The Bolshoi continues its wonderful reconstructions kick! Next season will bring the complete four-act 'Flames of Paris' (1933-Vainonen version for Bolshoi). The revival will premiere in July 2008 in Moscow. Just imagine Ivan Vasiliev in the Vachtang Chabukiani role...or Yuliana Malkhasiants as Therese, stomping her way through the famous march...or the corps singing the Marsaillese while lifting rifles & pitchforks. It's a balletomane-historian's dream come true!

See press announcements within the www.bolshoi.ru site.

And NYC probably still won't see it because ABT will be hogging the Met during Bolshoi and Royal touring season. I wonder if anybody has thought of setting up Madison Square Garden with a stage at the end, the way Hurok used to?

Is this going to be the 1933 choreography or a Lacotte-like "reconstruction" with the same plot and completely different choreography?

Flames of Paris has a cherished place in my memory. In the 1960's the Bolshoi brought a highlights tour to Constitution Hall that included a "Flames of Paris" pas de deux danced by Yuri Vladimirov and Nina Sorokina -- I was a tiny little girl and my memory (which, admittedly, is not perfect) tells me that my parents did not buy me a ticket because I was...well...a tiny little girl. But other family members had tickets and someone could not attend at the last minute. I was allowed to use the ticket, accompanied by a long lecture about sitting still in my seat and not talking during the performance (which was unnecessary since I was mesmerized by all ballet) and considered myself very lucky to attend. Without question the "Flames of Paris" pas de deux was my favorite -- I was absolutely convinced Vladimirov could fly. About ten years later--when I was a slightly less tiny--I saw another highlights program of the Bolshoi at Wolftrap in which Vladimirov and Sorokina danced the same pas de deux (I'm guessing it was their 'set piece'), but at that time I thought it looked appallingly vulgar, and Vladimirov, in particular seemed heavy and effortful. Although my taste had undoubtedly changed over time, I am guessing the years had also taken their toll on Vladimirov's and Sorokina's technical brio. But the bottom line is that now, much more than ten years later, I am thrilled the ballet is being revived in toto and very eager to see it. I assume from Natalia's allusions to the Marseillaise that the "flames" of Paris at issue are those of the French Revolution not the 1871 Commune--that's something I always wondered about since I have never been able to find a libretto...(?)

Mr. Ratmansky, in contrasting the situation with that of Bright Stream, says he has available the original steps for Flames of Paris. In an interview last August for Dansomanie:

As drb states, this will be THE original Flames of Paris. I suspect that, as with the current revival of the Petipa Corsaire, Ratmansky may make an emendation or two for modern audiences - but surely not a wholesale dumbing-down of a full-length ballet, a-la ABTSleeping Beauty.

I can't help wondering if this is being revived to showcase the astonishing talents of Natalia Osipova. She danced the famous pas de deux in Nottingham last year and was amazing. I'd put money on her being the first cast in this revival.

Absolutely, Mashinka, with Ivan Vasiliev in the Chabukiani role. I could also picture an Alexandrova/Tsiskaridze casting in those roles. And I seem to recall an interview a couple of years ago with the Bolshoi's top female character dancer, Yulianna Malkhasiants, stating that she wished that she could dance Anissimova's great role (Therese) before retiring.

Just for interest, a synopsis and other snippets here at Wikipedia.

There is on video somewhere a film of the actors' pd2 with Marina Kondratieva. The music is rather lovely.

Edit: Why do I recognise the music for the female variation?

Scherzo, the Versailles pdd danced by the actor-couple is part of the 2-CD compilation Stars of the Russian Ballet. The female solo may be familiar because it is often staged in ballet academies that teach Vaganova technique, e.g., it is an 'oldie goldie' at Washington, DC's Kirov Academy of Ballet concerts.

Aha! Yes, that's it, it's used in the film of Karsavina doing exercises. Thankyou!

What a stupid idea to revive this travesty of a ballet. It's vulgar and campy in the "best " tradition of Soviet ideological approach. It's true that the PDD was quite popular, but only thanks to some marvelous performers like Baryshnikov,who performed it in concerts shortly after graduating from ballet school, and which I was fortunate to see.Ballet itself ? !
Who at this time would want to sit through 4 acts of a very banal chreography and music that qiute matched it in its banality.
The Bolshoi should wake up.It's 21 st century for crying out loud.George Balanchine happened, and many others, Boris Eifman in Russia for that matter.It's insane since the Soviet Union does not exist animore.Do they have to go back to this,have they not learned anything?

