Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

15th July

Our journey from Christchurch to Wellinton was a lovely short flight that gave us some stunning views of New Zealand south island , as long as you were sat on the left hand side of the plane , which i fortunately was. The scenery was just incredible and made the short flight just beautiful.

It was so nice to touch down in wellington and have blue skies . My memories of wellington all seem to involve rain and cloudy skies , so it has been so nice to have spent a week here already and to have hardly used my umbrella.

Our reception from the audiences in wellington has been fabulous. The opening night went like a dream and all the shows from the first week were so well received. Our curtain calls resembled something akin to pop concerts , with the audiences stamping their feet and cheering for more , it was so nice. The newspaper reviews from our shows have also been wonderful.

From our side , the performance has settled down very quickly into a very comfortable stride. There are still some moments which we as performers need to look at but these are more of the technical issues of our own movements and that will probably take another 2 or 3 days before we can lock these into our brains and that they come from our body automatically. When we reach this point , this allows the character performance to breathe more.

We had lovely couple of days off on monday and tuesday , which gave us time to explore the outskirts of wellington and also to have a look around the north island of new zealand. We took the time to rent cars and drive out to the pacific ocean where amongst some of the stunning scenery that is there to be seen we also bumped into seals basking in the winter sun…amazing. They were just so relaxed and not disturbed by us at all.

Wednesday , which had no shows scheduled , saw the group back on ice for stretches and also to work on some of the technical moments that i spoke about earlier and also saw the prologue performers working on their new piece in preparation for it to be added to the show this coming weekend.

Wellington is now getting itself ready for the big rugby game at the weekend , not that it is my type of sport but you can definately feel the excitement building in the town and cannot help to be infected by everyone’s enthusiasm. I would just hope that not everyone forgets that we will doing our show until sunday in wellington.

All my love.

Olga S

4th July 2010

What an incredible period of time since i last wrote , let me try and put it into words for you.

We finished our rehearsal period in moscow , not quite as planned thanks to the airline company , calling us just a few days before we were due to fly and telling us that we had to split our group because they had overbooked the flight. This caused us to lose 2 vital days of final preparation which was very upsetting and unsettling , although our director , did manage to fill our days well without half of the company.

To add to this issue , the company making our costumes , somehow managed to lose half of them. Apparently it was all down to the transport company delivering them , who lost 2 of the costume cases. What a great shame as they were so beautiful.

Our flight onto New Zealand from Moscow started on the Friday evening and saw us in Christchurch , 35 hours later , with stops in Dubai – Bangkok and Sydney. In all , the flight wasn’t too bad and I did get to catch up on a lot of movies that I have missed out on recently , my favourite being the Leonardo Di Caprio movie , Shutter Island. I also had a chance to watch the Take That ‘live’ concert at Wembley which was amazing.

Our arrival into Christchurch was so funny. We had all been warned that the temperatures there were going to be quite cold but that didn’t stop one or two of our boys stepping off the plane in shorts and flip flops and a couple of our girls still wearing their summer mini’s. Their were quite a few raised eyebrows in the arrivals hall at how we looked and then the opening of suitcases outside the coach as people pulled out their winter woollies !!.

The Isaac Theatre in Christchurch , where we were to perform , is absolutely beautiful and I was so looking forward to performing on the same stage that had seen people like Shirley Bassey , Tom Jones , Margot Fonteyn perform on in years gone by. The theatre has been there for over one hundred years and still retains lots of its original features.

We had a very busy schedule set for the week , with final dress rehearsals planned as well as all our various press , radio and tv calls to deal with , leading upto our premiere night which was set for the Wednesday. The full dress rehearsals always amaze me , as it is so incredible to watch the whole show finally come together. All the costumes , decorations , special effects , lighting , it is just so nice to see the final picture being painted. Our director , Tony Mercer , is just so imaginative and I always feel so lucky to have had the chance to work in his shows.

How he manages to pull all these things together , when the ice dance has been rehearsed in Moscow , the decorations made in Australia , the costumes made in Moscow , the music recorded in Moscow and Manchester , the lighting designed in London , is just way beyond my imagination , and yet , there it all was on the stage in Christchurch , New Zealand. Absolutely incredible.

