Analysing Sugar Plum Variations! | Mariinsky, Bolshoi, Royal Ballet
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- Опубліковано 1 лют 2023
- Hello Everyone,
Today I am analysing a few different Sugar plum fairy solos!
I am sharing my objective opinion for educational purposes. Sharing my critics in a positive and constructive way.
I personally love all versions for different reasons but if I had to choose one sheerly for the beauty of how it looks overall, costume, set, choreography I actually really enjoy the Royal Ballet version. Although Nina Kaptsova is just impeccable!! Truly stunning. Along with the Mariinsky versos olds a special Vaganova memory in my heart. It's hard to choose!
Let me know who you prefer and why? Keep the comments thought provoking and positive with respect to the ballerinas as always :-)
Enjoy and please leave your comments below!
You can watch when we analysed Russian odettes!
• Analysing Russian Odet...
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About Me
Hello everyone! my names Isabella.
I am the first British graduate of the Vaganova ballet academy in Saint Petersburg Russia. I was a soloist working with the Mikhailovsky Ballet and Eifman ballet.
Now I live in London as a full time coach
Here, on my channel I am sharing my passion with you all about the Vaganova technique amongst many other things related to ballet we all love.
It's a hard industry so I am here to help with my insights and knowledge to make it a little easier for you all, as well as to hopefully entertain you with my content.
Thank you for watching!
Nina encompasses everything I imagine a sugarplum fairy should be. Those little head tilts with her infectious smile!
can we talk abou when she rolls her eyes? so playful
Bolshoi version definitely
The ability to STOP after so many turns like that on a dime from Nina is absolutely astounding.
Nina is the best. the Bolshoi set is coolest, snowy, blue is the warmest color
As a more natural lefty, I love seeing and dancing the few moments in which the ballerina has to turn left. I was trained at the Bolshoi and worked really hard to turn right like most girls. It ended up being the BEST thing for my career because I am now EVEN on all jumps, turns and flexibility.
Bolshoi.. Also I think that Nina is the best of the best in this.. U chose good to show her
Of the three variations I feel more connected to Nina - she has that playful cheekiness.. a sort of coquetteness a fairy is quite likely to have. "I shall dance to you, humans, but you cannot catch me!"
I love this series of comparing different variations♥! Sometimes I watch a piece and like it, but I couldn't analyze and articulate so precisely for the reason. I got so many aha-moments from this commentary series for the reasons I like a performance.
I'm so glad!❤
Nina is THE QUEEN! Just amazing tho I love them all.
Just lovely Isabella, much easier to pick up the difference in variations when seeing them all together. Nina was just lovely. I also like the natural hair - I’ve never liked the white wig, even as a little girl and that was a very long time ago. Beautiful ballet 🩰, thank you 🩰🩰🩰🩰👵🇦🇺
The bolshoi version just has something magical and different by the execution from Nina. I agree I like that version the most out of these 3. I even like the more natural snowy cold stage design somehow. It let's the dancer stand out more in my opinion compared to the other stage designs, which ofcourse are also very beautiful and unique in their own way. Love this series. I learn so much about the little nuances and what to look for in the different variations. Thanks for continuing these. Keep them coming and hope you will reach a milestone soon with the amount of subsribers. You 100% deserve it! ❤️🙏
I love the Royal Ballet, and I have watched the nutcracker at the ROH, but I agree with you 110 %. This variation is sooooo iconic and I think the royal ballet version falls flat, it is almost frustrating how much it does not match the moment and the music (in my humble opinion 😅).
Bolshoi is perfection! So beautiful!
😍😍😍 Ah the Grigorovich! You know how much I love it :) I just think the Royal Ballet's version doesn't match the music as well at the beginning. I learned the Mariinsky one as a teenager and loved dancing that, but I agree, the manège missing at the end loses something.
Nina is divine ❤❤
Strictly from a dance point of view I choose the Bolshoi variation. As member of the public and in the context of the show the Royal Ballet version is by far my favourite. Much more artistic and aesthetically appealing.
I think that it is important to mention that versions from Bolshoi and Mariinsky do not have sugar plum fairy. This variation belongs to Masha ( in Europe it is Klara) as a result, movements are different.
I do also very much like the Grigorovitch version, as well as the pas de deux, I think the whole version of the ballet just has a little bit different essence to it, but it is very nice. My all time favourite production would be the Mariinsky one, it was the first I saw and I just love the magical look and atosphere of the stage. The royal ballet one I have never seen, so I can't compare, but in general I feel I get the best experience by watching russian dancers.
