Soviet rule is back at Bolshoi ballet
by Tony Halpin
"He ruled the world's most famous ballet company with an iron fist for three decades until he was ousted in a revolt against his authoritarian style.
Now Yuri Grigorovich is returning to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow to oversee the Soviet-era repertoire that earned him global fame as a choreographer."
The Times - 8th March 2008

Bolshoi Ballet: 'Molotov cocktail' springs surprise changes
by Ismene Brown
"£The arrangement, announced yesterday, was described by a despairing insider as "a Molotov cocktail" that would guarantee artistic anarchy and spell doom to the Bolshoi's recent sparkling revival under Ratmansky's directorship, after long decline under and following Grigorovich's 30-year rule."
The Daily Telegraph - 4th March 2008

The Bolshoi Ballet Appoints a New Artistic Director
by Sophia Kishkovsky
Mr. Iksanov said on Monday that he wanted the Bolshoi Ballet to stay the course set by Mr. Ratmansky, with whom Mr. Burlaka has worked.
“In making this decision I was guided by the principle that the new artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater’s ballet should be the heir of Ratmansky, preserving his vector of the ballet’s development,” the official news agency RIA Novosti quoted Mr. Iksanov as saying. He added that the artistic director “must support the idea of the search for young stars.”
The New York Times - 4th March 2008

Bolshoi Theater Picks New Artistic Director
by Raymond Stults
"Ending months of speculation, the Bolshoi Theater on Monday announced that Yury Burlaka would replace Alexei Ratmansky as artistic director of its ballet troupe."
The Moscow Times - 4th March 2008

Natalia Bessmertnova - An Appreciation
by Clement Crisp
"Her family name can, ironically, mean "immortal". Her immortality is the undying fact of her ravishing dancing, her generous, beautiful artistry."
The Financial Times

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
by Chris Pasles (LA Times)
"Critics noted how her sylph-like figure, long arms and legs and poetic expressivity made her ideal for such romantic roles as Giselle. At the same time, she possessed a nervous energy, impulsiveness and mercurial emotions that could be exploited in more contemporary works."
The St Petersburg Times

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
"Her eminence began, in fact, even before she left the ballet school, when she became the first dancer there to be awarded an A+ mark in the final examination."
The Times

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
by Nadine Meisner
"With her long, fragile lines and big eyes, she had the lyrical grace of a Russian icon; with her high, lilting jump and expansive arcs of movement, she had a versatility recorded in many videos and DVDs of ballets as diverse as Giselle and Spartacus."
The Independent

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
by Judith Cruickshank
"For more than 30 years Natalia Bessmertnova, who has died in Moscow after a long illness aged 66, was one of the leading dancers of Bolshoi Ballet."
The Guardian

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
by Jack Anderson
"Reviewing the Bolshoi’s London season in 1969 for The New York Times, Clive Barnes called Ms. Bessmertnova 'the kind of dancer born to dance Giselle.'"
The New York Times

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
The Telegraph’s obituary for Natalia Bessmertnova:
‘..as with Fonteyn..there was little doubt in the company that Bessmertnova was a star by right, at least in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the bitterness and enmity that Grigorovich inspired in the established stars he sidelined -such as Maya Plisetskaya - was never transferred to the dancer herself.’
The Daily Telegraph

Obituary: Natalia Bessmertnova
Longtime Bolshoi prima ballerina Bessmertnova has died at age 66
Moscow
"Natalia Bessmertnova, prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet for decades during the Soviet era, died Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the ballet said. She was 66."
AP via International Herald Tribune

Bolshoi’s Director Won’t Join City Ballet
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
The New York City Ballet and Alexei Ratmansky have ended their pas de deux. After inviting Mr. Ratmansky to become its resident choreographer, City Ballet said Tuesday that he would not be taking the job because he was too busy.
The New York Times

Bolshoi Director May Take Job at City Ballet
By GIA KOURLAS
Alexei Ratmansky, the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, has confirmed that he is leaving the Bolshoi and is in negotiations with New York City Ballet to become its resident choreographer. He would replace Christopher Wheeldon, who is leaving at the end of this month.
The New York Times

