Here we go. The moment that many of us have been dreading. Somova has just been named Principal Ballerina of the Kirov!

http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/company/ballet/

I am sorta hoping that this was done to get her out and off to La Scala as a principal. Not that I wish any evil to La Scala, mind you.

On the positive side, I see that Ayupova is back on the roster. Hopefully, she will get a proper Farewell once she decides to truly retire. In the meantime, it is great to have her back at the Mariinsky, where she belongs.

Later, I'll check the rest of the roster to see who else has been promoted in other categories. I quickly glanced at the choryphees and saw that Selina is still languishing in that category, despite years of dancing featured roles and solos...not even 2nd Soloist for her? Ridiculous.

Thanks for the update, Natalia. These promotions are indeed surreal.... Somova on the same level as Lopatkina, Ayupova, Vishneva, Pavlenko...

...Not to forget, the legacy of Pavlova, Karsavina, Trefilova, Dudinskaya, Kolpakova, Makarova, Shellest, Osipenko. Sorry - Is this some sort of joke?

OMG (Insert exclamation points to infinity here) . The Vazievs leave for Milan, and The Accidental "Ballerina" is elevated to Principal Dancer? >> A position she is neither (a) worthy of or (b) QUALIFIED FOR?! And before Kondaurova, Obratzova and Novikova?!



Vous pensez 'quid pro quo?' Je pense, oui. I guarantee that Somova will follow them to La Scala as a frequent guest "artist."
She will headline La Scala's "Swan Lake" and "Bayadere." DVDs are next. Zakharova should start getting worried - uh, NOT.

(F.D.R.)

" (REM)

Dear Mariinsky Ballet,

Please bring Ayupova to the Kennedy Center before she retires for good!

That is all,

Hans

P.S. Yes, I am aware of the futility of this request....

Did anyone also notice that Amosova is now a principal character artist?

Solniska - Good catch about poor Amosova. I guess that she's been deemed too matronly for a tutu. I noticed that Alexander Sergeev is 2nd soloist (hoorah!) and that a couple of recent-graduates are now choryphees - Vasnetsova (recent Swan Lake debut), Chugai, Petushkova. VERY recent graduate, Anastasia Nikitina, already danced a muse in Apollo at Zelensky's recent gala (thanks to a fellow board for reporting this)...but she remains in the corps; by spring '09 she will be choryphee, most likely.

I KNEW a riot would break out when Alina Somova was promoted to Principal status. Now, when will we see Ekaterina Kondaurova get the same status, given her artistic success within the last two years (especially the triumphant Swan Lake performance around two weeks ago). (Mind you, I think Kondaurova could be the next to get Principal status, though.)

As long as we're quoting presidents, allow me to invoke the ever-quotable Mr. Lincoln:

If you call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs does it have"

Five.

No, four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

This just in - breaking news from Petersburg. The Management has just announced Somova's debut Dec 7 in . . . (wait for it),
Fokine's "The Dying Swan."


Albert Einstein

Do you think that in the Somova version the dying swan will touch her knee to her ear one last time before expiring?

Based on just a few videos, I do understand the responses that have been posted here so far.

But ... there must be those at the Mariinsky and elsewhere who DO see this promotion as deserved. It always helps to understand the way the other side thinks.

For the purposes of discussion: How would a supporter of Somova's promotion justify it -- aesthetically or in other relevant terms?

It is often internal or external politics not art that runs the ballet world.
As Marc points out, how do you place this young lady on the same plain as Vishneva and Ayupova.

Well, the Somova supporters (Kirov management?) seem to be flooding You Tube with clips of her dancing and the comments posted underneath are very revealing, as they seem to come in the main from pre-teen ballet school pupils that have it in their heads that the height of balletic attainment is a 180 degree extension. The dissenters are shouted down extremely rudely by posters with an imperfect knowledge of English. That says it all as far as I'm concerned.

And after.

