SLEEPING BEAUTY ACT III PAS DE DEUX (Kolpakova and Soloviev)

Here's a rare live performance from 1976 of these two Kirov stars. Irina Kolpakova was considered the purist example of the Russian Leningrad-Kirov style (now Mariinsky Ballet) and Yuri Soloviev was Rudolph Nureyev's biggest competition before Nureyev defected. I danced on a Gala in my own Pas de Deux in Berlin with these two legends in 1972 ;when they did this same Pas de Deux from the Sleeping Beauty. I immediately fell in love with her. She was then, as she is here at age 43, fresh, charming, regal without seeming cold, flawless technique...but above all, extremely musical. In fact all the musical tempi is correct. No lagging as in the current Russian productions. This is the "Soviet" version (they say it's the original Petipa) so no "fish dives" (those were added later in Diaghilev's production) and several differences from those done in the West, but no matter. It's quite exciting on its own terms.