The battle of the Bolshoi
Wheeldon's 'Elsinore' on Channel 4
by Francesca Martin
"The show follows the trials and tribulations of Christopher Wheeldon, the first British choreographer to be invited to create a new work for the Bolshoi Ballet."
The Guardian - 5th December 2007

Obituary: Igor Moiseyev
London
By Nadine Meisner
"He created several ballets for the Bolshoi: among them The Footballer (1930), which showed a gift for humorous satire, Salammbô (1932) and Three Fat Men (1935). His last ballet for the Bolshoi, premiered in 1958, was a version of Spartacus – their first – but it was not a success, receiving only nine performances. By then, though, he had long moved on. In 1939, having displeased the authorities with his modernist attitudes and participation in an organised protest against the stifling of creativity, Moiseyev left the Bolshoi."
The Independent - 9th October 2007

Obituary: Igor Moiseyev
London
By Mary Clarke
"Moiseyev...entered the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow. Here he was a pupil of Alexander Gorsky and was also influenced by the innovations of the choreographer Kasyan Goleizovsky. From 1924 to 1939, he was a principal dancer with the Bolshoi company - it was his inspired moulding of classical ballet technique, which he called "the grammar of movement", with folk dance sources drawn from throughout the Soviet Union that gave his company such supremacy."
The Guardian - 7th November 2007

Obituary: Igor Moiseyev
Experimental Russian choreographer who fused folk dance with ballet
London
"Moiseyev was an early proponent of experimentation with form, content and discipline in ballet, and it was in one of Kasyan Goleizovsky's experimental ballets that Moiseyev made his first solo debut on the Bolshoi stage. Soon, however, Goleizovsky was replaced as ballet director at the Bolshoi...Moiseyev joined others who wrote to the director of the Bolshoi asking for Goleizovsky not to be replaced...Moiseyev, undaunted, wrote to Anatoly Lunacharsky, Commissar for Enlightenment, successfully winning his support to their cause, and managed to get the ballet rebels reinstated."
The Times - 6th November 2007

Obituary: Igor Moiseyev
London
By Staff Writer
"Originally a Bolshoi Ballet dancer, he applied balletic technique to the myriad folk dance traditions represented in the USSR — from the Slavs and Balts to the Asians in the east — and invented a spectacular new theatrical form which delighted his political masters and thrilled audiences regardless of their affiliations.
The Daily Telegraph - 5th November 2007

Obituary: Igor Moiseyev
Igor Moiseyev, 101, Choreographer, Dies
New York
By Jack Anderson
"Mr. Moiseyev attributed his dancers’ virtuosity and versatility to their training in classical ballet, which he described in a 1970 interview as “the grammar of movement.”
"With ballet technique as a base,” he added, “one can do everything.”
"He continued to work with traditional ballet companies throughout his career. In 1958, he staged his own version of “Spartacus” for the Bolshoi Ballet.
New York Times - 3rd November 2007

Kings of Dance - Ethan Stiefel, Angel Corella, Johan Kobborg and Nikolai Tsiskaridze
Kings of ballet dance gather in Moscow
Moscow via Bejing
by Liu Fang
"Five of the world's top ballet dancers are in Moscow working on a program that strives to elevate the power of the male dance. As "Kings of the Dance" prepares to captivate the Bolshoi, Moscow balletomanes await a rare opportunity to savour and compare performances by five of the world's best."
CCTV International 1st November 2007

Bolshoi Academy - Henry Perkins
Bolshoi's Billy Elliot doesn't qualify for help
London
By Chris Hastings
"The family of a rising British ballet star has accused the Government of "kicking him in the teeth financially" after he landed a place at the Bolshoi dance academy in Moscow.
"The parents of Henry Perkins, 16, only the second British boy to win a place at the school in 230 years, have not only been refused a government grant to help with the cost of his studies but have now had their entitlement to child benefit taken away."
The Sunday Telegraph - 20th October 2007

