Personally, I find title "Best of Plushenko" very funny :hi_hi_hi: ... but it was funny to me and platinum medal - well, you know what happened then.... :plush34:
I just do not want to give any "material" to haters, that they could implanted in the brain of people this a startling phrase, which could be marks Plushy for life - that someone can say in future: " You know that skater, who awarded himself platinum medal, and devoted himself other people's music?" :kli_ny:
By my opinion, I do not think that Plushy can be compared with Bizet, Puccini and other composers, on which music he skated - "Best of" are compilations of the authors - Plushy, however, to be honest - is a performer.
That he took a completely new music, but put familiar elements and movements from old programs - then maybe, the name of the program would be OK.
So, this title as a joke is OK, as a serious idea - I think it would be, let's say, inappropriate.
Here Tatjana's "final statement", and reaction of one japanese FS expert ...
@Tatjana21:
https://twitter.com/Tatjana21/status/372288744155410432
Ok, as some people seem to freak out about it: "Best of Plushenko" is not an official program title. I used it to keep it short & sweet! :)
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@europeonice:
@Tatjana21 since when is "Best of.." a negative? Some people really need to chill out.
@cekoni:
@europeonice @Tatjana21 since some people think that Plushenko is arrogant and "full of himself", so take every opportunity to attack him :/
@europeonice:
@cekoni @Tatjana21 Let them. His record speaks for itself.
...
I have to say I agree with Tatjana and @europeonice. Haters will try to make up ways of attacking him no matter what--including factually false and totally illogical things. If they have no "material", they'll just invent them. For instance with the "platinum medal", it was funny (and to some extent true) to people who like him or think that he should have won in Vancouver, and arrogant, etc. to people who don't like him, but in the end, the fact was that it wasn't he himself anyway. With "Best of Plushenko", according to Tatjana, he said it himself, but it's because he's talking about his skating programs. I don't think any rational person would interpret it to say that he's claiming he composed those pieces of music. Maybe haters would try to spin things that way, but one just have to counter them when one sees that, by pointing out what a ridiculous stretch of the imagination that is.
I guess, I must say I don't completely see Plushy as a "performer", in the sense that don't quite think he is like one of those actors who can completely transform themselves into someone else, "lose themselves" in the character, so to speak. Rather, I would say that he finds something within him that "meets" the idea of the program from the outside, and bring them together. I don't remember the exact quote right now, but I remember that Mishin once even compared him to Shakespeare, and he also said that what sets Plushy apart, makes him unique is "the wide range of his creativity" on ice. Of course, I only read it in translation, but I remember being struck by the fact that Mishin used the word "creativity" instead of say "expressiveness", which is how people usually talk about skaters. There is something intrinsically Plushenko in every one of his programs, even though there's also such a great range to them. To me, I don't see him as "just performing" other people's creations: he is one of the creators, too, in more than one ways. This is why I think "Best of Plushenko" is appropriate and justified.
One of the girls at our Chinese Plushy fan forum just said something really great, I hope she won't mind me quoting it here. She said that in the past, Plushy has shown Carmen, Nijinsky, Don Jose, Shakespeare, the Godfather, the history of St. Petersburg...Perhaps now he is going to finally show himself, truly and completely. I think there is an aspect of himself in all of those previous images he showed, but now there is a chance (I know it's only a hypothetical chance, since we haven't seen the program yet) that it's going to be just him and his own story, directly, and in many facets. Maybe I'm reading tea leaves too much, but now I also noticed Plushy said that he wanted the audience to see "the boy at 18, at 25, and finally now". He did not say he wanted the audience to see "the ballet god Nijinsky, then the underworld Godfather, then the seductive tango dancer". He might use pieces of all those old programs, but I think there is a subtle change of what they mean here.
You know that I have a tendency to make things up in my own mind... :-): I, too, had a lot of doubts about this, and now I still have doubts, but the more I think of it, the more this becomes, at least potentially , a stunningly poetic, exciting, and apt idea in my mind (if only in concept). That is, if he and his team can pull it off. It is also an incredibly, astoundingly risky idea; there are many big possible pitfalls. Among other things, for people who don't like him, the idea is one that will probably intrinsically anger them, simply because it would be about him . Well, I wouldn't quite call this a "pitfall". It's something that one probably can't avoid... :-)