Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes: The Firebird/Le Sacre du Printemps

Most of us, I would guess, remember the first time we heard The Rite of Spring. For me, it was when my ninth-grade friend Steven Stucky (who would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2005) decided to introduce me to "classical" music by bringing over a Columbia LP by someone named Igor I'd never heard of, conducting a composition of his own, whose title was incomprehensible because I knew no French. The sounds that issued from my record player were even more incomprehensible. They were strange yet exciting, irresistible. Without realizing it, I was reliving for myself what the work's original audience had experienced in 1913 -- a game-changer. Life would no longer be the same.As did most of us, I would also guess, I continued over the following decades to think of "Le Sacre du printemps" as a concert composition for symphony orchestra. Oh sure, I read about the ballet. I just never thought about seeing it. Where would I?Lo these many years later, after watching "Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes" present its reconstruction of the piece as it was first delivered into the world, I will never again be able to think of "Le Sacre" as anything but a stage work.A fascinating, powerful, must-be-seen stage work.In an engrossing 30-minute interview, Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer describe the exhaustive research that went into their resurrecting Vaslav Nijinsky's original choreography and costumes for "Le Sacre" and the countless hours necessary to put it into performance. All of which would be merely academic were it not for that performance, preserved and presented here in vivid Blu-ray color and sound by the Mariinsky Orchestra and Ballet under Valery Gergiev's direction.That performance is beyond rendering with words because even after more than a century since its creation, "Le Sacre" still taps into the primitive, timeless, pre-verbal relationship that connects humanity with the Earth it inhabits. In one form or another -- whether religious or secular, Christian or pagan -- all cultures have presented this continuing progression of the seasons that moves from dying to renewal to dying because all cultures experience it.Time and time again in the Mariinsky's performance, for no objective reason I can explain, the conjunction of music and stage action sends shock waves through the body. It's that visceral. Never before, in all the times I've listened to "Le Sacre," did I understand how the music does depict the rite of spring, that annual rebirth of body and spirit without which we vanish. Nor did I understand so fully that this cycle of resurrection requires -- first and also last -- a death, a ritual sacrifice.This haunting vision will remain with me, and I am thankful for it."Le Sacre" is preceded by a dazzling Firebird in Michel Fokine's 1910 choreography and setting. Only 15 years separated the 1895 revival of Swan Lake from the Firebird, which in many ways plays off of Tchaikovsky's classic. Instead of white swans adrift in cool blue water, we have a red-orange creature of blazing heat in brilliant light, running and leaping all over the place. In the initial pas de deux after the prince has captured the Firebird (danced wonderfully by Ekaterina Kondaurova), Fokine's choreography mimics the gestures we are accustomed to seeing from the Swan Queen. Rather than a lake to drown in, we have sparks that fly to ignite romance and victory.Alone, this Firebird would be worth the price of admission. The staging of "Le Sacre" is priceless.

To start off, two great things in this DVD's favor: It's in HD and Valery Gergiev is conducting.Firebird: I believe I own a copy of every DVD of this ballet: This one goes right to the top for some important reasons. Gergiev: I've always liked his cd of this music, and if anything his interpretation here is even more musical, more luminous, more coloristic here than on the cd. (!) Worth buying for the audio portion alone. Ekaterina Kondaurova as The Firebird: Absolutely spell-binding. You can see her dance some Forsythe on YouTube and she is a WOW as a Forsythe dancer, even better, I would say, than Sylvie Guillem (and that is saying something). She's 5'8", over 6' en pointe, and that alone gives her a great stage presence--a commanding presence in this ballet especially where that commanding presence is almost a requirement. And talk about expressive!: every part of her body, including the most mesmerizing arms and hands. Leeann Benjamin--my now-second-favorite Firebird--says that this is the most difficult ballet to dance because there are so many jumps and you have to do them all while giving the impression somehow of a bird. Kondaurova does just that. (A special personal delight: In the pas de deux between the Firebird and Ivan, at one point he carries her on his shoulder, during which, in all the other recordings, she does something which resembles the breast stroke and which looks silly to me. Kondaurova manages to look fetchingly bird-like and not do this swim stroke at all.) She dances with great amplitude, suppleness and clarity and makes great use of her arched Russian back. I could watch this DVD forever, I think, and never tire in the least of her dancing--it's that wonderful. Ilya Kuznetsov as Ivan: Wow! All other Ivans look rather pale beside his, including Liepa's. Here's a role with no actual dancing in it (unless you consider partnering dancing)--I would think, a rather thankless role--but he gives to it unstintingly. You can easily read all kinds of emotions appropriate to, and enhancing of, the drama in his face, his manner. Bravo! "There are no small parts,..." I could go on, but you get the picture I am sure.Le Sacre du Printemps: This is a reproduction--as best as can be in this time--of the original that caused such a sensation. Very much an ensemble ballet, much like Les Noces. Everything that is/was classical ballet was thrown out the window: no pointe shoes, no figure-revealing costumes, no classical ballet vocabulary, and not even any turn-out (it's in fact all turn-IN instead)! By-and-large the dancers do a good job of creating an atmosphere of a pagan rite, but for me, at least, it could still look MORE pagan, more primitive. And The Chosen One, Alexandra Iosifidi, is tall (also) and is gorgeous, but to me never looks, while she is standing dead still or while she is dancing, that she is AFRAID. (I would love to see the Joffrey make a DVD of their "Rite" (even without Gergiev) to see how it stacks up, as I have read great things about it.) Of course, she is gorgeous and you can't get a more beautiful name than "Iosifidi". Gergiev is once again magnificent.All-in-all, very highly recommended.

