A heads up about this reconstruction of Petipa's ballet, which premiered at the Mariinsky last April : an almost full version (4 videos) is available on Youtube. Just type "Awakening of Flora".

Dancers are :
Evgenia Obraztsova (Flora)
Vladimir Shklyakov (Zéphyr)
Xenia Ostreikovskaya (Aurore)
Maxim Chaschegorov (Apollo)
Valeria Martynyuk (Cupidon)
Daria Sukhorukova (Hébé)

Despite a mean little comment from the author, I found the dancing quite exquisite, and I'm grateful for being able to see it at all. Any thoughts on this "old-new" ballet ?

Thank you Azylun for alerting us to this but I have to say how sad I find it that an almost complete video of a valuable new Mariinsky production is available on you tube.

I'm all for diffusion of knowledge but what this self-styled "guru" does by posting this for the whole wide world is devalue the Mariinsky project. There is a difference between posting judiciously selected clips and posting an almost complete video. I sincerely hope that someone will complain and the video will be taken down.

I don't.

For one, those of us in NY, for ex, have no chance to see this performance.
And rather than make me less likely to see a live performance, getting to see this (previously unknown to me) ballet would make me *more* likely to go,not less.

Furthermore, since it seems filmed by an audience member, there is likely no commercially available video of it. It isn't like it is causing people to not purchase a video of it. (though i have to say, I am more likely to buy a video after seeing it and liking it on youtube--the quality on youtube just isn't that good and if I like something I'm MORE likely to buy it knowing that)

I can see there is a valid argument for removing it--it is clearly an illicit filming--but I really don't see how it devalues the project.

Most people on ballettalk are hardly typical members of the audience - we are all passionate about ballet. I will buy all the dvds I can afford and watch all the live performances I can afford. But there is a sizable part of the audience who after watching the almost complete ballet will skip the live performance especially since Flora is something of a curiosity item.

Youtube is a wonderful thing but a distinction should be made between complete videos and clips. In some form or other, uploaded videos tend to live forever, moving from site to site even when taken down by admins. If in a couple of years the Mariinsky does bring Flora to your city that video will probably still be online somewhere.

Also having a filming of the ballet in worldwide circulation makes a dvd even more improbable - in this case it removes the novelty aspect from an as yet unseen production. Factors such as this do affect the probability of filming - I'm sure the rampant piracy in russia/eastern europe had a lot to do with how little was filmed by the Mariinsky in the last decade and that was before youtube took video sharing to a worldwide scale.

Apologies if I sound harsh and absolute, I'm not, and I don't want to be a killjoy but I was bothered to see a complete film of a new production shared in such a manner however beautiful it might be.

On this same youtube channel there are two clips of The Little Humpbacked Horse with music by Cesare Pugni. I am really looking forward to watching these. Fingers crossed that one day there will be a dvd!