4th Kirov "Sleeping Beauty" - Altynai Assylmuratova and Konstantin Zaklinsky

[Arrow]

The 1965 "incomplete" film, with Natalia Dudinskaya, Alla Sizova,
Natalia Makarova, Valeri Panov and perhaps the only full-length
role recorded by Yuri Solevyev, is a classic that is still available.
The same is true of the complete video (including the character dance
for Hop 0'My Thumb and the dramatic scene opening the Sweet Sixteen
Party) recorded in the early 1980's with as many famous names as have
ever been assembled in a single cast - Irina Kolpakova, Lyubov
Kunakova, Yelena Yevteyeva, Gabriella Komleva, Vladimir Pomonaryov,
Sergei Berezhoi, Andre Garbuz and Viktor Fedotov to name just some of
the luminaries. The third video,
recorded on tour in Canada in the early nineties, seems to have less
staying power, despite the presence of Larissa Lezhnina, Tatiana
Terekhova, Faroukh Ruzimatov and Vadim Guliaev. After this, with the
two earlier "classics" still
bery much available (by popular demand it is assumed),comes a fourth
Kirov
Video with no definite date of recording. This features Konstantin
Zaklinsky, and a rare appearance by Altynai Asylmuratova as Aurora.
Nothing else is mentioned in the credits, though there are closeups of
Fedotov conducting again and Lyubov Kunakova repeating her Lilac
Fairy. This fourth Kirov
recording runs nearly three hours without intermissions, and is again
the
complete version including the dramatic scene opening the Sweet
Sixteen
Party and the Hop O'My Thumb character dance during the wedding
reception. The difference is that all the rounds of show-stopping
applause for Asylmuratova during the performance while the curtain is
up are kept in the video while most of the cheering for Kolpakova
while the curtain is up during performance seems to have been cut out
of the re-edited tape of the earlier performance, making it
about a quarter of an hour shorter. I remember, for example, at least
three rounds during the wedding scene for Komleva's Diamond Fairy
Variation in the earlier one, which are not in current issues of the
video. There is some problem with the photography in the Asylmuratova
version , for example, the beautiful backdrop for the Prologue is not
visible at all in the video, and there is not sufficient close-up of
the faces for the average viewer
to be able to recognize the complete cast in the absence of it being
listed anywhere. It is an elegant and exemplary performance, but there
is no clue precisely when and where it was performed. The curtain
looks
like the one at the Bolshoi theater, but with the color problems in
the photography, it might have been elsewhere. "Getting into this
version"
is made more difficult by the poor lighting in the video. It is
certainly
a triumph for Zaklinsky as Desire. His facial closeups as well as
the presence of Kunakova and Fedotov MIGHT date it to around 1991 or
so.
One of the main problems with a full-length SLEEPING BEAUTY is that
a lackadasical tempo for the slow pas de six of the fairies can "turn
off"
audiences not attuned to this type of ballet right toward the
beginning of the prologue. I remember a tv airing
of ??? company about twenty years ago where many newcomers reported
that
they saw some of the fairies and then turned off the tv- they never
even made it as far as the entrance of Carabosse or "The Rose Adagio"
when they were discouraged. The problem exists in this video even
though the
fairies are excellent because of the relatively poor soundtrack and
the dark lighting. Asylmuratova is not normally associated with
Aurora, one assumes because of her lumbar spine, but gives a very
exciting performance that is compelte dramatically and VERY
elegant technically. This is one dancer whom audiences both in
Russia and in the West immediately tagged as "superstar", and this is
evident in her performance. One odd nuance which she adopts
in giving a "compleat" characterization of Aurora is using the
choreography, itself, to show her timidity and shyness during the
sweet sixteen party. After some spectacular and show-stopping
balances at the end of the Rose Adagio, she approaches the
Aurora Variations as though she is a bit nervous at having
to perform for the guests at her own party. She therefore
makes a point of perforkming some of the early preparations in this
variation as particularly visible, not necessarily the way
a "superstar" of her magnitude would expose her technique in a ballet
which puts Aurora's technique under a microscope. Certainly,
she does not do this elsewhere, but some people might misinterpret
this bit of acting as a lack of polish in her otherwise fabulous
technique. However, when she gets to the part of the variation
where she walks forward en pointe doing repeated ronds de jamb
with complex port de bras, she is so truly outstanding that the
the audience is "bowled over" and finally understands what
she was doing at the beginning. The same kind of thing is true
with the solo work in both the dream scene and the wedding scene,
where her
lumbar spine anatomy does not allow for the kind of freedom
that Alla Sizova and Irina Kolpakova show in the two earlier "classic"
and-still-available Kirov videos. All in all,
an enjoyable video, but would one want to make room for it
in one's collectioun by discarding one of the two famous earlier
Kirov versions?
Arrow

[robbp...@gmail.com]

where would I go to purchase a copy of the fourth Swan Lake recording with Konstantin Zaklinsky and Altynai Asylmuratova as Aurora.

[J.B. Wood]

On 09/07/2014 06:38 AM, robbp...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> where would I go to purchase a copy of the fourth Swan Lake recording with Konstantin Zaklinsky and Altynai Asylmuratova as Aurora.
>

Hello, and it's good to see at least some folks still subscribe to
a.a.b. Not sure if what you seek from the Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) is
available. There are, however, a number of recorded performances of
Swan Lake from this company on Kultur and other labels. Sincerely,

--
J. B. Wood e-mail: arl_1...@hotmail.com