Haglund's Heel

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Bolshoi's Sergei Filin, a victim of violence, who is hospitalized in Moscow.

Olga Smirnova

The NYT T-Magazine blog just uploaded a delightful little blurb about Olga Smirnova who will be performing this Thursday night with the Stars of the 21st Century at Lincoln Center.  The UIEX got a 50%-plausible tip that she and Semyon Chudin will perform Grand Pas Classique and Thais PdD.  This will come as something of disappointment to those who were hoping to see them dance the PdD from Balachine's Diamonds.  Ah, well, they'll just have to watch it here  –– so very, very pretty. 

Osipova takes her style and art to a new low.

A reader recently brought these clips to our attention via a comment elsewhere. However, upon review, the Haglund's Heel Compliance Officer demanded that they be fully disclosed to the public and that public comment be invited for 60 days.

 

AND, if that wasn't enough, there's this:

 

Osipova has just quit one of the world's premiere classical ballet companies to join a company that is now run by an anti-classicist because she and her BF didn't like being limited in their repertories including plum classical roles which the Bolshoi found them not yet suited to dance.  So, apparently, to prove what an outstanding cross cultural phenomenom she is, she has become a feature on a TV program where she has performed a pole dance among other artsy variations.  Nevermind that she has trouble with head rolls, hip rolls, and snapping her fingers - this is reputation-enhancing, classy, I'm-a-circus-pony, exhibitionist, I'm-too-big-to-fail, I-just-want-the-attention, any-exposure-is-great-exposure, can't-wait-to-do-Playboy-shoot, pathetic behavior.  No time now to address classical ballet deficiencies.  That'll just have to wait until she arrives for rehearsals at ABT.  They'll take care of her classical needs - like, duh, who cares anyway.  Besides look at all the publicity she's bringing with her.  Never mind quality dancing.  It's not important.  

Thanks to H.H. reader "A" for alerting us to all to this material.  I've moved his comments from the other post to this one.

Watching the Bolshoi's Sleeping Beauty from the prompter's box

That's what it seemed like at today's satellite transmission of the Bolshoi Ballet's new production of Sleeping Beauty.  Thanks to Ballet in Cinema and Emerging Pictures, more than 500 cinema theaters in the U.S. received a live-stream transmission of the brand new Yuri Grigorovich production which premiered last week in Moscow. 

It really seemed like a camera was positioned in the opera singer prompter's box near the foot of the stage which resulted in much of the performance being viewed with the cinema audience's sight line angled upward starting at the dancers' feet.  It was great to be able to see the individual sequins on the tutus, but as the camera whipped from left to right and right to left following each soloist, it all became dizzying and sometimes blurry.  The few shots from the back of the upper tiers of the Bolshoi Theater that captured the corps work revealed beautiful formations of perfect symmetry. 

The ultra-close camera work also captured and magnified the dancers' physical stress which is usually masked with a smile that the audience sees instead of the stress.  Worse, it did not allow the cinema viewers to watch the soloists in the context of what the other dancers on stage were doing.  We got to see a lot of production details that we don't normally see (thank you) but we missed huge aspects of the performance.

But what a production!  Is there anyone on the planet who does ballet spectacle bigger and better than Yuri Grigorovich?  It's doubtful.

As Sleeping Beauties go, Grigorovich's effort is stunning in terms of production values, fine in terms of staging, but was somewhat dully danced - except for the new tall guy.  The new tall guy, ABT's David Hallberg, performed with an elegance and refinement that probably hasn't been seen much at the Bolshoi in recent history.  His dancing was big, too.  Big, space-devouring jumps that were impressive in both their horizontal and vertical measures were a major part of Hallberg's soloist choreography.  As usual, as expected, as treasured, he finished his variations as if he were the conductor's baton bringing the orchestra to a stop.  However, the close camera shots didn't always bring complimentary images.  Often Hallberg could be seen struggling to convey appropriate facial expressions and he appeared acutely aware of the cameras.  But his dancing was fabulous.  His few overhead lifts of Aurora were successful but the close-camera caught the strain of his effort and made them look slightly scary.

