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Lev Knipper Ballet "The Beautiful Angara" (1962)

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Author Topic: Lev Knipper Ballet "The Beautiful Angara" (1962)  (Read 518 times)
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« on: July 13, 2017, 10:13:21 pm »

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Gauk
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« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2017, 10:42:51 am »

It's a shame no-one writes ballet scores these days. If there's a new ballet, the music is some wildly inappropriate pre-existing piece of music.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2017, 12:39:10 pm »

I agree that the trend towards ill-matching pot-pourris of pre-existing music (glued together from all periods and styles) is woeful - but it's not universal.

We get quite a lot of new ballets in Russia (since ballet is a major art-form with substantial financial support for new work), and at least half of them seem to have entirely new scores. Irina Belova and Efrem Podgaits have both written new ballet scores recently.
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« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2017, 02:19:06 pm »

I quite like some of Knipper's music. I wish I didn't,of course! ::) The ballet music of Boris Asafiev is popular in Russia,apparently. Or,at least it was? I keep hoping Melodiya will release their recordings of it on cd. It's not great music,but I recorded an off air tape of some excerpts from the recording some years ago,and I found it quite enjoyable,in an undemanding way. The music for The Flames of Paris draws it's inspiration from Rameau,Lully and French Revolutionary songs. I remember Collets and the Russian Record Company always had the Lp set in their lists.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2017, 12:27:34 am »

I remember Collets and the Russian Record Company always had the Lp set in their lists.

Ah, that takes me back :-)  The basement at Collets always had a peculiar smell from the horse glue that was used to assemble the boxes for the box-sets... particularly from the old Supraphon boxes of Janacek and Martinue works. We shall ne're more see (or smell) their like again, I fear!

Leonid Desyatnikov is a fairly major composer of new ballets, and his work gets stagings at the Bolshoi. One of his recent ballets 'Russian Seasons' was staged there quite recently.

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« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2017, 01:31:51 pm »

We get quite a lot of new ballets in Russia (since ballet is a major art-form with substantial financial support for new work), and at least half of them seem to have entirely new scores. Irina Belova and Efrem Podgaits have both written new ballet scores recently.

...and then the ballet gets pulled by the censors...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40596929     http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/10/bolshoi-ballet-denies-bowing-censorship-canceled-rudolf-nureyev/
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« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2017, 11:53:57 am »

This ballet was actually co-composed by Lev Knipper and Bau Yampilov, and was premiered in 1959, not 1962 as the video claims, and was revised in 1972. Presumably this is the version on the video. According to various online sources it has been immensely popular over the years with over 300 performances.

Bau Yampilov (1916-1989) was a Buryat composer. Buryatia is an "autonomous" republic, both in Soviet times and in the current Russia. Situated just north of Mongolia, in Siberia, it is about the size of Ireland.

Large works by ethnic composers in the Soviet era were often co-composed with Russian composers, presumably to make the result more "polished" and professional. For instance, the ballet "Kuiruchuk," co-composed by Kirghiz composer Kaly Moldobasanov and Russian composer Gherman Okunev. Or two operatic collaborations between the Uzbek composer Talib Sadykov and the much more well-known Reinhold Gliere.

Many of these works are quite lovely and melodic. Despite concerted efforts to "Russify" local cultures and ethnic groups in Soviet times, the central government was also keen to exploit colorful aspects (musical and otherwise) of these cultures to the rest of the world.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2017, 11:06:44 pm »

Situated just north of Mongolia, in Siberia, it is about the size of Ireland.

Republic of Ireland = 70,273 km2
Buryatia = 351,300 km

Buryatia is five times larger than Ireland.

