#Mariinksy

[ele-bee]

Diana Vishneva in Schéhérazade, Mariinsky Theater, 2024. Photos by Alisa Aslanova.

[ballet-symphonie]

Hello and happy new year!

I have a question about dancer and the fit to a company style. Do you think that the best principals at major companies (Bolshoi, Royal Ballet, Paris Opera, Mariinsky, NYCB etc..) would all reach that level if they were at a different company with a different style. I can see some that I feel would make it anywhere, and also some companies (though maybe less these ones, more a slight level down) where it feels anyone could thrive - but then there are some dancers that feel they are so well suited to one style that they might not shine at a very different company - particularly where the company style is more set/distinctive. Would love your view on this and who you think would work well across (and could be really exciting to see in a different context), who is maybe perfect where they are but wouldn’t transition across well and which companies you think have the most fixed style that you need to conform to to make it?

Thank you!

I think Renata Shakirova would be everywhere if she was at the Royal Ballet. The artistic staff at the Royal does such a wonderful job of coaching a wider variety of body types and bringing storytelling to the forefront of their dancers' intentions. I think Renata could really blossom here from new insight on how to harness her power and energy instead of Mariinksy trying to shove her into molds of dancers that just don't fit sometimes.

I want Vladislav Lantratov at the Royal. He's such a powerful actor and has such great command of the stage, I want to see him in all the male-heavy MacMillian rep. Him in Mayerling, THE DRAMA? YES PLEASE.

I also think Kristina Shapran could do great things at Paris Opera. The exceptional cleanliness of her pointe work and her style of expression would mesh well with the crystalline imagery of ONP. Seymon Chudin can go with her and dance with more people who can actually do 5th position.

I actually think Ekaterina Kondaurova to ONP would be interesting, mostly because she's so wonderful and in my opinion has been woefully underused and I would love to see her stretched in a bigger variety of contemporary repertoire. She's absolutely not a French-style dancer, but her in Crystal Pite's work? Or Mats Ek? I want it yesterday.

Paul Marque could kick ass at Mariinsky, with his fluidity and classicism. I think he would be flying up the ranks even with Mariinky's glacial pace because they need competent men and he is exceptionally gifted. And I would like to see him dance some of the big classics in a version that's not Nureyev's overly crowded hodgepodge.

Melissa Hamilton to the Bolshoi, she's got the legs and with her stellar competition career, I think she would have been quickly promoted at Bolshoi. It would be interesting to see her in big dramatic Grigorovich productions...or Carmen!

Sae Eun Park and Fumi Kaneno can both go to the Mariinsky, you can't tell me this wouldn't be a stellar cast of Legend of Love or Corsaire or they can take turns in Scherezade.

Potentially controversial but I don't think Marianela Nunez would have been as successful at Mariinsky or Bolshoi, especially under the current administrations' aesthetic preferences. At Bolshoi, there is such pressure to be soloist level right at 18-19 or you just get buried. If you watch young videos of Marinela, she's obviously very talented but has nowhere near the finesse that she possesses now. And not that the Bolshoi is renowned for finesse and cleanliness but she would have lacked that, plus the hypermobility, plus the body type....I'm not sure it would have gone well for her.

I don't think Oksana Skorik would do as well anywhere outside the Mariinsky. She's most comfortable dancing at Mariinksy's slow (sometimes dirge) tempis and she's a very internal dancer. I don't think her strengths would resonate at Bolshoi or Royal which both demand stronger theatrical presences.

There are some shorter ROH dancers that I think would struggle to find success at Russian companies, primarily the men, but that's not super interesting to discuss stylistically.

And there are certain principals and leading soloists at Bolshoi I don't think would make it into the corps at ROH or ONP...I'll stop here, this was a fun question.

[tikitania]

I didn’t, and I generally don’t, watch ballet competitions, but I’m excited to see the Prix de Lausanne’s Rising Stars Gala Sunday morning (CST) and streaming for free on Medici, registration required.

And then, I’ll watch the tribute to Skylarov. It’s going to be a wonderful Sunday.

I know that they’ll stream on VK, but will it also be on the Mariinksy’s YouTube channel?

[patricedumonde]

Omgg the castings for jewels in the mariinksy are out!!! Apparently it's going to be a collaboration between the artists of both companies, bolshoi and mariinsky. As far as I recall kokoreva will dance with Kim in and sergeenkova with askerov. (The rest is emeralds for mariinsky and rubies for the bolshoi and so on) This is beyond exciting!!!! A fresh idea, I hope we get enough videos!

Oh wow we don’t even get that for galas. That’s awesome! It’s like dream casting haha

[kameliendame]

For anyone interested, there is a livestream of a Mariinksy performance in honour of Vladimir Shklyarov's birthday going on right now. Mariinsky and Bolshoi Ballet principals and soloists are in attendance.