The Bolshoi's London season
With a New Leader and Renewed Verve, Bolshoi Soars in Londoners’ Eyes
by Jane Perlez
"The Bolshoi Ballet’s current season here, the third in four years, is such a success that it has inspired standing, shouting ovations from audiences and superlatives from sometimes finicky critics, including one who deemed a performance worthy of six stars out of five."
The New York Times - August 16th 2007

Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi is as camp as a ballet dancer's knickers
'Camp is alive and well and pitching its pretty pink tent in St Martin's Lane. The Bolshoi is perhaps the world's premier exponent of High Camp (if you don't count the world of professional skating, that is). Their style often makes me think of silent movies, of the kind of gloriously over-the-top melodrama that was used to convey emotions without words.'
The Guardian - 10th August 2007

Bolshoi Ballet
Dancers make a spectacle of themselves
Le Corsaire
UK, London, Coliseum
by Judith Flanders
"The Bolshoi has staged what it hopes is the nearest possible recreation of the 1899 version of the ballet extravaganza Le Corsaire. And seeing it, it is immediately clear that this is precisely what nineteenth-century audiences were seeing - and loving."
The Guardian - 8th August 2007

Acosta as Spartacus at the Bolshoi
by Louise Jury
"It's very much his personality. He's very much like a superhero who could lead a group of people to anything - to freedom, to ideals. It seems to me that Carlos doesn't need to act it, it's just him."
The Evening Standard - 6th August 2007

Why is ballet still blacking up?
by Judith Mackrell
"The Bolshoi may have toned down the black face paint for what can only be described as the 'golliwog' dancers in its current staging of La Bayadère, but is it time to get rid of them entirely?"
The Guardian - 3rd August 2007

Christopher Wheeldon - Elsinore
It was absolute agony
by Fiona Maddocks
'He began working up the piece with the company in Moscow at the end of last year. "It was absolute agony. They didn't know what I was trying to do and gave me some 'we are not amused' responses. I couldn't make sense of the play and was getting more and more in knots. I thought, 'OK, I'm in hot water. I need to sort this out.'"'
The Evening Standard - 31st July 2007

Bolshoi may miss 2008 overhaul deadline
by Olesya Dmitracova
'At the weekend, Russian media quoted the Bolshoi's Director General Anatoly Iksanov as saying the end of the renovation had been delayed by at least a year. Earlier this month, he said he hoped it would reopen between September and November 2008'
Reuters - 31st July 2007

The Bolshoi Ballet
Triumphant Ballet is Back to its Glorious Best
by Richard Edwards
'The company's name itself - "Bolshoi" - means big. Its resurrection was evident as it enjoyed a sell-out season in London last year. Critics said it was brimming with confidence, and that the company, once a hive of corruption and privilege, was back to its best and embracing modernism.'
The Daily Telegraph - 31st July 2007

Bringing the Bolshoi back to the Small Screen
by Joel Lobenthal
New York
'Essential watching for anyone who loves dance are five Video Artists International releases new to DVD featuring performances by members of the Bolshoi Ballet as well as some of its greatest stars.'
The New York Sun - 30th July 2007

The Billionaires who Saved the Bolshoi
by Jonathan Brown and Jerome Taylor
London
'as Communism collapsed, Russian society was transformed by the rush of privatisation. Like many institutions that had been thoroughly Sovietised, both the Bolshoi's autocratic management and its dancers struggled to adapt to capitalism. Lured by better wages and the promise of greater artistic freedom, defections of dancers to the West - a trend that began in earnest during the years of glasnost and perestroika - snowballed, leaving the group woefully short of great talents'
The Independent - 30th July 2007

Bolshoi Ballet
Big welcome back for the Bolshoi
London
By Clement Crisp
"And, with the appointment of Alexei Ratmansky as director, the Bolshoi becomes once again a choreographer’s ensemble – though not exclusively so, as it had been during the Grigorovich era. Ratmansky is a product of its school and company but, uniquely for the troupe, he has danced and choreographed in the west ... His policies for the Bolshoi ...are astute and imaginative."
The Financial Times - 28th July 2007