Nina is outstanding
!!!!
Thank you so much for continuing this series! One of my favorite on UA-cam for sure
all are very good but the bolshoi one is my favorite 👌❤️😊
Isabella, I saw your Dying Swan on youtube. It is so beautiful. You did so many unique things in your interpretation. And that's alot to say because it is such an often-done role and one which everyone loves and sees with many different dancers.
Your interpretation was so unhurried, so slow and so sustained, so still yet you would sometimes have a sudden pizzicato, bird-like movement.
Oh can you go back to dancing? But of course I think your youtube channel is so fantastic and such a gift to everyone.
Your performance was delicate, yet with realistic awkwardness sprinkled in at times evoking a poignantly dying swan.
Your back bend was Plisetskayaian and Allegra Kentian but after you described your painful injuries I couldn't enjoy the back bend but it was gorgeous.
You were/are such a beautiful dancer! Bravo! Bravo!
P.s. Do you think you could get performance-ready and do your Dying Swan on youtube and then maybe do it as a guest performer like Kathryn Morgan does?
Thank you for your wonderful videos. They must take so much work, time, and effort and the technical quality is so excellent - visually, background, and the volume is always nice and loud and clear.
Who coached you for the performance, if someone did?
I could listen to you talk all day. There is something about the way that you talk to your viewers that is very, very respectful and I feel cared about. And you don't scimp. And you do so many kinds of different things. You always share fully and you are so tuned into your viewers. A person can feel when they are respected and I feel that. And needless to say, I hold you in high regard in kind. You have such a deep road of experience that is given to us all and is taken in with such grattitude.
I love your channel. Thank you for it and for making it of such high quality all the way around.
I'd be curious to know what you think about the Balanchine version. I loved Nina's version! Wow! ❤️
I love the Balanchine version most. Kaptsova was fantastic. I did like all of these variations, and Hayward especially was very fine dancer.
my favorite is the royal ballet and francesca was the most adorable sugar plum fairy ❤!!!
Thanks so much for these comparison videos: you’ve pointed out so many things I never would have noticed and it really helps me appreciate all these variations more fully.
All three Sugar Plums express so much charm and lightness, it was really hard to choose a favourite, especially as the choreography is so different. I loved Renata Shakirova’s execution of the bourees in the Mariinsky version, Nina Kapsova’s technical prowess is awesome in the Grigorevich version, I love her cheekiness and the manège at the end is just stunning- but overall I enjoyed Francesca Hayward best. For me the white wig and that scenery is so iconic before even the dancing begins. I like that choreography the best, gruelling though it must be to perform.
My own ballet training never got further than RAD Majors back in the 1980s but I never forget the wonderful life lessons ballet taught me and I have always carried on dancing in some form. You are so lucky to have trained at Vaganova; my first ballet school was NATD Russian method and I loved it.
Haha you’re so gentle and calming but also funny too. I loved the intense zoom in on ‘smash your goals!’ 😍 you’re the best Isabella!
Right? Great sense of humor!
Nina is the best!
The Grigorovich version stands out both in terms of complexity, dynamics and Nina's interpretation. I'd have to place the mariinsky second because though not very complex, this version is coherent: short, sweet and flowy in dynamics. The RB , to me, was neither here nor there. Started out sweet and then the last part was like trying to add a layer of complexity without the steam. I am not a dancer, so speaking as a subjective member of the audience only
Мне показалось, что в версии Королевского балета фея больше соответствует сюжету, в в Большом театре она более эфемерна , но это больше соответствует музыке. Спасибо ! Очень интересно!
It's hard to choose between the Royal Ballet and Bolshoi versions - they're both nice and long and they're just... different. As long as I'm seeing a great dancer (which all of them are!), I'm happy.
Nina is so great ! a star
Bolshoi hands down!
I think Renata is very pretty, but sometimes she gave me the impression not to have fully control landing and in between steps. Francesca was super precise, stable and just extremely clean, the cleanest among all. But I must say the last version of the Bolshoi is really cool, with lots od change of dynamics, and the dancer was just brilliant
Thanks for the Video! Nina was just so magical! Always wonder what would a dancer do if she or he get offers both from mariinsky and bolshoi? Is it a tough call? Personal preference? Or one of them is considered more prodigious than the other? 🌹
There are so many factors, some of which only insiders would know. Like, what kind of repertoire you can be offered; how often you're going to perform; if you're hired as a soloist, who's going to be your ballet master/mistress (dunno about the rest of the world, but in state-run Russian theatres soloists have their own teachers rehearsing with them individually) and what the relationship b/w this ballet master/mistress and the artistic director is, etc.
