tue 20/08/2019

Reconstructing Ballet's Past 2: Master Restorer Sergei Vikharev | reviews, news & interviews

Reconstructing Ballet's Past 2: Master Restorer Sergei Vikharev

Reconstructing Ballet's Past 2: Master Restorer Sergei Vikharev

The man at the centre of the biggest controversy in ballet

Playbill for Coppélia in 1894 at St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre: starring Pierina Legnani


Tonight the Bolshoi shows London a new production of the doll comedy Coppélia, which takes the radical step of going back as far as is possible to the last production made at the Imperial Ballet of St Petersburg, shedding all the accretions and changes to suit different dancers and tastes since then, and aiming to restage, in full late 19th-century luxury, the Coppélia that existed in the glittering peak of the Tsar's ballet.


Arriving in France, to join other refugee Russians, Sergeyev assumed that the well-established Diaghilev Ballets Russes would take on the heritage - he was wrong. Diaghilev was a modernist, not a classicist, and after using Sergeyev for his Sleeping Princess (Sleeping Beauty) production, he wanted no more. Sergeyev moved on to England - where Ninette de Valois gratefully employed him to stage and teach her fledgling Vic Wells dancers the classics, Coppelia, then Giselle, then The Sleeping Beauty. But again Sergeyev was to be disappointed in his hope that his master's works would be staged and performed faithfully as they had been recorded under Petipa's eye. For one thing, de Valois had nothing like the same numbers of skilled dancers available, nor the massive stages, nor the resources. For another, she like Diaghilev saw the classics as working material to teach and nurture new choreographers on. And for another, these leisurely classics were of Wagnerian length - Petipa's Sleeping Beauty was four hours long - and de Valois had no compunction about pruning.


It is here that Sergei Vikharev comes onto the scene. A dancer in the Mariinsky, in the late 1990s he was struck - while rehearsing Balanchine and Fokine ballets, both of which have active custodians zealously preserving the ur-text - that the classics had no such equivalent, and in particular the ballets of the master of them all, Petipa. Vikharev learned about the Harvard notations, and then took on the forces of Russian ballet tradition, with the backing of the theatre's all-powerful music director Valery Gergiev. The result was the astounding restoration of the 1890 The Sleeping Beauty, which set London and New York by the ears in 2000 with its leisurely pageant of luxury and graciousness. (Pictured below, Diana Vishneva as Aurora with Veronika Pärt and Andrian Fadeyev in that production at the Mariinsky.) This was followed by a nearly as marvellous "old" La Bayadère, recreating the 1900 staging supervised by Petipa and restoring the full four-act score.


Coppélia is the third major classic that Vikharev has pieced together from the Sergeyev notations - one of his greatest aids was that both the British Coppelia and Sleeping Beauty productions (staged of course by Sergeyev for de Valois) contain so many clues to confirm what the notations indicated was the original choreography. These productions drove a wedge, however, between him and the massed ranks of the Kirov and Bolshoi ballet companies, who after the Revolution had developed their own iconic productions of classics by now far strayed from the originals.


Clearly there is more than simply history and nationalist politics at issue here - there is the question of how accurately the notations describe Petipa's productions, and there is, perhaps above all, a larger aesthetic question that afflicts ballet uniquely in theatre. It is, after all, the tradition, and it has almost always been the tradition, for classical ballets to be passed on from foot to foot, as they say, ie by oral tradition, yet this has given permission for very major differences to evolve, causing large cracks in the academic tradition.

So classical ballet faces a watershed - not dissimilar to that which classical music took on board with the period movement. At a time when academic training styles have become almost impossible to define and conserve thanks to the global melange of repertoire, is there any future in attempting to bring the concept of fidelity to an "authentic" text into ballet? After all, if the newest young pup in the choreography market can have his green steps treated as sacrosanct, how is it that the towering figure of classical ballet, Marius Petipa, is accorded so little respect for his work?






What condition was the book in?

There were several copies.

Did you think you could learn the code?


What were the differences?


Watch a live audience film shot at the Kirov of Princess Aurora's solo to her suitors in the Vikharev reconstruction of the 1890 Petipa production of his Sleeping Beauty - Evgenia Obraztsova is Aurora:



So you are challenging a huge tradition of coaching.




What if you don’t trust it? What is left?




And you are certain of that?










[He laughs.]



How can it be false?

For them, it is.




They aren’t interested in Petipa.

Ah, this is the crux of it.


So Petipa is like a label or a cloak of respectability!


Who was staging it?

Francia Russell. 

She couldn’t stop you?


