Last week, Irina Kolpakova celebrated her 80th birthday, prompting me to review again the footage available of her on youtube.
A decade ago, I donated to the Library for the Performing Arts a copy of most of a Soviet TV special made on her ca. 1970. It shows excerpts from her performances in modern works, not simply the classical leads for which she is today best remembered, since that’s what she usually danced when the Kirov toured abroad.
I see that some of that documentary can now be seen on youtube, but apparently not all. In any case, there is more on the dub I donated, and it provides a more comprehensive look at her.
I was also interested to see on youtube, courtesy Russianballetvideos, a valuable record of her partnership with Mikhail Baryshnikov. They dance Sleeping Beauty’s act 3 Grand Pas de Deux.
In the Canadian documentary Leap of Faith, there’s also a brief glimpse of them in the Beauty pdd, presumably amateur footage from their performances in Toronto just before he defected in 1974.
“I was trying to match her style,” Baryshnikov recalled to me in 2010.