Word: petipa
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Perhaps earlier versions of this ballet did a better job. Holmes' current interpretation made its debut at Boston Ballet in 1989, and is based on the 19th century choreography of Russians Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky. Although Boston Ballet no longer performs the 1982 version staged for them by Rudolph Nureyev, they dedicate their performance to this late ballet virtuoso...
...brisk, bold spectacle, a radical new look at a beloved full-length classic, The Sleeping Beauty. It's not perversely set in a Paris slum or Sherwood Forest, as an avant-gardist might have done. The sumptuous fairy-tale illusion, as well as almost all Petipa's choreography, has been retained. But The Sleeping Beauty is usually a dozy night at the ballet -- a prologue and three acts with three intermissions. Peter Martins' $2.8 million version, unveiled at New York City Ballet in the past two weeks, is in two acts, with several smart cuts and breathtakingly fast transitions between...
...waves and lyrical lightning. For the next scenes, set in the land of some randy, warlike Pasha, the Soviets seemed to have unwound their every bolt of gaudy cloth. No fewer than five composers are credited with contributing to the noisy score; the choreography, some of it by Marius Petipa, is strictly cut and paste; the plot went down with the ship. But Le Corsaire provides the occasion for some florid dancing, especially in the hands of bravura technicians like Tatyana Terekhova and Farukh Ruzimatov or a poet on point like Altynai Asylmuratova, the company's reigning ballerina...
...staging, by Artistic Associate Kenneth MacMillan, emphasizes clarity and tradition. He stays with Marius Petipa's choreography, wherever it has survived. (Many of his steps have been lost, as subsequent directors modified sequences to suit later, often smaller companies and different dancers.) The piece is set in 17th and 18th century French surroundings, as it often is. The scenery, by Nicholas Georgiadis, is pleasing if not quite light and airy enough. The costumes, also by Georgiadis and supervised by Anna Watkins, are breathtaking, not only sumptuous but redolent of a royal fantasy. The stage is filled with personages who could...
...choreography proceeds pretty much from left to right too. This ballet looks somewhat shallow; it does not try to fill the stage in a proper Petipa way. In most other respects it is very much in the classical style. For one thing, it takes very seriously the imperial role of its ballerina, Martine van Hamel. In the past few years Baryshnikov has invited several innovative choreographers to work for A.B.T., and not all have been successful. With her pure, ample style, Van Hamel has been much in demand and as a result has soldiered her way across some very murky...