Hmm.I liked the Firebird. It's a bit childrens' panto, but the leading lady in her incandescent red dress is, well, incandescent. I can't criticise her dancing. Her mime/acting is very good indeed -- very clear, expressive, but not overplayed. And she's my kind of Firebird -- she doesn't freak out when a human turns up to dance with her, she's a bit wary at first but then she raises an eyebrow and finds out whether he can dance. She's a confident, self-possessed, modern gal. And I liked the head baddie, who was acting rather than dancing but did the pantomime villain very well. There's good work from Gergiev and the orchestra too.As a couple of other people said, there are too many close-ups and funky camera angles in Firebird. But only a few too many and they're not the end of the world. I thought the overhead was actually a rather good idea. Besides, it's not a documentary. So long as the dance works for the viewer, I don't mind whether it looks like the view from centre stalls.Rite, on the other hand, really does suffer from the zoomed-in camerawork. This one *is* somewhat a documetary, since I'm sure most of us are watching it partly out of intellectual curiosity to see what the fuss was about. The choreography is heavy on groups and patterns, and different things going on on different parts of the stage, and you just can't see what's going on for rather too much of the time. They should have put a camera in the first circle and locked the cameraman in a cupboard. I'd recommend the Joffrey version instead, even low-res YouTube, since you can see how the ballet works and why it was groundbreaking.Camerawork aside, I think maybe the original Nijinsky Rite is "radical" and "important" and "interesting" rather than brilliant choreography, but it ain't bad. Watching it I had the strangest memory of walking around the City or Paris modern art museum, which has a lot of work from this period. It's just how I expect an avant garde 1913 ballet about pagans to look. The costumes could be Sonia Delaunay.The BluRay includes a very interesting half hour interview with the two academics who restored the Rite. They talk about the history of the work, and it's impact, and the restoration they did. This is the best extra I've seen in a few years. The other short doc which is more focussed on Firebird is nice enough.Pretty good video and sound by BluRay standards -- 1080i60 for good motion, adequately sharp and free of noise, vibrant but not silly colour, not much encoder blocking in the shadows.

This disc offers two major ballets by Stravinsky plus an interesting and detailed bonus feature to support the productions. The productions are a determined attempt to recreate the two ballets as originally envisioned by Fokine and Bakst (Firebird 1910) and Nijinsky (Rite 1913). The Firebird was not too difficult to research as this choreography had not previously been lost and is familiar as the basis of most modern performances. The Rite is much more of a problem as Nijinsky did not notate it for posterity. This production has been painstakingly recreated from a considerable number of sources, not least the highly detailed criticisms received from the press and other opponents.As mentioned above, this performance of the Firebird uses familiar choreography and settings such as in the earlier Royal Ballet version on Opus Arte or the freer Russian TV film version available on Decca. This new production, I find, presents a friendlier Firebird character - slightly less dramatic facial make-up and actions, but essentially the same. The dancing is exquisitly done by the four main characters of the Firebird (Ekaterina Kondaurova), The Prince (Ilya Kuznetsov), the princess (Marianna Pavlova) and Kashchei (Vladimir Ponomarev). The corps de ballet perform with the excellence we all expect from the Kirov Ballet. This is an outstanding account.The Rite is more ground-breaking in concept. One major change is the way that at times all 47 members of the ballet are separately choreographed as if individual soloists. This fragmentation is intended to maximise the limited stage space and was a Nijinsky innovation which he first tried out in Debussy's 'Afternoon of a Faun' ballet - also the subject of audience unrest. Other new effects include instances of foot stamping and hitting the floor with choreographed hand slaps to create additional sound effects that were clearly meant to be heard and thus create an extra dimension.The choreography is very stylised in its portrayal of a primitive Rite but, with its use of bright colours for costumes, is generally effective on its own terms. However, the curious idea of pigeon-toed choreography seems to me to be merely odd rather than primal. The dancers do all that is required of them here though and they do it as well as could be expected. Where the choreography mainly fails to convince for me is the final dance to the exhaustive death of the chosen victim. This is just not wild enough - she barely breaks sweat. Instead it seems that she dies largely as a result of fear - she stands transfixed for extended periods of time. Basically it seems to me that the choreography simply fails to match the violent intent of the music and it is this that I am sure could be better done by choreographers working today - I have been told that there is a version by MacMillan for instance.However, that is hardly the point. The point is that with this recording we are able to gain a real insight into the past and what has contributed so much to our present and will lead to the future. An invaluable documents therefore.The imaging is crisp and with excellent colour rendition. The dancers are seen from various angles including vertically downwards from above. This gives an interesting additional idea of the layout on the stage but not that as originally envisioned. The use of close-up imaging is interesting at times but more full-stage shots would have been even more rewarding in my opinion. The sound is spectacular in the DTS surround format and reveals every footfall of the dancers and one can be in no doubt about their weight and the effort required for the lifts! Stereo is also available. The orchestral contribution is fully revealed as expert in its precision under Gergiev.The bonus is interesting as already mentioned above but it is for the two ballets, and especially for the Rite, that this will be bought. This is a seriously successful attempt at the Rite as originally conceived and a good performance of the Firebird. As a total purchase this makes a very fine disc and should give a great deal of pleasure to a great number of people. As such, in my opinion, I am sure a 5 star rating is fully deserved.

the Rite of Spring was the first piece of classical music that got my attention as a young child when I saw Disney's take with the dinosaurs in Fantasia; I have seen a couple of 'proper' ballet choreographies since, but this one - the reconstruction of the original Nijinsky's - is definitely the best. It is as modern and fresh as it must have seemed to its first, pre-First World War audience.Considering it is an old recording the quality was good

I bought this not knowing the ballets at all. I found the Firebird nice but not exceptional the Rights of Spring so different that I will need to watch it more to come to terms with it. I will need to see other versions before I could say whether I thought these good productions of these ballets.

Wonderful performances sometimes disc picture quality seemed to go