This is why I raised the argument about nationalism.

It’s a mentality.

If a balletmaster makes his





So it is not entirely an intellectual problem.

Ballet is a very deep business.


Well, let’s talk just about the intellectual argument, for the moment. I know there are some American experts on Stepanov who disagree with you about how you read the notation. (Pictured above, a page of Stepanov notation of La Bayadère)






Watch Doug Fullington's version for Bavarian Ballet of Petipa's 'authentic' Odalisques pas de trois from Le Corsaire:

And here is the Burlaka version of the same pas de trois for the Bolshoi (2007) - a vivid difference between them is the solo after 3mins 25sec:


Well, others have to judge. You. The public.




How many reconstructions have you done now?









Yes. true.



You think Petipa cannibalised Saint-Léon?








So it wouldn’t matter if it was you or anyone else.




Is that it?



No. It’s possible. It’s possible.

You’re sure?


It is context, isn’t it?





So no more reconstructions at the Mariinsky?

They don’t need my services any more.

And their director Yuri Fateyev?

He says they’re out of date.


They took them out of repertoire.

Can you give those productions to another company?


So what constructions would you like to do now?

Many are possible. 

There are 24 ballets notated.




Who can read the Stepanov there?




So your reconstructions are filmed?




Watch Doug Fullington explaining and demonstrating his 'reconstruction' work on Petipa's La Bayadère for Pacific North-West Ballet (extract from a full 2014 live stream):

What is the role now that British productions played in your work? Were they helpful?



Aren’t the Americans interested in reconstructions?








  • The Bolshoi Ballet gives four performances of Coppélia tonight-Saturday (mat & eve) at the Royal Opera House; Le Corsaire is on 2-5 August. Also in the season, Balanchine's Serenade and Giselle, next Mon-Wed; a 'Russian' triple bill including Petrushka 29-30 July, Spartacus 31 July (mat & eve), and Don Quixote 6-8 August
  • The Royal Ballet's Coppelia on Opus Arte, filmed with Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta, a 2000 production returning to de Valois/Sergeyev's first staging
  • David Nice's recommended recording of Delibes Coppelia for BBC Radio 3 Building a Library last month: Ernest Ansermet with the Suisse Romande
  • Reconstructing Ballet's Past I: Swan Lake - theartsdesk interview with Mikhailovsky Ballet director Mikhail Messerer

Watch the mazurka from Coppelia in the Royal Ballet's 2000 production:


Absolutely fascinating article! Thank you.

The implication here is that the 2007 "reconstruction" of LE CORSAIRE by the Bolshoi Ballet is somehow connected to Vikharev. His name is nowhere on that production. The credits read: Revival: Yuri Burlaka, Alexei Ratmansky. Additionally, no reference is made here to the "reconstruction" of COPPELIA Vikharev staged for Novisibirsk, which predated his staging for the Bolshoi Ballet by a number of years, and which might have made for interesting questions as to whether or not it differed in any way from this subsequent, recent staging for the Bolshoi Ballet, with the exception of the recreation of the original designs, which seem not to have been done for Novisbirsk.

Robert, thank you for the correction - my error was due to my misunderstanding the interpreter there. Duly amended to clarify that it is Burlaka's Corsaire production.

I was one of those who adored the reconstruction of Sleeping Beauty, and I wish that another company would take it over, since the Maryinsky company prefers the (to me corrupt) Konstantin Sergeyev version. But I'm curious to know what was the source of the reconstruction of Le Carnaval? Are Fokine's ballets notated? I saw a video of this production and it seemed to me very inauthentic, even some of the costumes weren't right (Pierrot's, for instance) and surely the Bakst designs must exist.

I enjoyed this article. In the mid-1970s ABT asked Mary Skeaping to stage "Sleeping Beauty" (3 hrs 45 minutes on opening night). She had studied the original Stepanov notation. I was there, capturing what was taught in Labanotation. The version of Aurora's variation she taught is remarkably similar to the version shown here on YouTube. The Labanotation score is available for study at the Dance Notation Bureau in New York. Although Mary taught the work as she understood it, the dancers (particularly the male principal dancers) changed the steps prior to the first performance and did variations that showed their own strengths. They felt the audience wouldn't accept the simplicity of the original. Mary Skeaping also objected to the dancers displaying split leaps or arabesques at 90 degrees and higher because dancers of the original were unable to do those things. (They are displayed in the reconstruction on YouTube.) The garland dance at the beginning of Act I was completely restaged by Antony Tudor during the preceding intermission because the garlands (unavailable before the day of the performance) were hooking on the costumes and headdresses. Doing the choreography Mary taught would have meant dancers dancing with skirts hooked on their heads. Some changes are made to show technical strengths. Some are made to avoid disaster.

