Classical Music

Directed by Andy Sommer. Starring Orchestre de Paris, Berlioz, Christoph Eschenbach.

Also available on Blu-ray

The Firebird:

Ekaterina Kondaurova (Firebird)
Ilya Kuznetsov (Ivan Tsarevich)
Marianna Pavlova (The Princess)
Vladimir Ponomarev (Kachtchei the Immortal)
Choreography & libretto: Michel Fokine (1910)
Reconstruction Isabelle Fokine, Andris Liepa
The Rite of Spring:

Alexandra Iosifidi (The Chosen One)
Elena Bazhenova (300-Year-Old Woman)
Vladimir Ponomarev (Shaman)
Choreography after Vaslav Nijinsky (1913)
Scene plan: Igor Stravinsky & Nicholas Roerich, reconstructed and staged by Millicent Hodson

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STRAVINSKY AND THE BALLETS RUSSES • Valery Gergiev, cond; Mariinsky O and Ballet • BELAIR BAC041 (DVD 85:00 Text and Translation) Live: St. Petersburg 6/2008


The Firebird. Le Sacre du printemps


Here’s a fascinating DVD, with two works essential to both musical and balletic history. The Firebird was Stravinsky’s introduction to the Western world, under the aegis of Serge Diaghilev, with choreography by Mikhail Fokine (1910). The reigning ballerina of the age, Anna Pavlova, refused the title role as she found the music incomprehensible. She missed out on a historic occasion. By the standards of the time, there was little dancing and much pageantry, a point that remains valid today. But Fokine rose to the challenge of the music, with the Firebird darting around and ultimately coming to the rescue of the Prince and his Bride. Ekaterina Kondaurova in the title role is startlingly precise in her movements, capturing the nuances of bird motion. Ilya Kuznetsov is a winning Prince.


Even more significant was the 1913 creation of Sacre du printemps, which caused a riot. Stravinsky is at a turning point, and Nijinsky, the choreographer, is about to turn dance on its head with his refusal to follow the tenets of classic dance. The ballet ran for one season and was dropped, to return several years later with new choreography by Léonide Massine. Millicent Hodson has devoted a significant portion of her working life to rescuing Nijinsky the choreographer from oblivion, and the 30-minute interview with her that comes as a bonus tells us about the difficulties of re-creating a masterpiece. Today no one is the least bit fazed by the music, while recognizing its difficulties for both musicians and dancers. As Hodson points out, the ballet is for 47 soloists, though in much of the work they are working in small groups, only the Chosen One standing out with her exhausting solo at the end. It is nonetheless easy to see why contemporary audiences were hostile, as none of the elements fit standard patterns. The costumes and painted drops are exceedingly colorful, the makeup resembles the faces on matrioshka dolls, and of course the choreography is the antithesis of, say, Giselle or Swan Lake . People watching this DVD may be a bit puzzled as it is difficult to see the whole stage as the camera gives us (too) frequent aerial shots so that we can see the floor patterns, and when Hodson talks about the sections where there are 47 soloists, we don’t see enough of what’s happening at a specific moment. Alexandra Iosifidi as the Chosen One unsparingly throws herself into her role, so that we are almost as exhausted as she at the end.


Of course, re-creating Firebird is an easier task than Sacre , as Fokine continued to stage the work until his death. The Mariinsky performance gives credit for the restaging to Isabelle Fokine (the choreographer’s granddaughter and artistic director of the Fokine Estate Archive) and Andris Liepa. Other performances can be traced to Diaghilev’s original ballet masters, Serge Grigoriev and Liubov Tchernicheva (Royal Ballet), not to mention totally new choreography by a host of contemporary figures. In both ballets, we see copies of the original designs for sets and costumes, magnificently re-created, while the care lavished on these performances is evident throughout. And who can resist being spoiled by the Mariinski Orchestra and its charismatic conductor, Valery Gergiev.


FANFARE: Joel Kasow

More than two centuries after its creation, the emotional pull of this supreme opera remains absolutely intact. Dmitri Therniakov duly revisits the myth and makes the seducer of Seville a “man without qualities,” a cipher whose words have a hypnotic power over women. Louis Langrée leads the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

The world-famous choreographer and dancer uses the body - movement - as the principal vehicle for his ideas. The result is there in performances, intimate or otherwise in which the body is displayed to an audience.