A while ago I asked the following:

Mashinka replied:


I also have received an extremelyi interesting, exremely convincing p.m. from one of Members who has had extensive experience observing the Kirov/Mariinsky. This Member, who preferred not to post online, tried hard but could only come up with a couple of arguments in supporting the promotion.


That really does appears to be it. The silence in defense of this promotion -- even when our Members are trying -- speaks loud indeed.

I've seen Somova only on video, but I must admit that I agree with everyone else here. The most amazing aspect of this is the way she looks on video and the effect this has on the ballet and on those dancing around her. Somova in these videos seems to have been imported from another company, another aesthetic, possibly another planet for all I know. Her dancing, whatever one thinks of it, destroys any illusion of stylistic unity. It does not fit. It jars. As my correspondent writes, it "stands out like a sore thumb."

It's all very strange -- but so is a lot of the economic and political news coming from Putin's and Medvedev's Russia in recent years.

This is not news. From what I've heard, there is a LOT of politicking going on "behind the scenes" over getting the level of promotion for each dancer inside the Mariinsky troupe. I believe most of that politicking is coming from the coaches of each dancer, too. In my opinion, unless you're naturally very talented like these four female dancers from the 2001 and 2002 Vaganova Academy graduating classes (e.g., Ekaterina Kondaurova, Olesia Novikova, Evgenia Obraztsova and Viktoria Tereshkina), you need a coach that can strongly influence the Mariinsky management to promote the dancer. Given that Alina Somova's former coach was the wife of Makhar Vaziev (who was the Deputy Director of the Ballet Company of the Mariinsky Theatre), I'm not surprised Somova got promoted so fast. If I read correctly, there are still detractors about Diana Vishneva becoming Principal dancer, especially those who express concern that Vishneva is spending too much time as guest artist of other ballet companies. It's very rare for a dancer to get promoted to Principal status in a few years with the Mariinsky troupe just because his or her skills are so superior to all others--Ulyana Lopatkina is one of the few I can remember in recent years.

(By the way, in my personal opinion I can see Kondaurova, Novikova and Obraztsova become Principal dancers within the next 4-5 years--these three are favorites with both Russian and Western audiences. )

FYI, Diana Vishneva has been a principal dancer since 1996. Both she and Svetlana Zakharova made it to principal within a year after they joined the Mariinsky. It took Lopatkina 4 or 5 years before getting the big prize. That coaches lobby for their pupils is no secret, but how much and in which cases it worked, is purely speculation. Chenchikova had many dancers under her care. Some did make it to principal, others just didn't.

The recent controversy over Vishneva was whether the Mariinsky should allow her to remain with the company while spending so much time away from it, guesting.

[Admin Beanie On]

Somova's promotion is a polarizing topic, but please avoid speculation about it.

[/Admin Beanie Off]

Remember when we all thought Svetlana Zakharova was tacky? Now she seems almost tasteful.

Scary but true.

At least Zakharova is musical and performs with a certain degree of refinement. Somova is a 100% hopeless mess....even with Terekhova's current coaching sessions...even if Enrico Ceccheti would emerge from the grave to impart special lessons. One either has a basic sense of artistry or one does not. End of story.

I still do.

So do I. The first time I saw a clip of her Giselle I was momentarily tempted to put my eyes out (but thought better of it and turned the video off instead).

Well, I hope you had the chance to see Zakharova once live after that missed opportunity, volcanohunter. You do realize that condemning an artist on account of a clip is rather cheap and doesn't really help anybody?

I suppose it's a matter of maturing, and my impression of tackiness partly lies with SZ's early exposure in the major roles. Now a decade later, SZ has come into her own. What if she had been promoted to principal, say, three or four years ago? We would exclaim: "Venus has just come out of the sea!" All thanks to the Marijinksi management for putting the formative years in stage light for the audience.