Wait, whoa, hold it!

We haven't even seen this ballet except in very limited selections, and stills from whole performances. OK, it's agitprop, but what about "Les Miz"? Do we invalidate, sight unseen, just because a work is about Revolution? Judged that way 1776 is practically as politically and socially dangerous as the document it's about!

anin, do you also object to Spartacus?

Its not the topic I object. " Les Miserables " is a great novel and the musical was done very tastefully,with great humour and lovely music. If the " Flames " is revived with completely new choreography, then there might be a chance. Some works remain classics and some not. That was never the case with " Flames " to start with.
" Spartacus " is another matter. When it first premiered with choreography by Grigorovich it seemed like a revelaion.And what a cast! But when a few years ago I got a video and watched it for the first time since I left Russia, it didn't have the same impact,which is to be expected. I still loved some parts, and there were many,that I was not thrilled about at all.
And " Spartacus " has absolutely great music,no comparison with " Flames.

Moderators "fixit" note:

Anin, you don't have to quote the previous post to answer it. If there's no intervening post, your point will be immediately taken by readers. If you respond to a few posts up the thread, then maybe you would want to quote the part you respond to. No harm done, anyway.

Surely Bolshoi is not sleeping and developing very different projects. As to the 21st century policy I think one of it's trends is to return some of the things which were carelessly lost. Not only in ballet. It doesn't mean that "THe Flames" should be returned. This decision is really arguable. But... I would rather have Vainonen than Eifman, who to my humble opinion should never be placed near Balanchine's name. Especially after his "hommage" to Mr. B named "Musaget", which was quite a risky and unworthy experiment for NYCB on the centenary of Balanchine.

I have watched the Chabukiani film a good number of times and I have never found it campy. It reflects a heroic style that was meant to encourage Russian people of a post revolutionary period.
This is not a pro Soviet communist statement it is a historical fact. I don't think it portrays any more ideology than an Abel Gance film does and has to be appreciated in its context. The question is surely, is there art present and does it result in excellent performances of the choreographic material? For me the answer is emphatically yes.

I do not understand what you mean by the "best " tradition of Soviet ideological approach." Are you an 'expert' in this era of Russian Theatrical history, if so, please offer us a weightier argument.

Unashamedly I like to see myself as a connoisseur of ballet and contextualisng all periods of its history can only add to my knowledge, understanding of what followed on from what.

I recently discovered a performance of Kondratieva in the pas de deux for Mirielle de Poitier and Mistral from "The Flames of Paris" on youtube. It harks back to a gentler age, less starkly obvious than MacMillan for instance and more romantic. I was stunned because it showed what must have been one the earliest examples of overhead lifts of Soviet choreography(1932) which would remain a feature in ballets at the Bolshoi at least, well into the Grigorovich era.

Ratmansky has said he wants to show works by Gorsky, Lavrovsky and Vainonen to show the Bolshoi is not just Grigorich because and because it is part of their company history. I welcome this whole-heartedly.

Next year will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the "The Flames of Paris" on the Bolshoi stage and they will also celebrate the centenary of the living legend Marina Semyonova who was the first Mirielle at the Bolshoi in 1933.

ED: Spelling and word omission

I'd love to see it, even if I found it not to my liking today. It's a part of the corporate memory of ballet, not only in Russia, but anywhere excerpts have been presented.

I don't think either of the two men you mention have a hope of recreating the beefy panache of Chabukiani.
The Bolshoi can no longer cast Spartacus in the manner of Vasiliev/Mukhamedov or Liepa. Whilst the Boshoi have two very good dancers for prince roles the tough sort of masculinity required for Jerome I believe would elude the current roster.
I would hoped to be wrong in this matter and that is why I always go to every performance expecting to be moved, excited or elevated.

Leonid, what could be a greater tribute to Chabukiani than a performance by a fellow-Georgian of ssimilarly-pectacular tachniche and charisma -- Tsiskaridze?!

Sorry to be , but this is a great phrase which captures in two words an entire generation or so of Bolshoi males. Thanks!