[elegantballetalk]

Who will play Masha in VBA's nutcracker this year? Any other indication regarding castings?

There is a video from September , which a boy graduating this year posted, and you can see Ekaterina Morozova in the background wearing the Masha costume, so who knows!

I think I saw a photo of Maya Ciobata rehearsing Waltz of the Flowers, but I also saw a clip of her and @parfenpolik rehearsing the two snowflake soloists.

Natasha Furman and Veronika Zhupakova are in snowflakes, and tons more are in snowflakes as well.

There are always multiple young Mashas, but perhaps one of them is Milana Chvanova?

I guess we have to wait and see. They will be performing at the Mariinksy on: 1 December 13:00  4 December 19:00  14 December 13:00 (Russian time i suppose)

[melmothblog]

As requested, I’m going to address Oksana Skorik’s post from a few days ago, which was largely addressed to Gergiev. It basically boils down to the following points:

Oksana requested that Gergiev provides some sort of clarity regarding the company’s future, especially in terms of leave;

She said that dancers with children would like to leave the city and she personally wants to go to Crimea, but the company is technically still active;

This means that dancers, especially the corps, are in a terrible position where they can’t rest but are also unable to train without access to space and equipment;

The dancers were apparently informed that a tour is coming up soon;

She noted that three dancers are currently allowed to train in the studios at a time, though, according to Skorik, the studios can easily accommodate 15 dancers without breaking social distancing rules;

She goes on to say that only the orchestra (which is Gergiev’s main priority according to Skorik) have work, while everyone else is up in the air.

Plenty of people praised Oksana for speaking up in the comments, though Svetlana Zakharova questioned why these questions were raised on social media rather than directly with the management:

“Oksana, was there no opportunity to question the management directly? It’s so strange to read this post! They’re saying that you guys have been let go on a break ages ago.”

To which Skorik responded:

“We haven’t [been let go on a break]... As it turns out I haven’t got enough annual leave. The 21 days I’ve accumulated over the season have apparently been “used” between the 24th of March and the 18th of April. No more break for me! There’s no one we can ask about this. The management knows as little as we do, and the Head [Gergiev] is unreachable. The theatre itself is totally empty."

d i s c l a i m e r

[vintage-ukraine]

Winter in the Mariinsky Park by Lev Khodchenko, 1993 and 1970s

[lovelyballetandmore]

Philipp Stepin | Mariinsky Theatre | Mariinsky Ballet

[galina-ulanova]

Yekaterina Kondaurova as Myrtha in Giselle (Mariinsky Ballet)

[randombeautysls]

Agon, Mariinksy Theatre

[ballet-symphonie]

I think the new Mariinsky of Coppelia is one of the most beautiful productions to come out recently! I'm really curious what you mean by stolen Pharaoh's Daughter! Please give me all the drama and tea. Also, what are they using of Ratmansky? I thought they went back to that grigorovich production of Sleeping Beauty? I'm so confused can you explain what is happening? Also, don't they still do Jewels? Isn't that Balanchine? are they even allowed? Sorry if i sound like I'm rambling but I'm so confused

Pharoah's Daughter

Here is an from NYT interviewing Ratmansky where he discusses the situation in depth but I will summarize it. NYT Article

The Phraroah's Daughter is a whole big drama. Alexei Ratmansky was creating a new reconstruction at Mariinsky before the war broke out.When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ratmansky canceled the premiere in May 2022. Fateev (then director of MT) hired Toni Candeloro to finish the reconstruction.

Fateev said the whole ballet was re-choreographed by Candeloro but this is blatantly not the case. Ratmansky and his wife had spent 2 years going through the old notations and documents to create this restoration, the idea that Candeloro could create a brand new 3.5-hour ballet (yes it is that long) in a fraction of the time is frankly a tragic comedy on the level of Shakespeare. And of course, Ratmansky's name is nowhere in the credits.

Russians have also claimed that no prior knowledge or access to any of Ratmanksy's work was available, but I find that hard to believe considering there are clips of Ratmanksy rehearsing the ballet at MT still chilling on Mariinksy's Youtube.

Here you can read Ratmansky’s statement on Instagram on the matter, accompanied by Antonio Casalinho performing the famous act 2 pas d’action variation from Pharoah’s Daughter.

Here is a video of Kimin Kim in the same variation from the actual MT production. The two videos are nearly identical, this is clearly theft of Ratmansky’s work.

Copywright/ Theft

Ratmansky's name has been removed from all credits of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky. Yet his work, such as Flames of Paris, and The Bright Stream, and others, have been performed since he withdrew his work from Russia without Ratmanksy's name attached - which means he's not receiving royalties for these.