Svetlana Zakharova as Aurora was not exactly in her element.  Right off the bat in Act I she made some unfortunate artistic choices which those who are familiar with her dancing guessed she would make.  Every time she executed a  developpe to the ecarte position, she chose a nearly 180 degree extension that completely destroyed any possibility of harmony with the arm on the opposite side of the body.  The leg was high and turned out and the foot was strongly pointed, but what was the point of it if the position lacked harmony?  Maybe total body harmony isn't important in Forsythe, Balanchine or Ratmansky choreography, but it is imperative in Petipa.  [Witness harmony here.]

In the Rose Adagio, Zakharova did not raise both arms on the balances, and thus, really didn't do any balancing at all, and she did not engage the princes who were trying to impress her.  This was a Bolshoi principal, a former Kirov principal and someone who the American Ballet Theatre has touted as a guest star?  Haglund doesn't want to give the impression that Zakharova gave a bad performance.  She gave a serviceable but undistinguished performance.  Acting is not her strong suit, so we really didn't see a transformation of Aurora in Act I to Aurora in Act III.  However, Zakharova is lovely physically and was perfectly beautiful in the costume.  Her face had the glow of a beautiful woman who was beautiful on the inside as well.  She gave Hallberg a fairly easy time in the partnering because she was securely on her leg during pirouettes and steady in the promenades. 

Maria Allash is not Haglund's favorite type of Lilac Fairy – that being the Veronika Part/Stella Abrera/Christina Fagundes variety – but she  gave a credible interpretation.  Her port de bras lines are not long and can sometimes appear lumpy if she over-extends the elbows and hands.  But the main objection is the lack of shape in her feet.  Her face is elegant and her expression was one of benevolence and confidence.  There are lots of different interpretations of the Lilac Fairy's demeanor that are completely valid, and Maria's was one of them.

The Bluebird and Princess Florine (Ovcharenko and Kaptsova) and all of the Fairies of Kindness and Jewels were a joy to watch –  that doesn't mean they should be brought here to be guest artists – and all of the character roles, especially Carabosse (Loparevich right? not Savin as listed in the program), were portrayed with the degree of importance that you expect from the greatest of the Bolshoi generations.  Try as some Western companies may, you cannot have an artistically successful Petipa story ballet without giving the character roles the respect and importance they deserve.

Without a doubt, the costumes by designer Franca Squarciapino and the scenery by Ezio Frigerio are the major triumph of this production.  Bold, brilliant, complimentary, rich in color, sparkly without being gaudy, TASTEFUL – they enhanced all aspects of the choreography and never competed against it for attention.  While some may not have been pleased with the white wigs in Act III, they looked so good from the mid-house camera angles (but, of course, not so hot from the close-up camera).  From the camera near the middle of the house, Hallberg looked smashing in the wig and the rest of his costume.

The staging is not controversial - Haglund has no complaints whatsoever.  He does prefer seeing the fish dives in the Act III PdD that we are accustomed to seeing here, but their absence in the Bolshoi version didn't make it less enjoyable.  Haglund is grateful for Yuri Grigorovich and for the fact that he is still turning out these huge productions that are so full of fantasy and are respectful of the historical traditions of the art form.  This stunning Christian Louboutin Golden Ankle Pump Bump Award (just $910) is bestowed upon Mr. Grigorovich:

ABT defections continue

NYT reports that David Hallberg will join the Bolshoi while continuing to perform with ABT and other companies on a limited basis.

Meanwhile, down under, Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy have given a few recent interviews (here and here) from which the following information was taken:

Gillian will dance with ABT at the Met, but spend most of her time in New Zealand where next year she will dance the title role of Giselle in the new Stiefel/Kobberg version and Cinderella.