As we might expect from a city that's the capital of an area five times larger than Ireland  ;), Ulan-Ude is home to a full-time opera & ballet theatre (something which Dublin somehow can't run to):



The project to build the opera/ballet theatre in Ulan-Ude began in 1932 - the same year that the city's name changed from Verhkneudinsk to Ulan-Ude. Actual building work began in 1937, but the whole project was put on hold due to WW2 financial commitments - and was only finally completed in 1952.  Unlike many opera/ballet thetres in the USSR, it wasn't a 'legacy' theatre from the pre-Revolution era - the city had never had such a theatre before, and it was seen as an essential element and amenity for a modern Soviet city. As such, there was no established expectation that the repertoire would "follow on" in the established diet of Traviatas, Carmens and Onegins... it was free to establish its own repertoire policy. A productive flow of new works emerged - some inspired by ethnic musical traditions of the region, others as stagings of local stories and legends (such as The Beautiful Angara),,, and an inevitable batch of Socialist Realist works - which served immediate needs, but haven't lasted in the repertoire.

In recent years, the ballet troupe of the theatre has proven to be a rearing-ground for lithe and athletic young dancers, who have taken up work all over Russia.
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« Reply #8 on: July 23, 2017, 09:49:38 pm »

Quote
Buryatia is five times larger than Ireland.


Quite right, Neil. I got my numbers mixed up somehow.  :-[ I guess a more realistic size comparison would be with Germany (137,983)

Thanks for the history lesson!
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« Reply #9 on: August 16, 2017, 06:40:15 am »

Nothing to do with Knipper, but Eshpai also wrote an Angara Ballet, a very fine piece IMHO..it must be a beautiful river
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« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2017, 11:01:55 am »

Nothing to do with Knipper, but Eshpai also wrote an Angara Ballet, a very fine piece IMHO..it must be a beautiful river

Yes, thanks for reminding of us, in a separate thread :-))

It is indeed a lovely river - the main river to flow out of Lake Baikal (as opposed to numerous other rivers which flow into it). This makes it the main river to flow through the centre of Irkutsk. It has a somewhat 'inspirational' reputation, and its name has been adopted for a new generation of space rocket launch vehicle. The Angara River flows on from Irkutsk towards Bratsk, where it feeds the Bratsk Hydro-Electric Dam project. Although regarded as a prestige engineering project during the 1950s (when it became the world's highest-output electric station, at least for a while), opinions are now changing. The Irkutsk author Valentin Rasputin has bitterly criticised the loss of land and resources the dam's construction involved - although, it must be said, without proposing any alternative for providing power to central Siberia, which depends on the dam for a longterm sustainable source of energy. Yet the Bratsk Hydro-Electric Power Station's main claim to fame is as the setting at which Yegor Zhivago finally tracks down his brother Yuri's lost daughter, who is now working at the power station. A different dam had to stand-in for the real thing in David Lean's iconic film - since Lean was turned-down at every stage for permission to film in the USSR.


(where the Angara River finally flows...)
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« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2017, 07:16:59 am »

Nothing to do with Knipper, but Eshpai also wrote an Angara Ballet, a very fine piece IMHO..it must be a beautiful river

Yes, thanks for reminding of us, in a separate thread :-))

It is indeed a lovely river - the main river to flow out of Lake Baikal (as opposed to numerous other rivers which flow into it). This makes it the main river to flow through the centre of Irkutsk. It has a somewhat 'inspirational' reputation, and its name has been adopted for a new generation of space rocket launch vehicle. The Angara River flows on from Irkutsk towards Bratsk, where it feeds the Bratsk Hydro-Electric Dam project. Although regarded as a prestige engineering project during the 1950s (when it became the world's highest-output electric station, at least for a while), opinions are now changing. The Irkutsk author Valentin Rasputin has bitterly criticised the loss of land and resources the dam's construction involved - although, it must be said, without proposing any alternative for providing power to central Siberia, which depends on the dam for a longterm sustainable source of energy. Yet the Bratsk Hydro-Electric Power Station's main claim to fame is as the setting at which Yegor Zhivago finally tracks down his brother Yuri's lost daughter, who is now working at the power station. A different dam had to stand-in for the real thing in David Lean's iconic film - since Lean was turned-down at every stage for permission to film in the USSR.


(where the Angara River finally flows...)
Thanks for the interesting info on the Angara..
I don't get the statement about another thread..the subject was Angara and Ballet..
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