And one must also remember that the more prestigious a company is, the more difficult it is to get promoted, simply because there're so many talents, all eager and willing to snatch a role.
@@user-jv2lo7vh4i I see now. thank you so much!
Francesca has a very unusual quality. She's understated, yet so compelling to watch. One can't take one's eyes off her. I love Renata also, but I wasn't wild about the Marinsky's choreography for this variation, it seemed a little repetitive. Of course Nina Kaptsova is the perfect Sugar Plum Fairy.
This made me want to watch Yuhui Choe dance the sugar plum fairy again, but there doesn't seem to be any videos of it on UA-cam 😞
Bolshoi version is my favorite!!!
The Royal Ballet version is my favorite
It would have been better to use the Cuthbertson version of the RB Nutcracker. Not only is it a proper ballet clip but she’s more experienced at the role at the time of recording.
IMO, Grigorovich comes the closest to expressing the music via movement, not just stringing some ballet steps together to be performed in time to the music, but truly making the choreography embody the spirit of this piece by Tchaikovsky. You watch the performance and think that not a single step can be altered or replaced - it's that convincing.
The Royal Ballet's is the version that I find the least appealing - first, it's repetitive, second - there're some parts that appear random to me: yes, the tempo and the rhythm are the same as in the music but those sequences don't reflect the music's character. And of course the slowing down during the final part makes the whole variation feel heavy and somewhat laborious.
I thought you'd like to know that your podcast isn't just helping dancers, I'm way past dancing age and having a body that can do that stuff, but I'm subscribed to listen to the interviews, but sometimes the title of a "regular" podcast will catch my attention and I'll listen to it, I found the one on being overwhelmed super helpful, but the huge one for me was goal setting, doing something small for 100 days blew my mind, I'd not heard anything like that in regular productivity stuff, they often say do something small, but rarely for a fixed number of days. I had to do an emergency rearrangement of my home in the summer, leaving my master bedroom a complete disaster. It still had a bunch of stuff I hadn't moved into my new bedroom as well as all the boxes I'd pulled out of another bedroom. After listening to your podcast I wrote down those 100 days (also something I've never heard suggested before), today is day 23 and though just now it actually looks even messier I know how many drawers are empty and how many bags have gone to the bin and it actually feels like I could be done in under 100 days. I'd not got started when it was an unending task, now when I get to the end of 100 days I can stop as there aren't any external deadlines.
Aww thank you so much!! That’s amazing to read! Thank you ❤
Bolshoi and Mariinsky....
If you ever do part two, you should include the Balanchine NYCB version!
yes please!
Hey Isabella, is it ok to contact you, I sent an email around two weeks ago, a video idea, you could do a ballet photoshoot in nature maby as a collaboration and challenge with other dancers, would probably be great photos.
Also I'm wondering is it worth it to start ballet at 19 if I want it to be pleasent to watch,what level is possible to reach in 5-10years, is it phisically possible to achive positions for developing right technique and using right muscles
Все по своему прекрасны, но мне больше нравится Советская балерина Ефремова, как она прекрасно передала в танце Фею сахарной сливы. Запись танца 1970 года. Я её пересматриваю несколько раз. Этот танец , просто магия в исполнении Ефремовой. Благодарю.❤
Appreciating your unique perspective, informed comments and pedgogy as well. Sometimes, you speed up your speech and lower your voice as if thinking aloud...and it is not always easy to understand what you are saying...which I do want to hear clearly. No offense intended....just wanted to mention this as it happens frequently. Thanks for all you offer on your videos.
Do you feel jealous to Franky that didnt go through 10 percent of what you went through but is a star of Royal Ballet?
Not at all. Frankie was always destined for that. I still enjoy bumping into her and saying hello when we cross paths :-)
Bolshoi vsn
The second Dancer for my eyes, was the only one that really embodies the music and the others I don’t think the choreography is even trying to embody the music because the third Dancer it’s just too much power moves with a very delicate, beautiful, charming magical piece of music??? Actually did not like what I think was the Bolshoi (3rd) - I don’t need to see Italian fouetté turns In the variation, for what reason? The Dancer did good job executing the choreography, but I don’t like the choreography.
Honestly Gelsey Kirkland from the 70s is untouchable in this.
The camera ins and outs are infuriating. Stop!
Disagree
Nina Kaptsova is the Queen of Sugar Plum Fairies. 👑