Bolshoi Ballet
Pirouettes of the Caribbean
By Louise Jury
'The Bolshoi Ballet returns to London with a new production of Le Corsaire, described as Pirates Of The Caribbean on pointe.'
The Evening Standard - 27th July 2007

The Bolshoi Ballet: Comeback Kids
by Robert Turnbull
'By looking west and bringing in outside directors, designers and choreographers, Ratmansky wants to change the culture of this once-insular and hierarchical company for good. And with enough resources to reduce the Bolshoi's punishing touring schedule - which taxes dancers to the limit - Iksanov can concentrate on getting comfortably settled into the re furbished theatre.'
The New Statesman - 26th July 2007

Bolshoi Ballet and Susan Robinson Ballet School
The Bolshoi Ballet schoolgirl veterans
London
By Bo Wilson
"When the Bolshoi Ballet performs La Bayadere at the Coliseum next month, 13-year-old Charlotte Evans and Lara Lucano, 12, will dance the roles of the water carriers...."
The Evening Standard - 25th July 2007

Bolshoi Ballet - Christopher Wheeldon
A ballet born of strife and conflict
When acclaimed British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon worked with the Bolshoi on a new 'Hamlet' ballet, the result was a passionate clash of cultures. Ismene Brown reports
London
By Ismene Brown
"Dancers love to be told they look good, and they all have their coaches with them when we're working, but these coaches are ex-Bolshoi ballerinas who represent a whole different era."
"And the ladies would countermand him, telling their protégés, "You don't look nice doing this, that movement is too sexual, it's not classical enough, the costume is wrong."
The Daily Telegraph

Profile: the Bolshoi's Ivan Vasiliev
Ivan Vasiliev, the boy who can fly
by Ismene Brown
"He dances a little something for me, rippling through the air in flashing leaps that hardly touch the ground, decorated with spins like eddies of wind. At the high point of the leap he floats for a nanosecond, exhilarated, poised, happy, a boy with wings."
The Daily Telegraph

Ivan Vasiliev video from The Daily Telegraph

Carlos Acosta in the Bolshoi
by Uriel Medina
"Performing in the Bolshoi Theatre is a challenge and a good pretext for the renowned hit maker to show his extraordinary athleticism and remarkable technical virtuosity ..."
Cuba Headlines

Bolshoi Ballet - Alexei Ratmansky
Imperial measures
The Bolshoi Ballet is changing as fast as Russia itself – which is why it’s taking a fresh look at its past, says Debra Crane
London
By Debra Crane
"I wouldn’t go for any other way of doing the classics,” he says. “I love and adore the Imperial Russian ballet, so why change it? These people who created the classics, they weren’t fools."
The Times

Bolshoi Ballet - Natalia Osipova
Nadine Meisner in the Sunday Times interviews the rising young Bolshoi star (with additional thumbnail sketches of other emerging young female ballet talent):
’..the photographer is clicking away. “That’s great,” he says as she repeats a balance, one leg raised, half-bent, in front of her. “And can you do that thing with your arm again?” Osipova’s boyfriend, a compatriot dancer, Andrej Uspenski, now in London with the Royal Ballet, translates “that thing with your arm” ‘:
The Sunday Times

Preview: the Bolshoi's Corsaire
Cult of the cutlass
by Judith Mackrell
"Even though it wasn't possible, or even desirable, to attempt a fully authentic reconstruction, Ratmansky rightly feels he has put back on stage a truthful impression of what Corsaire used to be."
The Guardian

Asaf Messerer's Class Concert restaged in Moscow
Lessons of a Ballet Great
by Kevin Ng
"Fifteen years after the choreographer's death, and nearly 40 years since the one-act ballet was last performed in Moscow, the Bolshoi commissioned a new staging. And who better to entrust with recreating the work than Messerer's nephew, Mikhail Messerer ..."
The Moscow Times

The Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is back with a dynamic artistic director and exciting new productions
by Zoe Anderson
“As the Bolshoi comes to the Coliseum for another London summer, it brings a sense of renaissance. This current success is a recovery, a return to form after a painful period of adjustment. Since the end of the Soviet Union, the company has faced and survived funding, artistic and management crises. Ratmansky's Bolshoi has both a new strength and a new sense of its own past”
The Independent

The Bolshoi's new/old Corsaire
Bolshoi dance like it's 1899
by Judith Mackrell
"Working with meticulous ballet master Yuri Burlaka, Ratmansky has gone back to the early notation and production notes of Corsaire to try and figure out what the ballet looked like in the 1899 production of Marius Petipa."
The Guardian

Natalia Osipova - A Conversation After A Debut - Giselle
by Mikhail Smondyrev, translated by Anna Korisch
"I really fell under the spell of the role, and I began to lose my mind a little. I heard from many people that this ballet is difficult psychologically and that it’s hard to recover from it. When my parents began to worry, I realized that something strange was happening. I changed while working on this role, I grew up."
Ballet.co Magazine

Marianna Ryzhkina
by Natasha Dissanayake
"What is life worth without children? I wouldn’t have been able to live without them. My work? But a ballet career is so short. After graduating I worked at the Bolshoi for one year, I had just started working there and I had to go with the Bolshoi for a gala concert in the USA. I very much wanted to go but the choice had to be made and I decided to go on maternity leave. Many people literally crossed me off the list, thinking that I was lost to ballet. However, I did come back - but! – after five years went on maternity leave again. They kept telling me that it would be impossible to regain good form after the second child. No! No regrets! My children give me so much"
Ballet.co Magazine

Mikhail Messerer and Class Concert
By Charlotte Kasner
"Ballet has relied heavily on dynasties in its more than four hundred year history, for plots as much as for its own survival. The annals of ballet would not be complete without a mention of the Messerer dynasty, a remarkable family that have devoted their lives to ballet for nearly a century. Britain is particularly fortunate in having Mikhail Messerer as a resident in London and as the force behind this first professional production since the 1960s in London of Class Concert, staged by the Bolshoi at the Coliseum as part of a triple bill this week."
Ballet.co Magazine

Natalia Osipova
London
By Jeffery Taylor
"But there is another attraction in the capital this year for the 5` 2” ballet bombshell in the person of Andrej Uspensky, 27, a dancer born and trained in St Petersburg and a member of our own London based Royal Ballet since 2002..."
Ballet.co Magazine/Sunday Express

Ivan Vasiliev
by Ian Palmer
'La Fille mal Gardee is an English ballet, it is more lyrical and there is so much more subtle laughter in this role. It is so different from Don Quixote where you have to fly as high as you can and pirouette as much as you can. In La Fille there is also so much technically to do, but you have to frame yourself within its beautiful and well-organized manner. This is the most important thing for a dancer: restraining yourself into the style of the work.'
Ballet.co Magazine

Natalia Osipova
by Ian Palmer
‘It was my initiative to work with Kondratieva. I had dreamed of being with her since school. I wanted her and I took a risk…I have noticed that something strange is happening to me. I am getting much happier with lyrical roles, such as Juliet, and for a year I have been preparing Giselle’
Ballet.co Magazine