Licenses of Productions

Generally, to perform works by other companies, you need a license from either the company, the choreographer, or the choreographic trust (think the Balanchine Trust or John Cranko Trust). You negotiate fees for a stager/repetiteur to come and oversee the teaching of the repertory, and check-ins to make sure that rehearsals are going well, the style is being adhered to, and that the intentions of the choreography is correct, as the original choreographer intended. The license also covers costume details (are you making your own according to the style? Buying or renting from someone else?), staging requirements (tech, music, sets, lighting etc), how many performances, and with what types of credits.

Many of the Bolshoi/Mariinsky licenses to perform ballets by foreign choreographers have expired/are expiring. Western arts organizations are mostly not renewing them given the circumstances. Therefore BT/MT no longer have the rights to program those ballets and cannot do so without a high probability of facing legal ramifications.

For example, The Bolshoi no longer can perform their semi-recent premiere, Orlando by Christopher Spuck, these rights expired in March 2024. Similarly, their contract for Jewels is up as well as Nureyev created by Possokhov-Serebrennikov. Mariinsky's Jewels is said to expire in 2025. You can read more details here.

[tikitania]

russian companies are really getting creative with tour destinations now that they've been blocked n contact deleted from the western world. have they ever gone to oman before this ???

it makes me wonder what other countries will take them. google suggests a list of russian allies but I suppose you don't technically have to be a russian ally just to bring in a russian ballet company, you'd just have a less harsh stance on it than western europe and north america. (this wondering is kind of selfish because i'm not in either of those regions...)

Right! It seems so limited. Asia & The Middle East. S. Africa & S. America would welcome them, but I doubt they would even go. Even former Soviet Republics (like Georgia and Azerbijan) seem that welcoming. Did you see today’s announcement by the Mariinksy of another special performance in China to honor their “special partnership?”

I can’t really trek to China to see one of my favorite ballet companies, which is why western companies need to step it up! Haha!

[balletomaneblog]

Lots of debuts have just been announced at the Mariinksy! 

Camilla Mazzi is debuting Maria in the Fountain of Bakhchisarai on January 19th. Anastasia Lukina is debuting Kitri in Don Quixote on January 21st. And finally Maria Iliushkina is debuting Giselle on January 31st!

[besoindedanser]

May Nagahisa and Victor Caixeta

Rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet at the Mariinksy 

From her Instagram account

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Thirty-Nine

Third story for @drawlight‘s advent challenge!

(And possibly the most confusingly titled?) 

I guess I’m now aiming for as many canon-divergent lovey moments as I can get. 

Day 3: Nutcracker (1364 words)

Crowley hadn’t meant to pry.

The envelope had his name on it, for Satan’s sake. What was he supposed to think?

He had come over to Aziraphale’s shop for a planning session. The baby Antichrist was now almost 4 months old; they needed to come up with cover identities, outlines of lessons, scripts, strategies even. They would only have one shot, they had to get this right.

So he’d come to the shop, been disappointed to find Aziraphale was out (probably stocking up on snacks from that bakery down the street, the other bakery down the corner, and the sweet shop on the other side of Soho), and seen an envelope on the floor by the desk marked Crowley, thought nothing of picking it up. He’d honestly expected an overly verbose note explaining where the angel had gone.

It wasn’t a note.

It was tickets.

Two tickets to see The Nutcracker at the Royal Albert Hall.

That had been shocking enough; then he saw the date.

December of 2003.

After that, Crowley absolutely meant to pry.

By the time Aziraphale returned, he had found every hidden envelope and lain out their contents neatly across the table at the back of the shop.

Albert Hall.

London Coliseum.

Royal Opera House.

Palais Garnier.

Danube Palace.

Hermitage Theater.

Mariinksy Theater.

Two tickets to The Nutcracker.

Every year from 1968 to 2007.

Thirty-nine pairs of tickets.

He didn’t know what to say. What do you say to something like that? So, Crowley arranged the tickets, sat behind the table, and waited, dark glasses covering his eyes.

Aziraphale stared at the display for a very long time before mustering up the strength to say, “Ah.”

“Is it really that good?” Crowley didn’t mean to start so belligerently, but he was on edge.

“Well, I – I did quite enjoy it.”

“Oh, well, I wouldn’t know because someone’s been hoarding all the tickets.”

“I didn’t…it wasn’t…” Aziraphale began to back away.

“Oh, no.” Crowley leapt to his feet, circling around behind the angel. “You don’t get out of this one. I’m sick of avoiding the issue. We’re going to talk.” He picked up two tickets for a performance at the Vienna Staatsoper. “Why, Aziraphale?”

“Well. After. After…” He waved his hand, somehow managing to indicate without a word the hundred-and-five-year argument and the quiet resolution in the Bentley that they never ever spoke of. “After...that. You said you’d never seen the works of Tchaikovsky, because you’d been… sleeping. You’d heard the music, but you’d never gone. So, I thought…I thought…”

The angel looked wildly in every direction, still trying to edge away, body stiff with tension.