Vikharev, we need you at Paris! There are tens of thousands of scores, and thousands of pages of notation gathering dust in the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra. Your work is very important, and you have much support out here in Western Europe. Might one, however, make one remark? You must get your dancers to keep those legs down, stop turning every movement into the splits, stop over-crossing the fifth and hyper-extending the knee and elbow joint. No-one in the 19th Century did those things, and to convey the poetry of movement of that time, we must do as they did.

An interesting article and observation for if you compare the Fullington and Burlaka versions of the variaion from Corsaire shown above it is notable that in the Burlaka version there are sequences which are similar to the Cecchetti classwork which ( unless Burlaka is familar with Cecchetii's work and has lifted it) would suggest that the Burlaka version may be more acurate as Cecchetti's classwork reflected the needs of the dancers and has steps taken directly from the ballets.

I have one question for Lynne Weber about 1976 staging. It is said sometimes that there was the Lilac Fairy Tchernicheva variation from 1921 production, danced by Martine van Hamel. Where can I find the description (or video) of this version?

A note to the author - Ismene Brown: The Munich & Bolshoi productions of "Le Corsaire" seem very different because the Munich production is a literal, to-the-letter reconstruction of 25 of Petipa's dances. But the Bolshoi's production merely used the notation as a "starting point" if you will. Also, the Bavarian State Ballet's production did not have access to some of the additional music added by Petipa in Russia. For example, there is a famous character solo called "Le Petit Corsaire" that Petipa staged to extra music written by Cesare Pugni. Since the Munich company did not have this music, they pasted the choreography onto different music! Also, Petipa had some of Delibes's music for the famous scene "Le Jardin anime" expanded for his staging, & the notation reflects this. But Munich did not have this expanded version of the music, so they cut that part out. But the Bolshoi does have this music, so they put it in, but they didn't reconstruct the choreography 100%. Also, the Munich production only reconstructed 25 dances from the notation, & that is all. The costumes are decor are totally modern. So, it's important to realize (& I don't know if Vikharev knows this) that the Bolshoi's production is certainly NOT a literal, "to-the-letter" staging of the notation, but the Munich version is (but only in some place within those 25 dances). The examples you give of the Odalisque Trio videos from "Corsaire" shows this - the Munich version is totally from notation, but the Bolshoi's retains the Soviet-era version. Thanks, BTW, for providing links to my youtube vids!

Regarding the Munich production of Corsaire: 1) The Munich team did indeed have the original Petit Corsaire music, but the decision was made to perform the dance to music by Adam from his original Corsaire score; 2) Le jardin anime, as performed in Munich, uses all of the music provided in the Stepanov notation score for this scene, with the exception of the substitution of music by Delibes for one variation. The sequence of music was also altered to reflect Delibes' original score, but nothing was cut. The music in the notation matches that of the violin repetiteur of Corsaire, also held on microfilm at the Harvard Theatre Collection. The additional music used in the Bolshoi production of the Le jardin anime scene is not included in any of the Harvard sources.

Oh wow - thanks for clearing this up Mr. Fullington. It was my (mis)undertsanding that the music for "Jardin" was expanded in Imperial times. I suppose I took all that Burlaka said and stuff from your article in dancing Times & concocted the wrong idea...I'm sorry! :) But why then would you have pasted choreography onto different music if you had the original music in the first place? I have emailed you before, but got no response.

I agree with Katherine Barber - Fascinating article AND extremely important intoto reconsidering reconstructions.

I definitely prefer the Bolshoi/reconstructed version of the Mazurka over the Royal Ballets' 2000 production in the last youtube linked video, the scenery is better and the group is more cohesive and moving together as a group, the RB 2000 version reminds me oddly enough of the Can-Can or a Broadway play, it just doesn't have same quality. Ditto for the compared "Doug Fullington's version of Petipa's 'authentic' Odalisques pas de trois from Le Corsaire" v/s the Bolshoi version depicted in videos here, I prefer the Bolshoi version in every way. The Fullington versions' scenery and lighting looks "stupid" artificial, faked and you almost expect a light show or fireworks display to start any moment! It has a fake movie theater movie feel to it, the Bolshoi version is much better, more real, the scenery is lovely, it gives you a sense of a real place of substance and luxury without looking faked. Ditto for the Bolshoi Cappelia- just splendid little village square scenery that provides a comfortable close-in, intimate setting while looking like a real old village square.

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