Our dress rehearsals went very well and all the new performers that had just joined the company were absolutely loving their first time on a stage. I was so pleased that they managed to settle in so well and they are so nice to work with.

It was amazing to now sit on the eve of our opening night and feel so relaxed with 3 full dress rehearsals having taken place , after the gloom that had settled upon us when the rehearsals in Moscow had been disrupted. I would say again with compliment to Tony , that he knows exactly how to bring the best out of people and knows how to calm our panicky souls and find solutions just when you think that there isn’t one. Also , our rehearsal director , who has worked with Tony for nearly 20 years , is great at placing the correct words in worried ears.

So , there we were , facing another premiere and what a lovely evening it turned out to be. The reaction to the new show was incredible and it received a long standing ovation from the great audience. Elena and myself hugged each other with tears in our eyes and we were so pleased for our skating partners , Andrei and Vadim who had performed so well in their new roles , they were just so incredible and as always , such a joy to work with.

Our new version of Swan Lake feels so different to the last time that I performed it to an audience. Lots of new subtle touches have been placed so delicately inside the choreography , yet they give the show a whole new energy and makes it feel as if everything is new. I don’t want to say too much , as I would really rather that you had the pleasure of seeing them for yourselves rather than from my words.

I think that the only piece which has remained the same in the entire show , is what we refer to as the iconic piece. On stage , it is referred to as the trio dance between myself (Odette) , Elena (Odile) and this time around (Andrei) as Prince Siegfried. At the after show reception , so many people came up to me and told me how it brought tears to their eyes , so I can probably understand why Tony didn’t want to change this. It still remains as one of my all time favourite pieces of dance and I adore performing the piece.

After the incredible emotions of the opening night , it was back to work the next day with lots of interviews to deal with and straight into ‘correction’ rehearsals for our 2 shows on Thursday. Friday saw an interesting departure for Elena , Yulia and myself , as we had been asked to do a fashion session for a New Zealand Magazine. We had great fun , trying on lots of different clothes and having our hair and make up being taken care of by the magazine proffesionals. I am really looking forward to seeing the final results in the magazine.

As I write , we have just finished our last 2 shows in Christchurch and I have just returned from the party to celebrate Ruslan Novotseltsev’s birthday. It was so nice to sit and relax with a glass of wine and discuss all the weeks events . The week just seemed to fly past. We have had such an exciting time in Christchurch and what remains now , is to settle down into our tour of New Zealand and Australia , which I am so looking forward to. But before that , I have the task of packing my suitcase again for our move to Wellington tomorrow , not my favourite task!!.

Lots of Love to you 

Olga S

19th June.

What a week that was. It was the second week of our 3 week rehearsal schedule and a very tough but rewarding week. Our choreographer , Tony Mercer , suprised us all by introducing a very new piece to the start of Act Two that involved Elena Pyatash and myself (elena performs Odile and i perform Odette). It left us both physically and emotionally drained , such was the power of the piece , and it left everybody who watched the end result speechless , such was the power of the piece. I went back to the hotel shaking and i know elena felt the same. He is just incredible to work with and so full of suprises. There was no mention on the days worksheet of what was to come apart from saying 2 hours of ‘cleaning’ which usually means that we just check on what we are doing during each piece. Then he just started on this piece giving us both an outline of his idea before starting. What then happened really gave us both a wonderful new connection to his idea of the mentality of the characters. A wonderful day.

Our week was to culminate with a run through of the newly completed show and it felt so nice to do this at the end of only the second week when it had been planned for the start of next week. It gave us a wonderful feel of just where we are at this moment and lets us all focus on where we need to go next week. We were then suprised again to find that Tony gave everyone a 2 day break on Friday and Saturday. This gave me a chance to visit some friends whom i had not seen for a long time (since my competition days) and i also had a chance to look after Olga Gmyzina who came to visit me. I hadn’t seen her since she retired from skating during our cinderella tour , where she performed my ‘gypsy friend’. A lovely 2 days.

Sunday will see us back on ice for the final 6 days of rehearsal before we encounter the long flight from Russia to New Zealand and looking at our schedule for Christchurch , a very busy week there also.

I love my life and wouldn’t change a thing.

All my love

Olga S

To be updated shortly