Yuri Possokhov and Cinderella
by Renee Renouf
‘Everyone, everyone, said Prokofiev is not very profound. But I realized that everything in his music is concerned with his times, his relationships…It was a time when he lost his wife. That’s why you can understand the music, why it is so tragic. Cinderella is his wife! I thought before it was dark. After, I realized, it’s not dark, it’s the relation, it’s a little bit like his soul speaking.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Ruslan Pronin
by Charlotte Kasner
‘My dream throughout training was to dance Ivan Grozny in Grigorovich’s ballet but unfortunately it is no longer in the repertoire. It was the same for many of us, the ambition to dance that role. I think that it is a great pity that it is not being danced now because it is a wonderful role.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Svetlana Lunkina
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘Without any doubt life is much larger than just ballet. The most important for me is my family, children and joy of life in general. And life itself.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Svetlana Lunkina
by Jeffrey Taylor
‘Our company is based on our heritage and continuity, to throw all that away is just destruction for its own sake,“ insists Lunkina. “But the dancers are so strong, so talented and so devoted to the Bolshoi Ballet ideals they pull themselves together and produce brilliant performances that sometimes amaze even ourselves. There is hope yet.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Irek Mukhamedov and Spartacus for Hong Kong Ballet
by Natasha Rogai
‘Mukhamedov admits that it can be difficult to shake off the memory of Grigorovich’s choreography, which he danced for many years and which matches the grand scale of the music so well. However, he wants to avoid the trademark “big” Russian style where possible – this fits his concept of Spartacus himself as more human and less obviously heroic than in Grigorovich’s ballet.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Maria Alexandrova
by Bruce Marriott
‘I am realistic about myself and about the life situation because I learned to decide clearly 'Is this good' or 'Is this bad'. Can the bad be changed? If it can be changed then I will do it. If not, then I will be realistic - sometimes compromises are necessary’
Ballet.co Magazine

Yuliana Malkhasyants
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘Ballet as a form of art wasn’t born in Russia but in the West; however in Russia it reached its heights. The character dance as a specific genre was born in Russia, and there is no school of character dance anywhere outside Russia. This is entirely ours, we own this, and it is our duty to preserve it.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Nikolai Tsiskaridze
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘I realized that health is the most important thing in life, not necessarily my health only but also the health of my close ones. Nothing can be more terrible than the loss of health. When I couldn’t walk, all grievances of my past career seemed to me childish and foolish. It’s a pity that in the past I wasted so much of my energy and nerves on emotional turmoil’
Ballet.co Magazine

Alexei Ratmansky
by Kevin Ng
‘Of course we need to find young dancers, but we cannot just throw away the old dancers, and I need to find the right balance. For me my focus is on the existing great dancers, to use them to the maximum, to find the ballets that will develop them as artists, and to give them the right parts’
Ballet.co Magazine

Alexei Ratmansky
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘Yesterday Irina Shostakovich, the composer’s widow, presented me with a book about Leonid Yakobson and I saw there his statement, which I heard earlier. He said about 30 years ago: “Classical ballet is dead.” I wouldn’t be so categorical, although there is a grain of truth there, since it is not the language of today.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Gennadi Yanin
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘Casting is done by me and the Artistic Director. Every dancer wants to appear on stage often. Unfortunately, not many dancers make impartial assessments of themselves and have a realistic view of their own potential. As a rule their self-assessment is rather high. What a stumbling block this is!’
Ballet.co Magazine

Ludmilla Semenyaka
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘At every stage I met people without whom I wouldn’t have been made. I was inspired by the dancers whom I saw on stage then. The generation which preceded me in the Kirov Ballet was fantastic, absolutely brilliant: Sizova, Kolpakova, Osipenko, Makarova, and Fedicheva – these ballerinas were divine.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Nina Ananiashvili
by Jeffrey Taylor
‘Wherever you go it matters who you are and who you know, personal contacts are everything. An international Mafia of ballerinas as Arts Minister would solve a lot of problems!’
Ballt.co Magazine

Nina Ananiashvili
by Philip Bichard
‘Ananiashvili doesn't approve of ballet “updates” that purport to be the real thing, but then go off the rails into territory never imagined by the original choreographer, composer – or the audience. She believes it is disrespectful, pointless and misleading. “When you listen to Mozart, Bach, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov or whatever, do you want to change this music? You listen to this because you like to listen, right?”’
Ballet.co Magazine

Svetlana Zakharova
by Kevin Ng
‘In the theatre you always have to prove yourself. I constantly have to prove to everyone that I want to do something, and am capable of doing it. And I had to keep it to myself. The only people who knew about it was myself, my beloved teacher Olga Moiseeva (whom I'll greatly miss), and my mother’
Ballet.co Magazine – Part 1
Ballet.co Magazine – Part 2