Stiefel's first programming choices for the Royal New Zealand Ballet include works by Larry Keigwin and Benjamin Millepied, and he hopes to build the company's talent, repertory, and capacity to enable more international touring - including a visit to the U.S.

Where are those ABT internal promotions to principal?  We need to see no fewer than SIX. 

 

Bolshoi's Don Quixote live-stream presentation

This morning Haglund climbed aboard the M57 crosstown bus on Manhattan's West Side and road a few blocks to Moscow's Bolshoi Theater for a live (streamed) performance of Don Quixote.  The theater was packed; so was the cinema.  Thanks to the Ballet in Cinema effort by Emerging Pictures and the French company CielEcran, we were treated to spectacular live performances by Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev as Kitri and Basilio.  Everyone expected the spectacular from them and they didn't disappoint.  The surprise of the performance was how the character principals nearly stole the show. Kristina Karasyova as Mercedes, Andrei Merkuriev as Espada, Anna Leonova as A Street Dancer, and Anna Antropova as the Gypsy were like hot lava flowing through the streets of Barcelona melting everything in its path.  Mercedes' fan = sex toy.  Well, almost.  What exactly was her message when she completely bent over backwards and slapped that fan on the floor?!  Lordy, and on a Sunday morning no less. 

Osipova and Vasiliev were their own steam explosion.  Of the two, Vasiliev had the more "on" performance with easy multi-revolution pirouettes in which he changed body positions and wound down to a complete stop - finishing with a mischievous smile as if to say "I got you with that one."  Osipova's performance was her basic fill-in-the-superlative, superlative, superlative Kitri – the most athletic interpretation that Haglund has ever seen with legs and feet as sharp as a bull's horns.  In the Act II dream sequence, the arabesque line under the white tutu seemed to lack aesthetic but the top half was lovely.   Together in the grand pas Osipova and Vasiliev were dancing as one, reading each other's moves, finishing each other's sentences – truly harmonious in every way.  Vasiliev may be short, but he has paws the size of a bear and he pressed Osipova into one handed lifts like she was light as air.

The corps de ballet was just fabulous in the character scenes and especially in the dream scene where lines were stunning, everyone was together, and all had beautiful unstressed expressions on their faces. 

Haglund's only complaint about the performance was the camera director's tendency to zoom in on faces while we missed the overall formations and actions on the whole stage.  Zooming in meant that when the action did start, parts were blurred – which kind of made Haglund a little queasy after a while and irritable about what he was missing.  The camera work was the worst of the three Bolshoi live-streams produced thus far by CielEcran.  It would be better to see the entire scope of the stage from about 12 rows back in the orchestra with minimal zooming in.

Crummy camera work aside, this presentation was a great treat.  There wasn't an empty seat in the cinema.  Seating was very democratic.  It didn't matter who you were - if you didn't get there early, you didn't get to pick your favorite seat.  Political favors and media clout got you nowhere.  This isn't Russia, you know.

So, thanks to the Bolshoi for such a spectacular performance from everyone.  Haglund doesn't want to leave out Anastasia Stashkevich as Cupid, Yekaterina Shipulina as Queen of the Dryads, Alexander Petukhov as Sancho Panza, Olga Kishnyova and Victoria Osipova as Kitri's friends, and Alexei Loparevich as Don Quixote – all of whom gave wonderful performances.  But the Haglund's Heel Bump Pump Award, this black lacy little character pump from Christian Louboutin, must be bestowed upon Kristina Karasyova for her steam-filled portrayal of Mercedes:

 

Ballet in Cinema – casting for Don Quixote 3/6

The Bolshoi website has just posted the casting for the live-streamed performance of Don Quixote on Sunday, March 6th. 

Kitri – Natalia Osipova
Basil – Ivan Vaseliev
Gamache – Denis Savin
Queen of the Dryads – Ekaterina Shipulina
Cupid – Anastasia Stashkevich

Go to the Ballet in Cinema website and plug in your zip code to find a theater near you!

