Swan Lake Performed by The Kirov Ballet [VHS]
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Product details
Actor: Kirov Ballet, TchaikovskyEdition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 144 minutes
Release Date: 1996-08-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Kultur Video
Studio: Kultur Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Swan Lake Performed by The Kirov Ballet [VHS]
Movie Review: Excellent Swan Lake DVD
Summary: 4 Stars
I was very pleased with the Kirov Ballet's Swan Lake...I especially liked the 4th Act with the beautiful harp music and both white and black swans used in the choreography! Fabulous! This is segment of the 4th Act is particularly difficult music to find and I would like to know if a CD is available of this entire version? There are music excerpts here that are not found in other Swan Lake ballets.
I was most impressed by the corps de ballet and their precision and strength.
An excellent DVD to add to any collection!
Movie Review: Disappointing Odette/Odile, production
Summary: 3 Stars
The Kirov Ballet, along with the Paris Ballet, is often considered to be the "gold standard" of ballet companies. The corps are always meticulous and impeccable, and most of all the Kirov training school, the Vaganova Academy, has produced an enormously influential style of dancing. When you see Russian ballerinas like Altynai Asylmuratova or Russian-trained dancers like Alina Cojacaru, you can see the Vaganova imprint. An emphasis on an arched back, expressive arms and hands, and long, even extreme limb extensions with super flexibility. It's a beautiful style of dancing.
So you'd expect the Kirov video of Swan Lake to be out of this world, right? Unfortunately, the video is somewhat of a disappointment. For starters, the "happy" ending is tacked on and jars with Tchaikovsky's music, which clearly creates a mood of love transcending into the otherworld. Most Swan Lake productions end with Odette and Siegfried reuniting in the otherworld. The Kirov's does not, and i think the ballet loses a lot of its power. Another thing that bugged me about the Kirov production was that in Act II, there is no mime from Odette.
The Odette/Odile is another disappointment. Mesentseva's enormous reputation baffles me. To me, she's neither expressive, nor beautiful, nor touching in the dual role of Odette/Odile. She's chilly throughout, and thus the White Swan Adagio loses much of its power. For me, an Odette has to show some sense of joy and rapture. She can't be purely an ice queen. On a technical level, Mesentseva also disappoints. She's a strangely sluggish dancer -- very correct in her posture and positions, but her leaps, turns, and fouettes all lack excitement. I guess she's a very "classical" dancer in that you'll never see sloppy form from her, but I like to see an Odette/Odile with more bravura. In Act 3, particularly, Mesentseva's Black Swan Odile fails to convey much excitement. She churns out the requisite 32 fouettes but her lugubrious style made even this bravura moment strangely phlegmatic. This is not Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). Odette/Odile is a famously high-wire ballerina role. It's interesting to contrast her performance to Natalia Makarova's, who was also trained at the Kirov school but of course defected to the west. Mezentseva might be technically the stronger dancer, although both are very disciplined classical dancers with excellent form and the Vaganova imprint. Makarova is more flexible, Mezentseva might be a stronger turner. But while Mezentseva's Odette/Odile feels like an icy performance, Makarova lives the role. One particularly beautiful moment in Swan Lake is just before the White Swan Adagio. Odette sits on the floor, her "wings" folded like a bird. Siegfried touches her, and the wings unfold, and they start dancing. This moment goes for naught with Mezentseva, but with Makarova Siegfried's touch is like a magic spell from which she awakens. Her wings slowly unfold, and if there's a more romantic moment in ballet I can't think of it. (In a recent Swan Lake that I saw, the exquisite Irina Dvorovenko slowly unfolds her wings and looks warily at the Siegfried. Beautiful.)
Konstantin Zaklinsky is a fine, sensitive Siegfried. It's funny how the Western world thinks of the more flamboyant dancers like Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov as being "Russian." Zaklinsky is not like that -- hes a very classical partner, with the idea that "ballet is woman," to quote George Balanchine.
The Kirov corps IS very fine. Act II (the White Swan act) with Ivanov's choreography is considered the ultimate sacred cow of ballet choreography, and a famous test of a company's corps. It is refreshing to see Cygnets who dont almost trip over each other, or white swans whose legs are all at the same level when they arabesque. Another thing I like about the Kirov production is that unlike some productions Act 4 is not shortened very much.
Still, overall I found this video very disappointing.
Movie Review: Miss Mezentseva is MAGNIFICENT!
Summary: 4 Stars
Miss Mezentseva is the ultimate russian balleria. She conveys such fragility in her presence, such humanity in her movements that you are sure that what you are seeing trancends the riguers of training and style. But rather you are face to face with her soul which she reveals with such candour and frankness. Miss Mezentseva is regal yet is longing for her princes love. She is fragil yet powerfull. It is in these paradoxes of charachter that we identify ourselves. She is not a bird inlove with a prince. She is his equal! A princess inlove. One human being rescuing another and shering a common love. All this is what she brings to you and more. The beauty of the russian school, almost too beautiful, and the integrity and humility of the human spirit which has found love. Miss Mezentseva's dances from the edge of her fingertips when she joins the prince in the famous pas de deux to her points. She is a dancer of such poise and purity, she is so completely devoid of mannerism that one knows that this is the russian school at it's most sublime never seen before or since!Movie Review: worse than pirated DVDs
Summary: 1 Stars
What a disappointment! I thought I got a pirated DVD. It's even worse.The camera angle was too high, often cutting the toes/feet of the dancers and leaving a huge empty room above the dancers. The swans dancing/standing on both sides were often partially cut off the screen.
I had recorded another Kirov version (laser disk or LD, not a live performance, by different principals) before. It was much better. Too bad it's not available on DVD.
Movie Review: Daley's review in a wrong place
Summary: 3 Stars
The review by Aleta M. Daley (dated Jan. 9, 2003) is misplaced.It is for a different version of Kirov's Swan Lake.
Summary of Swan Lake Performed by The Kirov Ballet [VHS]
Regarded as the greatest of all the classical ballets, this spectacular production of Swan Lake was filmed live in Russian at the Maryinsky Theater. Prima ballerina Galina Mezentseva gives a memorable performance in the dual role of Odette/Odile, and Konstantin Zaklinsky portrays Prince Siegfried. 144 minutes, color, 1992.This is a musically sensitive and superbly danced interpretation of the best-loved ballet in the Russian repertoire. Swan Lake videos come in various sizes and configurations, among which the Kirov has special claims. The ballet was not well received in its premiere production (Bolshoi, 1877); its success dates from the 1895 revival in St. Petersburg, in which the Tchaikovsky score was rearranged and a happy ending substituted for the original conclusion in which the hero and heroine die. This production is based on that revival and justifies the Kirov company's proprietary feeling about Swan Lake.
The solo dancing communicates effectively, not only Galina Mezentseva's work in the dual role of Odette/Odile, but Konstantin Zaklinsky, who is both athletic and graceful (note, for example, "Siegfried's Variation" in Chapter 20). But what makes this Swan Lake special is the precision and discipline of the Kirov corps. --Joe McLellan
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