Cheap Glazunov - Raymonda / Bolshoi Ballet, Ludmila Semenyaka, Irek Moukhamedov (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Glazunov - Raymonda / Bolshoi Ballet, Ludmila Semenyaka, Irek Moukhamedov

The Splendid "Raymonda"..........
"Raymonda" was premiered by the Russian Czar's Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, in January of 1898. The choreography is by the great ballet master Marius Petipa (creator of "La Bayadere", "The Sleeping Beauty", "The Nutcracker", "Swan Lake" among others), to the score of russian composer Alexandr Glazunov. Unlike many ballets he staged before it, Petipa did not have to rely to much on the libretto, which was not to interesting, and somewhat over the top even by 19th century theatrical standards. The ballet dancers of the late 1800's had evolved into skilled technicians, and it was on that strength that the aged (around 80) ballet master made one of his last great succeses, and a true masterpeice of choreography. It was his dances that made this ballet the success and staple it was (and is still today). This work has been performed consistently in Russia ever since, and often times has sections extracted for gala performance. <
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>Here we have the Moscow, Russia Bolshoi Ballet performing their staging of the Petipa/Glazunov ballet. This production is by the Bolshoi's then artistic director Yuri Grigorovich The choreography has been revised through time and all of those revisions are included here. The principals are all superb in thier interpretations, and the sets and costumes, although somewhat dull, add to the mystery of the setting in Medeival Hungary. The story and situations of this ballet are somewhat ridiculous, but do not watch this old ballet for those reasons. the dances are all you need to see. <
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>This is the best performance on film (even better than the other recorded Bolshoi performance). Unfortunatly, the best staging of "Raymonda", the St.Petersburg Kirov Ballet version , is not recorded on film except in excerpts on various gala videos (such as 'The Glory of the Kirov', 'Russian Ballet: The Glorious Tradition' Vol 3, 'Nina Ananiashvili and International Stars' Vol. Three', 'Magic of the Kirov'). Although it was first produced by famous artists of music and ballet, it is rare to find this ballet to recorded on film or even its score on cd. No matter though, any lover of the classical ballets would love this performance. Ill give it four stars, five it were the Kirov staging. Four Stars! <
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Beautiful but...
I bought this DVD after I watched Rudolf Nureyev's Raymonda documentary by Paris Opera Ballet since this is the only DVD available for the entire Raymonda performance. It is a beautiful ballet and the Russian dancers' turns are very fast. The part that I was disapointed was Abderarakhman. I am not talking about the dancer, he is really good, but it does not have the breath-taking choreography like the one I saw in Nureyev's version. Other than that it is a very good DVD to watch, except I had to fast forward everytime when there was a curtain call, it was long and almost everytime when a solorist finishes a variation. It was like watching a mini series of many variations instead of one whole ballet story. I am probably biased for Paris Opera Ballet so my feedback may not be fair. If I did not see Nureyev's documentary, this would have been one of my favorite ballet. It is beautiful.