 

Bolshoi's Live-Streamed Class Concert & Giselle and ABT JKO Students on KC Millennium Stage

The Ballet in Cinema project by Emerging Pictures is turning out  be a fantastic opportunity for us to see a lot of productions that we wouldn’t get to see without incurring the expense of international travel.  Last Sunday the Bolshoi Ballet presented an evening of Asaf Messerer’s Class Concert and Grigorovich’s Giselle.  Of course, it was 11:00 a.m. in New York.   Although the cinema on East 59th Street was far from full, quite a lot of people turned out on a very cold Sunday morning to see the live-streamed performance.  The cinema theater’s manager is much  less devoted to the arts than to his attendance numbers; so, we have to try a bit harder to support this initiative if we want it to continue.  Next up is the Paris Opera Ballet with Caligula on Feb. 8th followed by the Bolshoi Ballet in Don Quixote on March  6th.  Both will be live-streamed performances.

 

According to Asaf Messerer’s nephew, Mikhail, who was interviewed at the performance, Class Concert was choreographed by Asaf after he saw a performance of Harald Lander’s Etudes.  Asaf observed that Etudes resembled the Russian ballet class structure at the time and thought that he could develop a similar choreographic piece that truly exemplified the path traveled by the developing Bolshoi dancer from child beginner to adult artist.  The result was a progressive class that began with the tiniest students at the barre and culminated with the adult principal dancers impressively tearing through big chunks of petit and grand allegro.  The students were beautiful although there was a visible range of abilities.  It was interesting to see some of the youngest ones more conscious of their upper bodies and head placement than the older students whose priority was more about getting side extensions and the back attitude as high as possible.  Haglund wonders if he will ever again see dancers who are schooled in grand rond de jambe en l’aire to slightly increase the height of the leg as it goes from front around to the back instead of increasing the height from front to side and then lowering it with an obvious and clumsy hitch rotation of the hip to get the leg to the back so they can crank it up again. 

 

Speaking of students – last Wednesday while in Washington DC to see ABT at the Kennedy Center, Haglund had the opportunity to see a presentation by students from ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School who performed on the Center’s Millennium Stage.  The stage is quite small for dance but the dancers adapted to the space beautifully.  The program opened with a contemporary piece of choreography by Kanji Segawa which he created in 2006 for students at the Metropolitan Ballet Academy.  It was what we’ve come to expect for contemporary ballet choreography in the way of lack of substance, but the dancers demonstrated a cohesive style that would later be even more apparent in Vasily Vainonen's Flames of Paris PdD and  Raymond Lukens’ Jerusalem Divertissement.  That style is marked by an absence of affectations. 

 

Unfortunately these days affectations have come to be confused with style.  The wrist flipping and gross finger and hand manipulations of students at the School of American Ballet or the jutting of chins by students at the Vaganova Academy have come to be identified as style by some who really should know better.  The ABT school style is now one with acute attention to the upper body and making it harmonious with the lower body.  As busy as the feet and legs may be, the upper torso and arms remain calm and collected, and the head follows a classical pattern.  The arms are held low and move from one position to another through a rounded first position.  It’s a style that will enable the dancer to immerse himself or herself in any of the many types of choreography adopted by ABT – from Tharp to Robbins to Petipa to Balanchine to Ratmansky – without having to fight off annoying individual habits that have crept into their technique.  It’s easy to learn how to flap your arms around and wing your feet.  It’s a lot harder to learn not to do that once those habits are ingrained. 

 

Haglund thought that the students, some of whom have yet to finish growing, looked handsome for pre-pre-professionals.  Boy, has Kiril Kulish, one of the original Billy Elliots, grown.  The kid has some catching up to do but he’s come to the right place to do it.  Shu Kinouchi looks to have gained confidence since his appearance at the Prix de Lausanne last year.  As a group, the girls’ dancing seemed to be more mature than the boys’, which is what one expects in any group of similarly aged kids. 

