Some complimentary, as well as some really vile and objectionable comments on Criticaldance.com about my City Arts piece on the Mariinsky Ballet, written by people who, let’s say, prefer to keep their agendas close to their chests.
I’m accused of plaigirism by “Cygne,” on the grounds that in 2006 Criticaldance.com published an interview by Catherine Pawlick with Svetlana Ivanova, whom I interviewed for the City Arts piece. Apparently for “Cygne,” plaigirism consists of interviewing someone who has been interviewed before.
And while we’re on the subject of who was first, by any chance did “Cygne” or Pawlick read my writing on Ivanova in Ballet Review in 2005?
When I reviewed the Mariinsky’s 2008 season at City Center for the New York Sun, “Natalia N” made a point of disagreeing on line with virtually every comment I made in print. And she’s kept on going like that ever since. Cathexis time!
“Natalia N” now has the audacity to call my favorable review of Alina Somova’s Giselle with the Mariinsky in Washington, D.C. last February an “‘apology.'” Since, as we all do know, “Natalia N” simply loathes Somova, she was, I guess, meaning to call me an apologist.
Pawlick, moderator of Criticaldance.com’s Mariinsky forum, recently announced that she was planning a book on Yuri Soloviev, about whom I wrote a long profile for Ballet Review in 2003. Ballet Review also recently published my interview with Tatiana Legat, Soloviev’s widow, and the Solovievs’ friend Lisa Whitaker. When Pawlick interviewed a friend of Soloviev’s recently, she claimed never to have read my BR article on him, despite that fact that she had a piece published in the same issue.
On this Criticaldance discussion, Pawlick says that she talked with Ivanova recently, who said she was perplexed about why I’d asked her if she still wanted to dance Giselle. Ivanova, however, said to me when I inteviewed her last February in Washington, D.C. that she wanted to ask the Mariinsky administration if she could dance the Giselle pas de deux at the Mariinka3 theater, the new philharmonic hall Gergiev opened in 2007, which frequently programs ballet as well.
Furthermore, both Pawlick and “Natalia N” are unprofessional enough to claim that Vasili Scherbakov, about whom I also write, is out of shape, without addressing the fact that, as I say in my piece, since almost all his solo performances have been taken away, and thus his rehearsals for solo performances, how is he to stay in shape? Surely these two commentators are well enough versed in ballet to understand this.
Secondly, I saw his Bluebird at the Kennedy Center in February 2010 and saw with my own eyes that it was better than ever. His performance was called by “nySusan” on Ballet.co.uk “a wonderful Bluebird–the best I’ve seen in years.” I’ve also seen his “Fire” in Shuraleh in 2009, which was marvelous.
Btw, “Natalia N” and Catherine, how was Scherbakov’s James in La Sylphide (substituting for Felip Stepin) at the Mariinsky last December? Were you there? Was he not in shape? (He was great when he did it there in 2006.) Or were you politic enough not to be there, knowing that he isn’t an administration favorite?
Posters like these have been getting away with stuff like this for a long, long time. They lie, and they defame, and they strategically omit. They play one game after another.
I could go on — but do I have to?