PREMIERE OF 'PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER' -Grand pas d'action 1/2

Here is a clip of the 'Grand pas d'action' taken from the premiere of the Bolshoi Ballet's revival of Marius Petipa and Cesare Pugni's 1862 'ballet à grand spectacle' "The Pharaoh's Daughter", staged by Pierre Lacotte. The premiere of the revival featured the same cast that was later filmed for the commercially available DVD with Svetlana Zakharova as the Princess Aspicia. Filmed May 5, 2000 with Nina Ananiashvili as the Princess Aspicia.

Grand pas d'action (chor. by Lacotte, unless otherwise noted)

1. Entrée
2. Variation I (chor. by Petipa, reconstructed from notation)
3. Variation II (music by Drigo, chor. by Petipa, reconstructed from notation)
4. Variation III (this variation was showed to Lacotte by Alexander Volonine, Anna Pavlova's principal partner for some years. The chor. is likely by one of the leading male dancers of the Mariinsky at the turn of the 20th century, or perhaps by Christian Johansson)
5. Grand pas (staged in a wonderfully colossal manner by Lacotte à la Petipa)

The 'Grand pas d'action' (referred to as the 'Grand defile suite' in the booklet that accompanies the commercially available DVD) is the only part of Lacotte's revival of "The Pharaoh's Daughter" to contain Marius Petipa's choreography. 3 of the dances were reconstructed from the choreographic notation of the 'Sergeyev Collection', which includes notation of Petipa's choreography for his final revival of "The Pharaoh's Daughter' from 1898 (the notations, however, were created a few years after). Pierre Lacotte missed out an an extremely historic opportunity by not staging as much of Petipa's choreography as possible, and his revival, admirable as it may be, is just not as wonderous as it could have been.

Nevertheless, this rather behemoth 'Grand pas' is perhaps the best part of the entire ballet. ENJOY!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Pharaoh's
• Pharaohs
• Daughter
• Nina
• Ananiashvili
• Shipulina
• Pugni
• Petipa
• Bolshoi
• Ballet

[EricMontreal22]

I am just watching this now. It's often glorious--but I don't understand why Lacotte in his "reconstructions" doesn't try to be a bit more authentic. Much more of this ballet does exist in notations. Similarly, while the costumes are pretty, the sets for his shows often seem a lot more "basic" than I feel they should be--or am I wrong?

[DancinFeet1994]

3:07 Hardest variation ever!!!

[theamazingsoter]

I knew mrlopez would have this. ;) Thank you!

[palubob]

No surprise that Nina was picked for the premiere - Zakharova was still a young dancer at the Mariinsky at the time. Zakharova's performance on the commercial DVD was very fine indeed.

[Lissbirds]

I wish Nina's performance was available on DVD. :(

[cinadean]

wow.....its amazing...........

[schoen10]

It is on the tags. The one in blue at the beginning is Nina

[Lidewijke]

Thank you very much for these marvellous videos! Do you have any idea who the soloists in the variations are? Thank you. :)