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

1 January 2012. A Multimedia Presentation. The People Who REALLY Make the “Best of the Bolshoi”…

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The Bolshoi Ballet in the Adagio from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at the Gala Reopening of the Bolshoi in October 2011

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The Bolshoi Opera in a Soviet-era film Kompozitor Glinka (The Composer Glinka, 1952) (fragment of Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar)

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The Bolshoi Ballet in the Waltz from Prokofiev‘s Cinderella at the Gala Reopening of the Bolshoi in October 2011

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The Coronation Scene from Mussorgsky‘s Boris Gudunov, performed by the Bolshoi Opera under the baton of Nikolai Golovanov, with the role of Boris sung by the legendary basso Aleksandr Pirogov (a performance from 1947)

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Yekaterina Maksimova dancing Gounod’s Walpurgis Night with the Bolshoi Ballet in 1974

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The artists and artisans of the Bolshoi have an unbroken and untrammelled history… from Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union to the present transitional state… and they’ll continue under whatever replaces that. Without the hard, devoted, diligent, and skilled work of he Bolshoi’s dedicated staff, the magic and beauty of the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera wouldn’t exist. They epitomise the Dignity of Labour… nothing more need be said…

BMD