I’ve just been re-watching a favorite ballet video of mine…this article was originally published in 2008!
Now that the ballet season at Lincoln Center has ended, we’ve been watching some videos from the Library of the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, I have found that many of the DVDs in their collection turn out to be badly scratched; it’s a shame that people who are sophisticated enough to want to to watch SLEEPING BEAUTY or GISELLE are not correspondingly considerate enough to take good care of the library’s property. I’ve actually been having better luck with VHS tapes, since they are not in plastic sleeves and thus you can check their condition before signing them out. The library has quite a substantial VHS dance collection.
The 1982 film BACKSTAGE AT THE KIROV starts out as a run-of-the-mill (though interesting) documentary but soon the story starts to revolve around two Odettes: the established prima ballerina Galina Mezentseva and the (then) rising young Altynai Asylmuratova. Performance footage is interspersed with specially recorded passages where the camera actually takes us into the midst of the Kirov’s corps. This produces an especially vivid effect in such moments as the Cygnets where we follow the four girls around the stage. Later, when Asylmuratova and her husband Konstantin Zaklinsky are performing a segment of the adagio, the camera magically circles around them, catching the attendant Swans in their long rows as a swirling backdrop.
Wei and I both thought Mezentseva was an exceptional Odette. Against the sustained slowness of the tempo set for the adagio, Mezentseva’s dancing – her fluent upper body, long arms and elegant legs – has a timeless, suspended quality. Asylmuratova’s youthful candor – she says she’d rather have slept in than attend class – is slyly sweet; she is a beautiful girl and we can already see emerging the ballerina who was to be such an impressive Nikiya in the filmed version of the Royal Ballet’s 1991 BAYADERE.
BACKSTAGE AT THE KIROV (now available on DVD) also shows some very young students in class, and the hard-working corps of Kirov swans, some of whom come in for sharp reprimands from the ballet masters. It’s an intriguing view of SWAN LAKE from the inside: I ended up watching it four times in a week.
Oberon's Glade 