Some dancers--Kondaurova comes to mind--seem to get "it" from the get go, even if they were not yet their polished selves back then. Still, it probably did help for Kondaurova to have spent a few years of obscurity back in the corps/demi-soloists, rather than fast-tracking to the principal. Being away from the spotlight removes a dancer from the Next Big Move and may even give her better sense of stage, organization, etc. Bolshoi seems more observant of the "starting from the bottom" practice, and growing through the solos characterized the career of someone like Alexandrova.

If Zakharova leaves anything like bad taste today, it's less the six o'clocks than the lingering self-satisfaction.

As for Somova, she is not tacky so much as she has little to tack on to. If Vishneva seemed a bit wayward back in 1996, at least personality gave her performance a focus. Somova feels...badly in need of the well-tempered Terekhova.

Fortunately, in recent years we're seeing the rise of a really good group of younger ballet dancers in the Mariinsky troupe, and I can cite four examples: Ekaterina Kondaurova, Olesya Novikova, Evgenia Obraztsova and Viktoria Tereshkina. In my humble opinion, I can see all four of them being listed as Principal dancers within 4-5 years (Tereshkina already has this status).

Alina Somova is dancing in the Canadian Ballet Theatre's Nutcracker in Toronto, Canada, the weekend of December 20. Anyone care to come up and see her?

http://www.starsofthe21stcentury.com/cbt/c...et-theatre.html

Scroll down.

You know, I think maybe the hand-wringing is a bit pre-mature. Not because Somova deserves Principal status (she doesn't), but because I don't think her promotion in the long run will affect the company who for centuries has been known as the Stage Where Ballet Legends Are Made. Somova might stick out like a sore thumb, but it's a testament to the training and tradition of the company that she sticks out so much.
When I saw the Kirov in La Bayadere and the 32 shades came down the ramp, I thought that it was so beautiful that one Alina Somova could not destroy the best company in the world.

That's not fair, Marc. I didn't say that I reacted to every one of her roles that way. I don't find her Odette-Odile nearly as objectionable. Yes, I have seen her subsequently, and yes, I still think she's tacky.

I was simply stating that my first exposure to her Giselle filled me with a revulsion quite unlike any I'd experienced as a ballet viewer.

Then you should have said so to avoid people from drawing the wrong conclusions. It’s bizarre that you immediately refer to unfairness in your own defence, volcanohunter. That you like a dancer or not, is your good right, but that you should slam him or her on account of one single clip you didn’t even watch completely, is anything but fair.

This has been a most enjoyable and polite conversation, and thanks to all.

[Moderator Beanie ON]
Ballet Talk thrives on good discussion. Disagreement is of course part of that. Ideally, we make our points and move on. Some back-and-forth is probably better reserved for pm's or email. Thanks to all for adding to this very interesting topic.
[Moderator Beanie OFF]

I loved Somova in Ballet Imperial back in April, totally to my surprise. I thought she was horrible in all the clips I found on YouTube and Vishneva had been scheduled for that final performance. I was horrified, but then thought Somova was glorious. But then, it's true, I don't judge with the same standards as the balletomanes, although I was pleased at the time that I had the same feeling about Ms. Somova that one of BT's dancers did. My intuition is that she might be a kind of performer that won't ever be consistent, but will sometimes by celestial. I'm glad she got the promotion, it was a big risk, but I don't why the Maryinsky wouldn't know what they were doing (although plenty of other companies are reputed not to as well...there have been innumerable rumours about wrong decisions by NYCB and ABT, and these have stretched into years of dispute...)

Somova...a pretty girl .
http://www.ardani.com/images/SomovaAlina.jpg

Yes, but her hair is now bright yellow and her chin is usually sticking out. She didn't look much like this photo last April in NYC

...you mean blonde?

I mean yellow!

He,he. Just being annoying...never mind me. . Anyway... back to Miss Somova...

Makarova used to sometimes have yellow hair, I think it's common enough with Russians. Miss Somova is a beauty even with yellow hair, though, although much has been made of her long fingernails, etc., and many references to other aspects of her frightful taste, despite her natural beauty.