Four of Sweden's most innovative choreographers travel to Ingmar Bergman's home on Faro to explore and get inspired. The result is a unique dance film, Ingmar Bergman through the Choreographer's eye. As a film director, Ingmar Bergman was also a choreographer. Throughout his films, and his theatre works, one can sense his refined choreographed language - in the beautiful movement of a head, or an arm, in the blink of an eyelid - revealing painful shortcomings and chasms in close human relationships. His "invisible hand" is constantly directing the actor in a slow dance around the room. The unspoken word through each choreography is transformed into movements instead. The renowned and innovative Swedish choreographers Alexander Ekman, Par Isberg, Pontus Lidberg and Joakim Stephenson, with principal dancers Jenny Nilson, Nathalie Nordquist, Oscar Salomonsson and Nadja Sellrup from the Royal Swedish Ballet, interpret Ingmar Bergman through four unique dance performances reflecting on human relations and intense feelings. The dances are linked together with images of the epic natural beauty of Faro and Bergman's poetic home Hammars, including the voice of the master himself - Ingmar Bergman - revealing his thoughts about movements and music. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Bergman's birth, this movie is not only a tribute to the Swedish cineast's unique aesthetics, but also a way to deepen his search of the ineffable, his reflexion on the visual poetry of movement, and on the emotional powers of silent contemplation. The movie won the Special Mention award at Golden Prague International Film Festival 2017 for exceptional artistic achievement as it "excels in the exhilerating choreography, the vivid lighting, and the brilliant camerawork and editing."

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Léo Delibes’s Coppélia is not only a collection of fine dances. It is primarily an abrasive and sardonic comedy, which is somewhat unusual in the world of classical ballet. But most importantly, it is a comedy for which excellent music was composed. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s assessment of Delibes’s ballet scores, allegedly capable of overshadowing the choreography itself, is well known: “What beauty, what elegance, what richness of melody, rhythm and harmony!” It is not fortuitous that music from this ballet should be performed, for its own merits, during concerts. Funnily enough, the main theme of this light-hearted ballet is taken from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s anything but joyful novellas – mainly from The Sandman. In Hoffmann’s tale, the young man’s infatuation with the doll ends tragically, while in the ballet, the lively and energetic Swanilda (Frantz’s fiancée) is able to over wit the old Coppélius, the cunning inventor of the “Girl with the enamel eyes” and free her lover from the doll’s poisonous charm. Coppélia was premiered in 1870 at the Paris Opera on choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon’s initiative. A virtuoso dancer, Saint-Léon was Marius Petipa’s predecessor as Head of the Petersburg Ballet. His interest in folk culture, music and dance, is mainly responsible for the appearance in the music score of such a rich “selection” of dance melodies based on folklore, and especially Slavic and Eastern European themes. A few years later, Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti brought the ballet “back” to the Russia that had proved such a vivid source of inspiration for its librettist, and adapted the choreography for the Russian stage. However, this new version fell out of interest during the 20th century, until Sergey Vikharev and Pavel Gershenzon’s revival in 2009. It is here interpreted by the Bolshoi Ballet’s finest dancers: Margarita Shrayner is the witty Swanilda, and Artem Ovcharenko the love-sick Frantz.

Also available on standard DVD

This exciting release features three famous classic ballets from Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, danced by the Bolshoi Ballet. Swan Lake and The Nutcracker features choreography by Yuri Grigorovich and showcases dancers Svetlana Zakharova, Denis Rodkin and Artemy Belyakov. The Sleeping Beauty is choreographed by Marius Petipa. This special set of ballets brings the classics to life while also breathing new breath into the life of these often-performed and well-known works.

The old Tzar Dodon, tired of ruling his country, manipulated by his political advisors - among which the obscure Astrologer - and showing little interest in protecting his kingdom against foreign agression, relies on a magic Golden Cockerel to warn him in case of an attack. But when the Cockerel tells him of his own defeat, the Tzar quickly falls in love with his enemy, the beautiful Tzaritza of Shemakha, who easily convinces him to surrender his empire by making him propose to her. A cruel and sardonic fairytale, Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Cockerel draws from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, and undoubtedly counts among the most subversive works in the history of music. A very direct attack against autocracy, stupidity and political inertia, it was censored and premiered only in 1909, one year after Rimsky-Korsakov's death. This new production from the The�tre de la Monnaie was imagined by Laurent Pelly. Drawing from the modernity of Rimsky-Korsakov's musical and dramatic imagination, the ambiguities of it's specular structure, and it's underlying reflection on language, manipulation and absurdity, the French stage director underlies the heavily symbolical aspects of this fierce and pitiless tale, all the while remembering both it's historical context and it's universal philosophical depth... French conductor Alain Altinoglu works wonders with the The�tre de la Monnaie Symphonic Orchestra, and reaffirms his strong affinities with Russian music, which were already made clear in the Tchaikovsky dyptich Iolanta / The Nutcracker at the Paris Opera in 2015.

To celebrate the Verdi bicentennial, La Fura dels Baus opened the "Centanario Festival 2013" of the Arena di Verona with a new production of “Aida”. The most popular opera of Verona Festival, Aida is the only one performed every year, in front of 17,000 spectators. Using their experience in leading large-scale shows, La Fura dels Baus created an Aida for the XXIst century. The young, talented conductor Omer Meir Wellber led the Orchestra, Coro, Corpo di Ballo e Tecnici dell’Arena di Verona.

