25 December 2012. Some of My Favourite Things. Swan Lake (complete) as Danced in 1990 by the Kirov Ballet of Leningrad

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In this 1990 production of Swan Lake, Yuliya Makhalina danced the role of Odette/Odile whilst Igor Zelensky danced the part of Prince Siegfried. This Kirov production includes the familiar happy ending in the final act where Siegfried fights and ultimately defeats the evil magician von Rothbart and is reunited with Odette at dawn.

As everyone knows, Russia has led world ballet since the time of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov in the late tsarist Silver Age. Russia has set the standard, and the Bolshoi and Mariinsky/Kirov have been the leading dance troupes in the world. This was so in the Empire, it was so in the USSR, it’s so now in the transitional period of the Russian Federation, and it shall remain so with the re-emergence of a reunited Eurasian state.

Russian Ballet lived, Russian Ballet lives, and Russian Ballet shall live!

BMD

 

30 June 2012. Sergei Yolkin’s World. The Service of the Muses Doesn’t Abide Laxity… Inclement Weather Doesn’t Deter It

The Service of the Muses Doesn’t Abide Laxity… Inclement Weather Doesn’t Deter It

Sergei Yolkin

2010

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Here’s a production of Sleeping Beauty by the Mariinsky

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Snowfall couldn’t upset the Washington tour of the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre. The public wasn’t afraid of a sudden onset of Russian-style winter conditions in the American capital. Many of them gave up trying to dig out their cars after several days of snowfall, so, they went to the theatre using the Metro and Metrobus. The ballet Sleeping Beauty, which used the classic 1952 choreography of Konstantin Sergeyev, was a great success, and not only because Mariinsky prima ballerina Diana Vishneva performed the role of Aurora. The audience gave “bravos” to Vladimir Shklyarova in the role of the Prince, Yekaterina Kondaurova in the role of good fairy, and the pair of Jana Selina and Grigory Popov in the roles of the White Cat and Puss n’ Boots. The theatregoers praised the set design and the costumes. Many of them cried out, as they were leaving the theatre, “What a stunning festival!” The Kennedy Center offered to exchange tickets for other performances of the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi to those frightened off by today’s frost or unable to get to the theatre on the snow-covered roads.

12 February 2010

Sergei Yolkin

RIA-Novosti

http://www.rian.ru/caricature/20100210/208527515.html

9 June 2012. Some of My Favourite Things… “Sleeping Beauty” at the Bolshoi

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11 January 2012. Video. “Absolute Pitch”… Eight Minutes on Swan Lake

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The first minute of this is taken up with a “talking head”… then, the rubber hits the road and there’s a nice mini-documentary on Tchaikovsky‘s Swan Lake. The narration’s in Russian, but the visuals and music keep the non-Russian-speaking very happy indeed.

This is an utter contrast to the tawdry and noisome toilet bowl “non-culture” of the US rightwing… the artistic higher culture of the Orthosphere lives… and it’s still the best! What do you want? Do you want the Best of the Bolshoi or the LDS Follies? I know what I want… and not a few of you agree with me…

BMD