
What is it with Swan Lake? There don’t see to be any good ones around. The Bolshoi’s version, currently being performed as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, is no exception. Here’s my review, for DanceTabs. And a short excerpt:
“What the company hasn’t brought this time around is any new choreography. It’s rather a disappointment. Instead, we get three of its most well-worn ballets – Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and Spartacus. It is even more disappointing that the troupe should open its run with a Swan Lake so lackluster that it fails to improve upon the two sub-par Swan Lakes we see here regularly, at ABT and at New York City Ballet.”
I saw Bolshoi SL several times at Koch Theater and quite liked it (especially Smirnova/Chudin). I like that Bolshoi version is more dance and less ridiculous mime. I also liked the Evil Genius and the Jester, initially annoying, grew on me. Also the Bolshoi orchestra was great. Don Q was enormous fun. You sound like a sourpuss; the entire audience loved it. Even the grinch from the NYT gave Don Q a positive review. Spartacus is silly and great fun.
I hope Bolshoi returns soon. It’s a great, great company.
They are a marvelous company, I agree, I just wish they had brought some of their less hackneyed rep, ballets like Ratmansky’s Flames of Paris or Fountain of Bakhchisarai. It’s a lost opportunity, given that they come so infrequently. But I’m not a complete sourpuss, at least not yet. I thought Don Q was terrific. http://dancetabs.com/2014/07/bolshoi-ballet-don-quixote-new-york/