpsichore herself were to whisper in my ear that this was the greatest performance of this role, ever, I would easily have believed her. I was there on my own and was so excited that I was practically running round the theatre in the intervals looking for someone to talk to, and when I met an acquaintance who was doing the same thing we almost fell into one another's arms.

 

I guess AA felt she had absolutely nothing to lose and just went for it - it was so alive and emotionally truthful, as if it was all happening to her for the first time - just astonishing, it brings tears to my eyes just writing about it now.

 

And Mukhamedov was pretty good too

 

(But despite all this, I can imagine someone else there thinking it was fine but nothing special, and I wouldn't argue - above a certain level  of competence it really is mostly subjective.)

 

 

 

 

[capybara]

1 hour ago, Jane S said:

(But despite all this, I can imagine someone else there thinking it was fine but nothing special, and I wouldn't argue - above a certain level  of competence it really is mostly subjective.)

I’m completely with you over Asylmuratova.

But it was your last phrase which also caught my attention.

 

With Don Q coming up, I expect we shall see variations of differing levels of difficulty, especially from the Basilios. Some of them may not make their turns, others may partner a touch clumsily, characterisations will vary. And yet each and every leading man and woman will have their advocates on here, which would seem to suggest that perceptions of competence can differ widely too.

I guess that’s what makes ballet (and BCF threads) extra interesting.

[MAB]

I once watched a Maryinsky rehearsal in Baden Baden.  The Medora was so perfect I actually felt shaken, even the orchestra applauded her.  Sadly the lady in question couldn't replicate that perfection in performance.

[alison]

6 hours ago, Jane S said:

In the 1990s the Friends of Covent Garden ran what they called the Come and Risk It queue for dress rehearsals - you could turn up without a ticket and if you were early enough - 7.30 a.m. say - you could be fairly sure of getting something, and most often in the Stalls Circle rather than in the Amphi so it was a good deal. They never announced the casts in advance, so there was I one morning queuing up for a Bayadere rehearsal, and thinking quite contentedly that we'd probably get the first cast - Yoshida and Mukhamedov - when a whisper came down from the front of the line: 'The Japanese girl is off and a Russian girl, who's done Nikiya here before, is flying in to replace her'. Could it, could it possibly be Asylmuratova? Surely we couldn't be that lucky.. maybe there's been some other Russian I'd forgotten about? Hours of suspense - but then the announcement from the stage and yes, it was her. (I think the people around me could tell that I was pleased.)

 

Ah yes, I remember that.  Or not actually the rehearsal, but that Asylmuratova was an unexpected replacement.  I believe the Schools' Matinee or some such got her?  My scheduled cast turned out to be Susan Jaffe, so I guess Asylmuratova wasn't available.  Mind you, I did get to see her Nikiya with the Kirov, and that is one of my greatest ballet memories, now I come to think of it.  Might have been close to definitive ...  

[JNC]

I didn’t post it as I haven’t seen her live but my Bayadere dvd with Altynai is one of my absolute favourites. The quality isn’t like the recordings today but the performance is just…so very jealous of those that would have seen her Nikiya.