In 1959, Rudolf Nureyev, with Ninel Kourgapkina as Kitri, danced Basilio for the first time at the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad. He was 20. After he defected to the West in 1961, the role became his calling card around the world, the character suiting his comic talents and mischievous nature. He restaged the ballet, based […]
Maina Gielgud
How to stage a ballet… Maina Gielgud explains
The indefatigable Maina Gielgud is a freelance stager, guest teacher and coach. In 1983, two years after leaving her successful and varied career as a dancer, she became Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet, where she stayed for a remarkable fourteen years. It was the beginning of a long second career in company administration and […]
Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya dies at 89
Maya Plisetskaya died of a heart attack today in Munich. She was 89. The director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Vladimir Urin, said, She died of a severe heart attack. The doctors tried everything, but there was nothing they could do. Mikhail Shvydkoi, former Russian Minister of Culture, said, I always thought that Plisetskaya would live forever. […]
James Whiteside answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? I started dancing when I was 9 years old. Why did you start dancing? I started dancing because I was driving my mom crazy. She wanted to get me out of the house and into an after-school activity. I had an appalling amount of energy and I absolutely hated […]
Natalia Osipova and Claudio Coviello début in Nureyev’s Swan Lake
Prince Siegfried sleeps on his throne and in his dream he sees the evil Rothbart carrying off a white swan into the sky. This is how Rudolf Nureyev’s version of Swan Lake begins, and ends. The ballet seen as a Freudian nightmare, the young prince who finds escape in his head instead of taking up the […]
Claudio Coviello spreads his wings in Swan Lake with Natalia Osipova
In a brave casting move, Makhar Vaziev, director of La Scala’s ballet company, has given new-boy Claudio Coviello the opening night of Swan Lake with Natalia Osipova. 21-year-old Claudio Coviello, who stepped in at the last minute to replace Ivan Vasiliev in March, and was named primo ballerino (principal) just two months ago, will be dancing three performances with the Russian […]
Maina Gielgud answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? I took my first ballet classes when I was about 6 years old. It was in Brussels, and with a Russian teacher married to a Belgian. Her name was Mme de Zeum. After my first class she asked my mother to get me some pointe shoes for the next […]
Lifar’s Suite en Blanc “a clever, intriguing and intricately patterned work”
Well you can’t blame them for trying. “Black & White: featuring the Black Swan pas de deux” was the cringe-making publicity for the English National Ballet’s mixed programme. It didn’t however draw the critics’ attention away from the real gem of the evening: Suite en Blanc is a little-seen ballet by Serge Lifar, the last star […]