Svetlana Zakharova
by Natasha Dissanayake
‘when she’s at the theatre, she always insists on her stage costumes differing from those worn by other ballerinas. No matter what people say to her about observing tradition, she always tries to get permission to change either the colour, or some other detail, so that she can feel that the costume really is hers.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Pierre Lacotte and The Pharaoh’s Daughter
by Bruce Marriott
‘There is considerable difference between La Fille du Pharaon and Don Quixote; the former follows the romantic tradition of bringing a dead person back to life - the exoticism of La Fille du Pharaon is a great spectacle, a fairy story. Don Quixote is a character ballet with folk dance and classical dance, spirited and full of life’
Ballet.co Magazine

Svetlana Lunkina
by Kevin Ng
‘There is a notion that there are two types of dancers - emotional and lyrical. (Aegina and Kitri are emotional roles for instance, Phrygia and Giselle are lyrical roles.) I am taken more as a lyrical adagio ballerina, since all my previous roles were more lyrical in style. A true ballerina should encompass both the emotional and lyrical sides.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Nina Ananiashvili
by Bruce Marriott
‘In {the Bolshoi} we don't have ballerina for one night - we try to grow people to be ballerina all the time. What the Kirov is doing - pick up young girl, give her one performance and then they forget about this girl and pick up another one... We don't like it this way. It was not even Kirov's system also I think. They are looking very differently under this administration and they try to make names for one season and this is very bad - not Russian style of work’
Ballet.co Magazine

Alexei Fadeyechev
by Kevin Ng
‘I try to make the Bolshoi a more humanistic institution. It is more important to be human. I respect those dancers who have given their whole lives to this theatre… Young dancers need examples from older generations.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Lieutenant Kijé
Dancers: Vasiliev, Struchkova
By Charlotte Kasner
'Raissa Struchkova is the perfect Lady in Waiting (pun intended); the direct descendent of a style of dancing handed down from Lopokhova and then to Danilova, it has a panache and vivacity that has all but been sacrificed to the demands of ever higher extensions and the demon technique.'
Ballet.co Magazine

Swan Lake & The Dying Swan
Dancers: Plisetskaya, Fadeyechev, Khomyakov, Levashev
By Anjuli Bai
The Dying Swan - 'The momentary droop into stillness does not descend into the melodramatic rather it is the desire to live and the acceptance of death. This Swan is alone – it’s not performing for an audience, rather it is hearing and then acquiescing to the call of its Maker.'
Ballet.co Magazine

Romeo and Juliet
Dancers: Ulanova, Zhdanov, Yermolayev, Koren, Kudryashov, Sergeyev
By Graham Watts
‘The speed of Ulanova’s footwork is always stunning, as if the film is suddenly fast forwarded every time she moves, and her technique is routinely flawless with solid pirouettes and a total elegance of line and body flight…it’s her expression which remains unforgettable, unconsciously creating a series of chapter marks in the mind’
Ballet.co Magazine

Spartacus
Dancers: Vasiliev, Liepa, Timofeyeva,
By Charlotte Kasner
‘Vassiliev, the creator of Grigorovich's Spartacus, is in his prime; his elevation and power have to be seen to be believed, and he is no mean turner either. It is quite surprising to realise how powerfully built he is as he has the grace of a gazelle and an elegance that belies Spartacus' humble origins.’
Ballet.co Magazine

