Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was the Bolshoi Ballet formed?
The earliest origins of the Bolshoi Ballet can be found in the creation of a dance school for a Moscow orphanage in 1773. In 1776, dancers from the school were employed by Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Ouroussoff and the English theatrical entrepreneur Michael Maddox, to form part of their new theatre company. Originally performing in privately owned venues, they later acquired the Petrovsky Theatre, which, as a result of fires and erratic redevelopment, would later be rebuilt as today's Bolshoi Theatre. While some guest dancers come and go from other very prestigious ballet companies—like the Mariinsky and American Ballet Theatre—many company dancers are graduates of the academy. In 1989, Michael Shannon was the first American ballet dancer to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and join the Bolshoi Ballet company.
Ballet originated in the Renaissance court as an outgrowth of court pageantry in Italy, where aristocratic weddings were lavish celebrations. Tutus, ballet slippers and pointe work were not yet used. The choreography was adapted from court dance steps. Performers dressed in fashions of the times. For women that meant formal gowns that covered their legs to the ankle. Early ballet was participatory, with the audience joining the dance towards the end.
The National Symphony Orchestra was officially created on August 5, 1941. Nevertheless, its history can be traced to the beginning of the 20th century, when under the initiative of Juan Bautista Alfonseca, the Octet of the Youth Casino was founded in Santo Domingo.
The smaller stage in Vargin House (Maly) opened October 14, 1824 with Alexey Verstovsky's "Lily of Narbonne." The larger Bolshoy opened on January 6, 1825. The name "Maly" (small) emerged in the same year, and referred specifically to the building and not the company. Bolshoy and Maly theatres were run as a single company (Imperial Moscow Theatre), sharing an orchestra, choir, ballet, and even props. Standard weekly programs for Maly in 1825 included three German, two French, and one "German or French" daily slots, with just one Friday night open to Russian plays. Thursdays and Fridays at Bolshoy were reserved for "light comedy" or musical genres. Thus, popular drama was regularly performed at the Bolshoy stage, alone or bundled with opera and ballet. For example, the January 31, 1828 night at Bolshoy stage for the benefit of Mikhail Shchepkin featured "The Robbers" by Friedrich Schiller, a single-act French opera, and a "vaudeville ballet by Alexander Shakhovskoy in rhyme and free verse with machines, flooding of the entire theatre, diverse dancing and music compiled from folk songs".
Ballet was further shaped by the French "ballet de cour", which consisted of social dances performed by the nobility in tandem with music, speech, verse, song, pageant, decor and costume. When Catherine de' Medici, an Italian aristocrat with an interest in the arts, married the French crown heir Henry II, she brought her enthusiasm for dance to France and provided financial support. Catherine's glittering entertainments supported the aims of court politics and usually were organized around mythological themes. The first "ballet de cour" was the "Ballet de Polonais." This Ballet was performed in 1573 on the occasion of the visit of the Polish Ambassador. It was choreographed by Balthasar de Beaaujoyeulx and featured an hour-long dance for sixteen women, each representing a French province. "Ballet Comique de la Reine" (1581), which was also choreographed and directed by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx, was commissioned by Louise of Lorraine, queen consort of King Henry III, son of Catherine, to celebrate the marriage of Henry's favorite the Duke de Joyeuse to Marguerite de Lorraine, the sister of Queen Louise. The ballet lasted for more than five hours and was danced by twenty four dancers: twelve naiades and twelve pages.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s and was later named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha to become the first popular band in the USSR during the 1950s. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, which later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
The Bolshoi premiered "Carmen Suite" in 1967 but the fact Bizet's music was so well known actually worked against its favor at first. Soviet Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva, was repelled by the modernist flavor given to the music and the sexual overtones of both the story and the title character. She banned the work immediately following its premiere as "insulting" to Bizet's masterpiece. Explaining this, Furtseva commented to Soviet media, "We cannot allow them to make a whore out of Carmen, the heroine of the Spanish people." (Unfortunately for Furtseva, her words were taken as a joke among the Moscow public following the controversy.) When she met privately at the Bolshoi with Plisetskaya and other members, Furtseva called "Carmen Suite" "a great failure," the production "raw. Nothing but eroticism. The opera's music has been mutilated. The concept has to be rethought. I have grave doubts as to whether the ballet can be redone."