Right now Tsiskaridze couldn't possibly dance this part,since he is still feeling the effects of an earlier surgery. As for Chabukiani, he was never a Bolshoi dancer. He danced in Moscow many times,but as a member of the Kirov ballet,where he stayed until 1941.Since 1941 he was associated mostly with Georgian Ballet Theatre in Tbilisi and the ballet school there, and which produced some of the most illustrous names today like Ananiashvili,Nioradze,Zelensky,Tsiskaridze.

anin - Sorry to disagreee with you on both counts:

a - Tsiskaridze just danced a high-flying Conrad in the new Bolshoi Corsaire (with the so-called 'Ali variation' going to Conrad in this edition), so he obviously has mended since his most recent surgery.

b - Chabukiani may have danced with the Kirov but was most definitely of the rough-and-tumble Bolshoi style! Perhaps you are thinking of his contemporary, Sergeyev, who was of the more typical "Kirov elegance" mold? Chabukiani was perhaps the most Atypical of Kirov leading men, even more so than Nureyev.

Although the legendary Chabukiani was trained initially in Tbilisi by the Italian pedagogue Maria Perini, who also taught the important dancer Yelena Chikvaidze, he was also a pupil of the former St.Petersburg Imperial Theatres pedagogues V.A. Semyenov, V.I. Ponomaryev and Alexander Shirayev and was never a member of the Bolshoi ballet. Tsiskaridze is a charming gentleman off-stage, but completely lacks as I have said before the "beefy panache ' necessary for the role of Jerome.

When I see the split jete of Tsiskaridze photo of him in Corsair a 19th century ballet I wince, but not quite as much as when I saw him take a curtain call in arabesque en demi pointe after a "Sleeping Beauty" pas de deux. Something Chabukiani would never have done.

To paraphrase John Lydgate in 1440 and Cervantes much later, Comparisons are odious.

Chabukiani was a legend and we get a glimpse from film why. As you say he was atypical of Kirov dancers but he was an original in both a Kirov and Bolshoi setting and a product of his background which has never produced a similar male dancer and my retort to the young Vasiliev and the now elderly (in balletic terms) Tsiskaridze as suggested in the role of Jerome is, never send a boy to do a man's job. Chabukiani was successful as Albrecht and Siegried which neither of the young(er) pretenders can claim to have been.


ED: for spelling error

Uh, don't be so sure, Leonid. Take a look a Chabukiani in the ca-1940 film of Bayadere 'Shades' with Dudinskaya. After his solo, he makes a rather 'faunish' pose with a pirouette before exiting the scene. And I would hardly call some of his personally-designed costumes for concerts 'beefcake' in nature, if you know what I mean. He certainly had his flamboyant, Tsiskaridze-esque side! (wink)

Tsiskaridze's Albrecht was quite fabulous in the late-1990s Vasiliev version, opposite Lunkina. I would hardly write him off as Albrecht. And what about his beefy approach to the male lead in Pharaoh's Daughter?

It has to be a Georgian thing, puckishness.

Balanchine once essayed the title role in "Le Rossignol" at a command performance in Monaco because Alicia Markova had the measles! He apparently had a wonderful time, but left the audience wondering....

I am not going to argue over the puckishness of Georgians in general (think of Josef Stalin) as I am not an expert, but what I have learnt from studying the "noble" families of Georgia is that they come from different regions and Georgians should not be treated as an homogenous group.

There is no doubt that Georgia has produced a number of outstanding dancers in various genre over a long period of time.

Names ending "idze"/"adze" may have some relationship to those ending in "illi" as they may come
from the same region, but those ending in "iani" may not.

But in light of Stalin, what else can you call somebody who sleeps in three different rooms of the same house in one night so people can't find him, and would intentionally lie about his plans for the next day to the same end? Puckish? Or Robert Joffrey?

Thank you Mel, I laughed out loud at your post.

If you would like to see some extraordinary photographs of Chabukiani there is a site dedicated to him at http://chabukiani.iatp.ge/albomi.htm
Unfortunately for me it is written in the contemporary Georgian script known as mkhedruli ('military'). If you click on the 4th link from the left (or for rabid anti-soviet art readers 3rd from the right) which states ალბომი just below the banner, you will find a portal to many photographs of Chabukiani some which show extraordinary elevation and others in a rather over the top arty pose which were considered artistic rather than effeminate at the time. If you left click on the image you get an enlarged photograph. Chabukiani appears to become the role or his idea of the role in each photograph.

These are great, leonid. Thanks.

About Georgian writing, does anyone know whether it reads ----> or <----- ? It is beautiful, looks vaguely Arabic, and a little like Burmese writing that adorned the walls of my favorite bygone restaurant.

Left to right.