The Stone Flower
Dancers: Vasiliev, Maximova, Levashov, Adikhaeva
By Charlotte Kasner
‘As ever, Vassiliev is the thinking dancer whose Danila is expressive if not overly bright. He is perhaps, in this interpretation, self-centred in his pursuit of stone masonly perfection which leaves his girl vulnerable to the advances of the lecherous landlord and obliged to travel over the mountains to get him out of a fix.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Trapeze / Fragments of a Biography
Dancers: Vasiliev, Maximova, Vlasova, Baranovski, Smirnov, Timofeyeva, Liepa, Fadeyechev
By Graham Watts
‘…these rare examples of the outrageously brilliant techniques of Vasiliev and Maximova, captured forever in modern Russian ballets which are not well-known in the west, are absolutely priceless.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Dancing for Dollars
By John Mallinson
‘In the eyes of Mr Martin the company went from being divine creatures to "little shits" who wouldn't perform without being paid. He and his backers (who seemed to be naive, small-town rural folk, "horse-traders," none of whom knew anything about ballet) lost $1.8 million. The Bolshoi went home early, only paid their advance.’
Ballet.co Magazine

The Little Humpbacked Horse
Dancers: Plisetskaya, Vasiliev, Radunsky, Scherbinina
By John Mallinson
‘Schredin's score is easy on the ear, with hints of Rimsky-Korsakov and the Prokofiev of Cinderella. The piece mixes comedy and heavy buffoonery with some more serious solos for the Queen Maiden and Ivan and a couple of ballibiles. The dance style is classically and folk based, pleasing but not especially original or exciting . There is expansive and precise dancing from Plisetskaya and some virtuosity from Vasiliev which are a pleasure to see.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Don Quixote
Dancers: Pavlova, Gordeev, Plisetskaya, Liepa
By Anjuli Bai
‘Nadezda Pavlova’s sky high temps de fleche (step of the arrow) announced her large personality in a small spit fire body though the very height of it caused a momentary hesitancy. This was answered by Vyacheslav Gordeev's renversés. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this most difficult step performed quite so enthusiastically nor so quickly, nor with the opening leg at a full ninety degree height during the entire circle from front to back.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Anyuta
Dancers: Vasiliev, Maximova, Markovsky
By Charlotte Kasner
‘Too often, dancers have to portray broad stereotypes, be they swans, princes or abstracs bodies demonstrating pure movement for its own sake. Anyuta is a jewel of a ballet, embodying Russian heritage whilst being a truly modern classical ballet. Vassiliev has created a mini masterpiece that deserves the opportunity of a wider audience that this DVD affords it.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Mlada
Dancers: Ananiashvilli, Malkhasyants
By Ian Palmer
‘work-a-day choreography made luminous solely by the presence of that dance siren, Nina Ananiashvilli as the Princess Mlada. She sculpts her body into the most ravishing shapes, her long, long limbs seem to be ever pining for the lover whom she has lost; her legs seem never to end and are matched in their expanse by the wide, mournful hollows of her eyes which fix her face with the most intense of expressions.’
Ballet.co Magazine

The Pharaoh’s Daughter
Dancers: Zakharova
By Eugene Merrett
‘The main weakness of The Pharaoh's Daughter is that it has no plot or drama which binds the dancing together. The ballet is really just a long procession of lovely dancing, set to very bland (even by the standards of hack ballet music of the 19th century) music.’
Ballet.co Magazine

The Glory of the Bolshoi
Dancers: Vasiliev, Maximova, Mankevitch, Mukhemedev, Bessmertnova, Geltzer, Tikhomirov, Plisetskaya, Ulanova
By Charlotte Kasner
‘The Flames of Paris excerpt from the same year is a reminder of how exciting ballet technique was in that period, even if now we might regard it as unplaced and messy. The athleticism of the company is extended into travelling into the vast spaces of the Bolshoi and Palace of Congresses stages rather than as today, upward into high extensions and stiff torsos.’
Ballet.co Magazine

Spartacus
Dancers: Gabovich, Bylova, Bessmertnova, Mukhamedov
By Charlotte Kasner
‘Irek Mukhamedov is splendid in the title role. Here he is at the age of 24, first seen, chained and humiliated, rising out of a cluster of dejected and kneeling slaves, demonstrating the impotent despair of a noble character oppressed and abused by the power of others…For those who have only seen him dancing in the West this video will explain why there was such a buzz of excitement and astonishment when he left Russia to join the Royal Ballet and dance their rather more restrained repertoire.’
Ballet.co Magazine