Kirov Swan Lake Casting Policy & Vishneva
Reader comment on: A New & Improved Course for the Kirov

Submitted by Elizabeth Mellin, Nov 15, 2006 16:42

Further to KEJones' comment I would like to add the following. In the United States, the source of a professional dancer's ballet training is of little import. In Russia, it makes or breaks one's career. Dancers who try out for one of the main schools (Moscow Choreographic Institute, or the Vaganova School, to name the two most prominent, thereafter followed by Perm and other schools) audition at age 8 or 9. If they are accepted they pursue a nine (now ten, as of 2007) year course and graduate at the age when most US teens finish high school. At this point, their careers are determined: they are accepted into a ballet company. For the Vaganova School, that company is most likely the Mariinsky Theatre, although dancers may accept contracts elsewhere in Russia or in Europe depending on what they are offered. The students who are accepted into these schools at age 9 go through rigorous physical examination and are rejected if the professional staff -- at a school that has had the same selection process for over 200 years now -- thinks they are physically or otherwise unfit for ballet dancing as a career.

Diana Vishneva auditioned once for the Vaganova School, and was rejected. She auditioned a second time. And was again rejected. She auditioned a third time and one of the teachers agreed to take her on a trial basis. (Let us not forget, this was the Soviet Union in a time of bribes and favors....so working around the entrenched rules was possible). She then completed the schooling and got into the Mariinsky Theatre. As those who follow the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet are aware, the system of emploi that determined the type of dancer was and is still in place -- and for a reason. There is a reason Uliana Lopatkina does not dance Sleeping Beauty or Romeo and Juliet -- its not her "type" and her physicality does not compliment such roles. Likewise, as an example, there are dancers such as Andrei Ivanov, who danced the jester on this tour, who will never be Prince Siegfried -- partly due to physicality, partly due to temperament, partly because emploi still exists.

Diana Vishneva, Mr. Lobenthal notes, is not an adagio dancer. Odette/Odile is 3/4 "Odette" and thus an adagio role. The administration of the Mariinsky Theatre took this into account when *not* casting her originally in the role. Indeed her debut in St. Petersburg in a blue tutu made headlines for its atrocities -- her level of technique was below par. She was not representing Petersburg style, she was representing "Vishneva" style. In the USA, in NY especially, flashy broadway-esque dancers catch the media's (and audience's) attention. Vishneva fits this bill. She is dramatic, she is flashy, she is an actress. But she is not a representative of the traditional Russian classical ballet school in its purest form. Other dancers in the company do so -- she does not. It comes as no surprise then, that Ms Vishneva is so lauded in the US (especially New York) press, the home of Balanchine, innovation, stepping "outside" the box. She is an artist -- but lest any American take her as a representative of true Vaganova Style and pure Russian classicism, that American will have erred greatly. There is a reason the Mariinsky administration did not permit her to dance Swan Lake initially. In my opinion, they should have stuck to their initial decision.

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