A modern and visionary work, this ballet, set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich, was created in 1930. It's central theme was the highly moralized battle and triumph of the proletariat against the decadent bourgeoisie, set in europe during the roaring twenties. Surprisingly, the score by Shsotakovich raised political controversies, probably because it borrowed much to European dance forms and consequently, the ballet vanished from the theaters until 1982, when Yuri Grigorovich restaged it with sets by Sion Virsaladze and a completely new libretto mainly revolving around the love story between Rita, a cabaret dancer, and Boris, a young idealist. The conflict in teh original production was also recast as a clash between fishermen - the morally superior workers - and society's criminal elements. To bring back on stage The Golden Age in autumn 2016, a few months prior to Yuri Grigorovich's 90th birthday, was a highly symbolic choice for the Bolshoi Ballet: this work, teh last Grigorovich would ever choreograph for his company, hadn't been staged for almost 10 years. A rare and refined ballet, which ran the risk of falling into oblivion twice, is danced by the new generation of the Bolshoi Ballet, among which Nina Kaptsova et Mikhail Lobukhin.

Bel Air Classiques presents Petipa's extravaganza ''The Pharaoh's Daughter'', in a stunning production by Pierre Lacotte. Recreating the spectacular sumptuousness of the original, the ballet tells the tale of a young Englishman who dreams he elopes with a Pharaoh's daugher. Despite a desert storm, a lion hunt and an attempted suicide, the couple finally wins the Pharaoh's blessing to their marriage. From its creation in 1862, Petipa's grandiose ballet was a sensational success; its stupendous costumes and striking scenery, its exotica, romanticism and drama appealing to audiences as much as the virtuoso choreography. The Bolshoi Ballet and the two soloists Svetlana Zakharova and Serguei Filin are at their best in spite of the difficulty of Pierre Lacotte's choreography.

The impossible love between a human prince and a swan princess, tragic fates, the constant opposition between imagination and reality: these are the core elements of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Profoundly classical, Valery Kovtun's version for the Ballet of the National Opera of Ukraine is an homage to Tchaikovsky's talent, but also to Marius Petipa's timeless heritage. As in the original libretto, this Swan Lake ends with the two main character's death, drowned into the lake's tears. But evil is overpowered by love, and in the final apotheosis, Odette and Siegfried are forever united in a world of perfect harmony. A first-class company, the Ballet Company of the National Opera of Ukraine has toured all around the world: from the United States to Europe and Asia. Thanks to it's rich classical heritage, the Company has managed to win the hearts of it's audience thanks to it's amazing technique and artistic maestria, and as in every good dance company, the whole is equal to the sum of it's parts. The Company has also, over the years, established itself as a unique talent pool, that has nurtured first class dancers such as Iana Salenko (Staatsballet Berlin), Alina Cojocaru (Royal Ballet), Maxim Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko (American Ballet Theater); and the young gifted dancers that make the Ballet's reputation ensure the preservation of the classical heritage of this historical and world-renowned company.

The Norwegian National Ballet's Hedda Gabler is Henrik Ibsen's drama retold in a way you've never seen it before. After the premiere in 2017, both Norwegian and international critics praised director Marit Moum Aune's dance production, set to music by Nils Petter Molv�r. Hedda is furious, on the verge of being consumed with disappointment. After a six-month honeymoon in Europe she has returned home to set up home with her husband, J�rgen - but nothing has turned out the way she intended. And when her former lover Eilert L�vborg enters the picture, she reacts in a way that proves perilous for everyone - including herself. Hedda Gabler is one of world theatre's most well-known characters - an icon created by Henrik Ibsen. Is she cowardly or brave? Spoilt or stuck? Wicked or desperate? Our greatest actors have always found new ways to interpret this psychologically complex role. Now the talented dancers of the Norwegian National Ballet provide their own interpretation, adding another dimension to the drama. While the original play is an intense chamber play in which a lot is left unsaid, Moum Aune paints with a broad brush. Hedda's world opens up as we delve deeper into her relationships and background. We get to see major scenes that are only hinted at in Ibsen's text. The dancers in the eight central roles have all contributed to their own choreography, with each movement crucial in the telling of this intense story. Hedda Gabler is the follow-up to Moum Aune's first success with Ibsen as dance, in which she directed and choreographed Ibsen's Ghosts together with Cina Espejord. Both productions are among the Norwegian National Ballet's greatest successes, and are in high demand around the world. BONUS : Hedda Gabler, The Other Side A 52 min. Documentary behind the scenes of the Norwegian National Opera