When Les Ballets opened, it found itself in the midst of mixed reviews. Some thought the company youthful, on account of Balanchine; others thought it extravagant. Even Kirstein was skeptical, as he decided that Balanchine was "no Fokine."
Overall, most of the reviews were bad, and the ballet ended its season with no profit. Tensions between performers heightened, and the ballet needed to close. However, the ballet's end did bring about the start of the American Ballet, as Kirstein met Balanchine, and brought the choreographer to the United States.
NYCB still has the largest repertoire by far of any American ballet company. It often stages 60 ballets or more in its winter and spring seasons at Lincoln Center each year, and 20 or more in its summer season in Saratoga Springs. City Ballet has performed "The Nutcracker", "Romeo and Juliet", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and many more. City Ballet has trained and developed many great dancers since its formation. Many dancers with already developed reputations have also joined the ballet as principal dancers.
Not to be confused with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México (OSEM) or Symphony Orchestra of the State of Mexico, founded in 1971, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, as a branch of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, was created by presidential decree of Miguel Alemán on 18 July 1947, under the name of National Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. Before that, however, there was a predecessor orchestra known as the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico (September 2, 1928 – March 8, 1949), a nonprofit organization founded and conducted by Mexican composer, conductor, teacher, journalist and visionary arts leader Carlos Chávez. On 1 August 1947, Chávez appointed Blas Galindo as the new director of the National Conservatory, official seat of the new orchestra. Chávez reports that the National Symphony Orchestra gave its first official performance on 30 October 1947 at the Palace of Fine Arts, under the baton of Eduardo Hernández Moncada, its first music and artistic director.
Bowlby was born in Vallejo, California. She moved to Manteca, California, as a child, and attended East Union High School. She studied ballet, French, and marine biology at Moorpark College, and began a modelling career before deciding to pursue acting. She studied drama with Ivana Chubbuck.
Ruth Laredo spent many summers at the Marlboro Music School and Festival near Brattleboro, Vermont, which had been founded in 1950 by Rudolf Serkin and Adolf Busch (then called "School of Music"). There she continued her studies with Serkin and was coached in chamber music by the cellist Pablo Casals. Fellow students included Murray Perahia, Richard Goode (currently artistic director of the festival, together with Mitsuko Uchida), Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma. At the end of each festival season, the traditional closing work was Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, with Rudolf Serkin as soloist and the entire Marlboro community in the chorus.
In 1965, the largely amateur Ottawa Civic Symphony was formed by former auxiliary Ottawa Philharmonic members, under the baton of Maurice Haycock. The Ottawa Civic Orchestra was renamed the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra in 1976. The annual concert series - four concerts in 1991 - was at first performed in Ottawa high schools. In the early 1970s, the OSO began performing in the large concert hall of the National Arts Centre. Previous conductors have included Thomas Mayer (late 1950s), Clifford Hunt (1965-6), Nicholas Goldschmidt (1966-7), James Coles (1969–75), Brian Law (1975–91), and David Currie (1992-2016). Since early 2016, the Orchestra has been led by Maestro Alain Trudel.
Beethoven's Second Symphony was mostly written during Beethoven's stay at Heiligenstadt in 1802, at a time when his deafness was becoming more pronounced and he began to realize that it might be incurable. The work was premiered in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 5 April 1803, and was conducted by the composer. During that same concert, the Third Piano Concerto and the oratorio "Christ on the Mount of Olives" were also debuted. It is one of the last works of Beethoven's so-called "early period".
The Winter Palace () was the official residence of the Russian Emperors from 1732 to 1917. Today, the palace and its precincts form the Hermitage Museum. Situated between Palace Embankment and Palace Square, in Saint Petersburg, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in 1917, as depicted in Soviet paintings and Eisenstein's 1927 film "October", became an iconic symbol of the Russian Revolution.
