Bolshoi Ballet – Giselle (Ratmansky premiere) – Moscow
★★★★✰ This is a Giselle that is both familiar and new. Watching it on opening night was like seeing a faded painting regain its colors.
American Ballet Theatre – The Sleeping Beauty – New York
★★★★✰ This production proposes that Sleeping Beauty is not really the story of a love quest – as it’s often depicted – but rather a fable about order and disorder, harmony and disharmony, the balance between good and evil.
American Ballet Theatre – Harlequinade – New York
★★★★★ To my eye, this Harlequinade may be the most well-rounded of Ratmansky’s historically-minded stagings of Petipa.
Washington Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – Washington
★★★★✰ When Kent took the helm of Washington Ballet …one of her goals was to raise the standard of classical technique and shape the company into a world-class ballet institution. Judging by this production, she is on the right track.
Staatsballett Berlin – La Bayadère (premiere of Ratmansky reconstruction) – Berlin
★★★★✰ In the last several years, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has developed a sideline to his main choreographic efforts: the reviving of ballets by Marius Petipa in a way that represents the original choreography with as much fidelity as possible…
American Ballet Theatre – 3 Bills: Giselle, Gala, Firebird/Afterite – New York
★★★★✰ After a week of Giselle, during which Natalia Osipova and David Hallberg had their much-awaited re-match, the company began its season in earnest on May 21, with a spring gala that included two new works and excerpts from a third…
American Ballet Theatre – The Sleeping Beauty – New York
★★★★✰ This is a production that lives and breathes, and which rewards multiple viewings, changing subtly with each cast.
Alexei Ratmansky – Simple and Wise, a Q&A about Ratmansky’s Sleeping Beauty for ABT
Q: What have you learned about Petipa from the notations? Ans: Looking at the notations changed my taste. Honestly, I just can’t stand seeing productions of the classics any more, because I know how far it is from Petipa’s intentions…
Doug Fullington – on Stepanov Notation
Some of the great 19 century Russian ballet classics were recorded in Stepanov notation – Doug Fullington is one of the few people in the world who can understand Stepanov’s hieroglyphics and what they represent for those looking to do justice to the past…
