Word: virtuoso
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bolshoi's Swan Lake was strikingly different from the two versions-by the New York City Ballet and Britain's Royal Ballet-most frequently seen in the West. While the City Ballet version telescopes the action into a single act and provides brilliant virtuoso movements for the entire ballet corps, the Bolshoi keeps the original four acts and focuses on the soloists, with the corps often planted in mere statuesque rows and curves. The traditional Swan Lake ending, which is authentically portrayed by the Royal Ballet-the Princess changed back into a swan, forever lost to the world...
There were other stars both evenings: Vladimir Levashev, who danced the role of the Evil Sorcerer with briny conviction and made his final, crippled death dance a wonderful virtuoso exercise; Nicolai Fadeyechev, who was superb as the Prince, particularly in his leaps in the Act III Black Swan variations; Georgi Soloviev as an acrobatic Jester (a happy Russian addition to the ballet). Occasionally ragged the first evening, the Bolshoi's Swan Lake was danced with fine precision at the second performance. The repetitive, copybook attitudes of the ballet corps occasionally clotted the action and wearied...
Munakata does not always maintain the virtuoso standards of this religious series. Lapses occur when he adds colored ink to the black and white woodcut. Munakata, it seems, is not in any way as gifted a colorist as he is a draftsman. His heavy, almost garish, coloring emphasizes how far he has turned from the nice distinctions of tone and shade in eighteenth and nineteenth century Japanese prints. This very simple style, more Western than Oriental, mainly produces naive results; the childish, pseudo-folk art atmosphere of Stones in Water and Hawk Woman is most disturbing. However, the best color...
...seventy-eight the Maestro is not yet finished with concocting enigmas. For the past six decades we have learned to recognize many Picassos: Picasso the archpriest of modern art, heir to Cezanne; Picasso the innovator and incorrigible prophet; Picasso the virtuoso of an infinitely flexible technique; Picasso the wit, even the coquette...
Miss Schell, as the unfortunate Gervaise, gives a virtuoso performance, pulling out every emotional stop, but with a restraint that makes her suffering convincing. Her tears and her simpers are no doubt the best of their kind in the motion picture business, but whereas her recent Hollywood directors (who know a good thing when they see one) have restricted Miss Schell's efforts almost exclusively to these two talents, M. Clement allows his star a fuller range of expression--with much more satisfactory results...