Olga Spessivtzeva; Giselle's Mad Scene

[ignato100]

Olga Spessivtzeva...what a rare artist. A daring interpretation

that only a Spessivtzeva had the creative genius to achieve.

ignato100

[deritpeehs]

she is so smart...this scene looks remarkably correct as to someone affected by the cult/brainwashing antics that was happening so much in europe and russia. kind of like a broken person.........reminds me of emporess sissi for example......

[tasteism]

She was not only a wonderful dancer, she had also very beautiful legs.

[ellandelachapelle]

Now THAT´S madness! 

[palubob]

Thank you very much for this.

[taurusbs]

many dancer of this time had nervous problems.

I think because they were children sometimes far from home and the education was enough severe.

So still young they found celebrity and they lived in a sort of "fantasy world" that is the beginning of schizofrenia.

That's sad but true

[Politeama]

I do agree with you. Her mad scene was so wonderful because the lady was a wonderful artist. It doesn't come better than her. Olga Spessivtzeva is among the best ballerinas in history! I dream of her dancing and everything that I have read about her as an artist is in superlative tones, because she was a mad genius in her art. One of the most beautiful dancers and a very hard worker, always looking for perfection and she succeeded.

[tutugirl4life]

Spessivtzeva was actually mad??

[Lucylives08]

not for another few years, she had a mental breakdown in 1940

[tutugirl4life]

Why?

[Lucylives08]

no one knows, her brain just stopped functioning conventionally, and she began having sporadic nervous breakdowns

its incredibly depressing

[tutugirl4life]

Did that stop her from dancing?

[mrlopez2681]

Spessivtseva wasnt quite mad here yet.

[goldenidol]

I think she was in her mid to late thirties here. According to Anton Dolin she had a few episodes before this. I think she had always had "problems" before this.

[mrlopez2681]

your quite right.......another ballerina who suffered a similar fate was the great Sofia Fedorova (there is a marvelous photo of her as the slave Ramze in "pharaoh's daughter", surrounded by her little slaves).

[merluzasfritas]

What it is really amazing that I am at home watching the video and crying, she made me feel all this emotions only watching a video in you tube.you can tell how she sees the willis, how she feels desperate, how she feels cold, she wants to live but what is the point without him?ohhhhhhh, this was really heartbreaking

[goldenidol]

If you can find a copy - read Anton Dolin's "Sleeping Ballerina; The Story of Olga Spessivtzeva". Although parts are truly heartbreaking it is incredible to read accounts from people who were there.

[merluzasfritas]

Thanks!!!For the post and for the advice.

[qbendanny1]

What stands out for me is how so much of the choreography is still being done even today.Dolin in 1980 remarked how "Alonso after all these years had kept all the steps and touches I taught her..."

[gmlch]

thank you so much!

was the ballet performed with only a piano?

[HelgaMaq]

Of course,not. It was filmed without sound - who knows why?The piano was added later.

[numberonefilmfan]

probably filmed without sound because it was done with a handheld camera from the audience, and in the 1930s an amateur camera would not have been able to record sound.

[actor001]

Artistic Perfection.

Thanks again goldenidol

please post more surprises

[jkircher314]

Thanks so much!

You get the sense of a powerful, small and shapely body filled with an immense amount of compressed emotion and the capacity and technique to express it.