Crowley circled around again, blocking his escape. Something rose inside him, hope and fear and desperation and frustration and he wouldn’t let this go until he knew. “You thought I’d like to go.”

Aziraphale nodded, eyes locked on his feet.

“You were right. I would have liked to go.” Crowley swallowed, trying to keep his voice calm. “I missed going to concerts and ballets with you. But you were always the one to invite me, and you said…you said…”

“Crowley…”

“No, Angel. I want to know why you kept all these. I want to know why you never brought it up. I want to know what stopped you thirty-nine times.”

“Crowley, please!” And Aziraphale met his eyes with that look.

That broken, desperate, shattered look.

The one that always told Crowley when he’d pushed too far.

His heart slammed into his ribs, his throat closed up, and with a shake of his head, he started to walk away.

“Forty times.”

Crowley turned back. Aziraphale had stepped away from the table, was pulling a book off one of the shelves. Even from the other side of the shop, Crowley could see him trembling.

“There were forty…you missed one.”

From the pages of the book, Aziraphale pulled not an envelope, but a single piece of paper, tattered, folded, the creases worn almost to the point of tearing. Crowley didn’t even feel himself move as he walked back, accepting it with numb fingers.

“I only wrote the letter once. No, no, I wrote it a hundred times, destroyed all the others. But I just…” Aziraphale closed the book and waited.

The paper had gone soft with age, yellow, brittle at the edges. Crowley struggled not to tear it as his shaking fingers unfolded it. The ink on the tickets had faded, so that Crowley couldn’t even make out the name of the venue. But the words of the letter, written in that neat, elaborate style Aziraphale preferred, were still perfectly clear.

My dear fellow,

I cannot be what you want me to be.

I’m not brave enough. I’m not strong enough. I don’t know how to be anything but what I am.

But I have missed you. So very, very much.

You mean more to me than I ever thought would be possible. More than I could ever express.

And I can’t stand to lose you again.

I know I could never keep up with you, live the kind of life you live. But, I hope, sometimes, you will slow down enough to meet me where I am.

I will take whatever time together I can get. Every moment of you in my life is precious.

And perhaps…someday…I can learn to go faster, too.

Aziraphale

December 3, 1967

Crowley read every word.

And then he read them again. And a third time.

He was starting on his fourth when the silence finally got to Aziraphale. “I wanted to give it to you, truly but I – every time, I couldn’t…”

“There weren’t any tickets for this year.” It was the only thought Crowley was ready to put into words.

“Well…no, I didn’t think, what with…There’s only a few years left. There didn’t seem any point, I suppose.”

“No point in going to a ballet?”

“No point in trying to… change who I am.”

The letter and tickets tumbled to the ground as Crowley stepped forward, arms reaching towards Aziraphale – who flinched away, eyes darting up, as if expecting to see Gabriel and the Archangels hovering above the bookshelves.

“Angel, listen to me.” Crowley softened his voice, speaking as carefully as he could. No, it still wasn’t enough. He pulled off his glasses, tossed them on the table, so when he met Aziraphale’s eyes, nothing was hidden. So Aziraphale could see the fear and pain and longing equal to his own. “You don’t need to be anything other than what you already are. When I’m with you I’m more…at peace, more myself, than any other time. I have never wanted you to change.”

“You…” Aziraphale’s voice was miserable. “You always ask questions. You want me to…to doubt Heaven, to rebel with you, and I can’t…”

“No.” Crowley felt sick at the accusation. He took another step closer. “No, all I ever wanted was for you to see yourself the way I do. You’re smart enough to know what’s really right, you’re good enough to do it even when you’re told it’s wrong, and you’re enough of a clever bastard to cover your tracks and keep going.” Aziraphale laughed at that, a single breathy chuckle choked with unshed tears.

“You deserve an angel that’s willing to go against Heaven for you.” Jaw clenched. Teetering on the edge.

“I don’t want any other angel.”

And Aziraphale fell, into his shoulder, into his arms, into his heart where he had always belonged.

And Crowley pulled him close, cradled his head, caught him, welcomed him, brought him home.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale sobbed. “I should have given you that letter years ago.”

“Shut up,” Crowley growled. “I have it now. That’s all that matters.”

“But we only have eleven years…”

“Plenty of time.” He pulled Aziraphale closer, buried his own face in the curve of the angel’s neck, felt hot hands pressed into his back.

“Where…” Aziraphale’s voice trembled. “Where do we even begin?”

“Well,” Crowley said from where he was cocooned in the angel’s arms, his warmth, his smell, the beat of his heart. “Call me crazy but…how about we go see a ballet?”

This time, Aziraphale’s laugh was long, deep and genuine.