 

One nice aspect of the performances on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage is that they are preserved on the Kennedy Center’s website.  The January 19th and 20th performances are available for viewing now.  Some of the camera work is distracting but the programs are worth taking a look at to see who ABT’s principals might be in another 10-15 years.

 

Back to the Ballet in Cinema program – the second half was a performance of Giselle with Svetlana Lunkina in the title role, Dmitry Gudanov as Albrecht, and Maria Allash as Myrtha.   Haglund enjoyed Lunkina’s interpretation which was one of great fragility.  Clearly her heart was weak.  Her eyes filled with tears during the Mad Scene.  There was no way she could survive Albrecht’s duplicity. 

 

The Act II PdD was everything it had to be to make Haglund choke up, although it might not have been technically brilliant.  Lunkina was hauntingly beautiful.  Her expression was ghostly with only a hint of sadness in the eyes.  The crossing of Giselle and Albrecht with the tour jetes and the lilies was so beautiful.  (If Haglund doesn’t get to see Stella Abrera perform this section with the lilies before he dies, his spirit will not be able rest in its grave.)  Albrecht was not truly sorry about his betrayal until the last ten minutes.  His final walk backward to the upstage corner while slowly dropping the white flowers and the final image of Albrecht on his knees and the line of white flowers connecting him to Giselle’s grave was heartbreaking. 

 

Myrtha was a bit of a disappointment.  Haglund could actually understand why she got left at the altar.  Don’t know why Allash got cast in this.  She definitely was mean looking, but not the least bit stately and certainly not stately and beautiful.  She didn’t move like a wili in Haglund’s estimation, and there was nothing impressive about the quality of her dancing or her technique.

 

The Peasant PdD paired the hopelessly-in-over-his-head Andrei Bolotin with the so-beautiful-she-should-be-Giselle Chinara Alizade.  That’s the way it went.

 

The corps was just fine.  We saw them backstage rehearsing line placement right up until the curtain went up.  They did very well. 

 

Haglund is very sorry that he missed the Royal Ballet’s Giselle which was live-streamed on Wednesday.  He was traveling to Washington, DC to see ABT’s repertory program which is reviewed here.

 

Mark your calendars.  February 8 for the Paris Opera Ballet’s Caligula and March 6 for the Bolshoi Ballet’s Don Quixote. Go to Ballet in Cinema’s website to find where these live performances will be presented in your zip code area. 

 

Ballet in Cinema – Giselle at a theater near you

Even if you've been stuck under a big snow drift these past few weeks, chances are you're looking forward to the next Great White Act that is coming your way courtesy of Emerging Pictures Ballet in Cinema program.

First up, the Royal Ballet's Giselle (Marianela Nunez & Ruppert Pennefather) will be streamed LIVE in theaters next Wednesday afternoon, January 19th, at 2:30 pm Eastern time with Encore Presentations at other locations.

Then on Sunday, January 23rd, at 11:00 am, the Bolshoi's performance of Giselle (Svetlana Lunkina & Dmitry Gudanov) and Class Concert  will be streamed LIVE.

To find the theater near you that is presenting either of these Giselles, follow this link to the Ballet in Cinemas website and type in your zipcode in the bar at the top of the page.  The website is not perfect.  So, if you're having trouble maneuvering through it to get your information, call 212-245-6767.

Come on, People – especially you complainers who complain about never getting to see other big companies' productions while you're complaining about what's available in your own town – get thee to the cinema.  If you want to see more of this type of programing, you have to support it.

 

Bolshoi Ballet – Nutcracker live-streamed 12/19

 

Art is Great.

Yuri Grigorovich is Great.

The Bolshoi is Simply Beyond Great.

  

Haglund just saw his best ever Nutcracker.  Hands down, the best he’s ever seen.  Lord, does Grigorovich know how to Bring It.

 

The only disappointment was that certain Haglund’eelers couldn’t drag their you-know-whats out of the sack on a Sunday morning to get to this 11 AM showing which was LIVE-STREAMED from Moscow.