Rimsky-Korsakov and Belsky first became interested in writing an opera on the Kitezh legend during the winter of 1898-1899, while they were working on the libretto to "The Tale of Tsar Saltan". The idea of combining the legend of St. Fevroniya into the story was part of the project from the beginning. The project remained in the minds of both composer and the librettist, but would have to wait until 1903 until serious work could begin. During the period between 1898 and the beginning of 1903, the composer was occupied with the composition of the operas "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "Servilia", "Kashchey the Immortal" and "Pan Voyevoda". In his "My Musical Life", Rimsky-Korsakov mentions "In the midst of work on "Pan Voyevoda" Belsky and I pondered intensively the subject of "The Tale of the Invisible City of Kityezh and of the Maiden Fyevroniya"." Rimsky-Korsakov had written a rough draft of the first act by the end of summer, and Belsky had completed the libretto by spring. By summer of 1904, Rimsky-Korsakov had finished the composition of the second tableau of Act III and was orchestrating the opera. During the summer of 1905, while writing his "Principles of Orchestration", Rimsky-Korsakov also polished the orchestral score to "Kitezh", and made a clean final copy to send to the printers.
Eventually, after the creation of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine in Moscow, a third Ukrainian Soviet government was formed on 21 December 1919 that initiated new hostilities against Ukrainian nationalists as they lost their military support from the defeated Central Powers. Eventually, the Red Army ended up controlling much of the Ukrainian territory after the Polish-Soviet Peace of Riga. On 30 December 1922, along with the Russian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian republics, the Ukrainian SSR was one of the founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The Union of Belarusian Patriots was founded in early 1946 in the Hlybokaye and Pastavy. In the summer of 1946, an underground patriotic organization formed in Slonim whose conspiratorial name was "Seagull". It was founded by young teachers and activists. During this year, these communities were in Baranavichy, Brest, Navahrudak and Zhyrovichy.
The Austrian Federal Chancellor Leopold Figl made the decision in 1946 to have a functioning opera house again by 1949. An architectural competition was announced, which was won by Erich Boltenstern. The submissions had ranged from a complete restructuring of the auditorium to a replica of the original design; Boltenstern decided on a design similar to the original with some modernisation in keeping with the design of the 1950s. In order to achieve a good acoustic, wood was the favoured building material, at the advice of, among others, Arturo Toscanini. In addition, the number of seats in the parterre (stalls) was reduced, and the fourth gallery, which had been fitted with columns, was restructured so as not to need columns. The façade, entrance hall and the "Schwind" foyer were restored and remain in their original style.
Bowlby was born on 16 August 1926. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Oxford.
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), founded in 1931, is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C.. Its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In July 2017, the Bolshoi Theatre cancelled the premiere of a ballet about openly gay Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. The Director General claimed it was due to the bad quality of the dancing, however, principle dancer Maria Alexandrova claimed it was the first sign of a 'new era' of censorship. It was the first time a show has been pulled in such a way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, sparking rumours about the motivation behind it.
Today the Bolshoi Ballet remains one of the world's foremost ballet companies, in addition to being one of the largest, with approximately 220 dancers. The word "bolshoi" means "big" or "grand" in Russian. The company operates on a hierarchical system, similar to those used by other leading European ballet companies, with senior dancers ranked as principals, and descending in order of importance through lead soloist, first soloist, soloist and finally, corps de ballet. Due to its size, the company operates two troupes of corps de ballet.
Until 1886, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was principal theatre for both the Imperial Ballet and the Imperial Russian Opera. It was there that the first Russian operas — Glinka's "A Life for the Tsar" and "Ruslan and Lyudmila" — were premiered. Although the theatre would include many of the great Russian operas in its repertory, many of the works of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their world premieres on the stage of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. Many of the great 19th century ballets of Marius Petipa and Arthur Saint-Léon were given for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre.
Despite staging many famous ballets, it struggled to compete with the reputation of the Imperial Russian Ballet, today's Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg. It was not until the appointment of Alexander Gorsky as Ballet Master in 1900 that the company began to develop its own unique identity, with acclaimed productions of new or restaged ballets including, "Don Quixote" (1900), "Coppélia" (1901), "Swan Lake" (1901), "La fille mal gardée" (1903), "Giselle" (1911), "Le Corsaire" (1912) and "La Bayadère" (1917).
The Bolshoi has been associated from its beginnings with ballet. Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" premiered at the theatre on 4 March 1877. Other staples of the Bolshoi repertoire include Tchaikovsky's "The Sleeping Beauty" and "The Nutcracker", Adam's "Giselle", Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet", and Khachaturian's "Spartacus".