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Posted on June 21, 2011
Great stars of 1950s ballet are captured in studio films of Les Sylphides and Giselle, now made available on DVD for the first time.
The new DVD range from ICA Classics presents rare archive performances, with amazing casts. This 1953 recording of Les Sylphides stars Alicia Markova, Svetlana Beriosova and Violetta Elvin. The performance is introduced by Tamara Karsavina, who danced in the first cast of Fokine’s ballet. On the same DVD, the 1958 recording of Giselle features Nadia Nerina and Nikolai Fadeyechev, with the Ballets Russes star Lydia Sokolova as the heroine’s mother. This is the first in a series of archive DVD releases. The next DVD, available from September, will be a double bill of John Cranko’s ballets Pineapple Poll and The Lady and the Fool. ICA Classics have kindly given us five copies of the Sylphides/Giselle DVD as competition prizes. To win, see page 7 of the July Dancing Times.