 

This showing was part of Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema series, which will next produce a Live Stream performance of The Royal Ballet’s Giselle on January 19th.

 

First, the renovated Bolshoi Theater is incredibly beautiful.  The stage is easily the size of Staten Island.  Twenty-four flowers in Waltz of the Flowers looked like it could have been half of a cast.

 

In this production, Grigorovich’s Drosselmeyer is a full-dancing principal character, today performed by Denis Savin.  He was marvelous in the way that he segued from the character acting into extraordinary technique.  It was all very seamless and kind of made you nervous about what this character might do next.  Spooky, charming, and one heck of a dancer. 

 

After the Christmas tree grows gigantic with flashing lights, it then changes into a stunning snow-covered tree and remains in the background for the rest of the ballet.

 

The entire company appeared stoked (with energy) for the performance.  There really was only one mishap when Victoria Osipova as one of the Indian Dolls unintentionally sat down on the stage.  She and her partner, Ruslan Pronin, seemed to be uncertain about each other from the start.  Daria Khokhlova and Vadim Kurochkin were the French Dolls who danced an inventive pas de trois with a cute rocking-lamb that they pulled along on a pair of long ribbons.  The Spanish Dolls, Anna Okuneva and Andrei Bolotin, delivered some outstanding pyro-technical stuff:  she breezed through a combination of fouette, double fouette, tour en l’air with feet crossed, single pirouette from fifth.  Try it. 

 

The mice in this production are an advanced strain that return during Act II to harass the principals.  Pavel Dmitrichenko was an exceptionally menacing Mouse King.

 

The little children are portrayed by the smaller corps women with the little “boys” in convincing short wigs.  Fritz was danced by Anna Proskurnina, who occasionally took a step or two in a way that was a dead giveaway that she was really a ballerina.

 

Artem Ovcharenko and Nina Kaptsova were The Nutcracker and Marie, respectively.  Outstanding and perfectly cast in every way.  Grigorovich likes to employ that step where the male principal tour jetes and then passe developpes to the back – with good reason – it’s spectacular when the dancer keeps the energy flowing backward as he executes it.  Ovcharenko caught the step beautifully today.  His legs are extraordinarily long, his feet acutely arched, and he caught the balance on the developpe like a surfer catching a big wave.  Kaptsova gave a nearly flawless technical performance.  The cameras did not provide many close-ups of her face, so it wasn’t easy to see what was going on there.  But her movement was sublime.  Haglund was disappointed with Kaptsova in a Spartacus DVD he once saw because she didn’t measure up to Bessmertnova.  But today, she was pitch perfect as Marie.

The classic corps in the Snow and Flowers scenes were exquisite.  The cameras gave us a few glimpses of the stage from approximately the first or second balcony and the formations were just stunningly beautiful. 

 

Grigorovich’s PdD for the Nutcracker and Marie includes the same huge Bolshoi lift that we will see in the upcoming ABT Nutcracker.  It’s certainly wonderful if Ratmansky wants to include it as a tribute to the great, great Grigorovich, and the audience will appreciate that.  After all, we hardly ever get to see these spectacular lifts.   However, the lift, as we saw today, is done by the Bolshoi in ONE piece – not pause, get set for five minutes, and then hoist the ballerina up as was done by two sets of ABT principals in last Wednesday’s rehearsal.  If we’re going to honor Grigorovich by including his lift in our new Nutcracker, let’s do it right, Folks.  In ONE piece, People.  Mukhamedov could have done it with one hand.

 

The Bolshoi Orchestra wasn’t about to be outshone by the extraordinary dancers on the stage.  The music was magnificent, rich, and evenly miked so that we heard everything.  We had, in fact, a seat so good that you couldn’t have bought it in the theater.  What a treat!

 

Haglund must bestow upon the Bolshoi and Yuri Grigorovich this Waltz of the Flowers First Position Pump Bump Award for a splendid Nutcracker performance today: