- Joined
- Dec 7, 2012
No, you are wrong. After his surgery he was very careful in his interview. When he started the preparing seriously, he didn't gave interview. In 23 of june the doctor allowed him to jumping jumps on the ice! And he never said he will win in Sochi. He said he will do everything for that, he can skate in Russian OG, and if he can go to Sochi he will do everything for his best skating,and he would like to stand the podium. No more. He knows there are many good younger skaters, who have chance to win the OG. His health problems was very serious, but his recovery is well under way. But he had many injuries in his life and will be 31, I think he is very careful, he doesn't know what will be happen. And I think, in this case it is not just about him, he feels responsible for Russia's team, if he won't be in such a condition that he can do 4 programs, doesn't go to Sochi..
Yes, I remember in his first "real" post-operation interview (with Russia Radio in March), he was saying that his chance of competing in Sochi was 50:50 at that point, and that June, when the real training would start, would tell all. Back then, of course, whether he could return to the ice at all was basically completely unknown, and I think he and his team has a somewhat better sense of how things are going, though there cannot possibly be any certainties--as he is clearly well aware.
As for his new LP, I've been going on about it at other places....I was worried about whether the music can be made to work at first, but I've been thnking about it some more. People do skate "medley" programs, after all. Even in programs that aren't directly called such, but are generally seen as "unified", there are often different (though related) pieces of music being used. For instance, a movie soundtrack program may incorporate pieces from completely different parts of the movie. Editing still needs to be done to put them together.
If we only discuss the music itself, the pieces that Plushenko mentioned are mostly Marton's (except Adagio). In other words, most of the music were the works of one single composer, during a period of less than a decade, for one particular friend of that composer's, and one type of purpose. And from what I understand, that same composer is (very likely) doing the task of putting them together. (Admittedly, Godfather and Tosca were adaptations of other music, but Marton's handprints were pretty strong on them.) Theoretically, and just from the point of view of trying to make it sound unified and not jarring, I am not certain that overall, it really is harder to imagine than the more general "medley" situations.
As for being "self-indulgent": *shrugs* We have very little information right now, pretty much only the concept. I can imagine a scenario where it would indeed be directly "about" himself, his own past. Autobiographical, perhaps, if one may use such words on skating programs. If that were to be the case, then certainly I can imagine some people really not liking the idea. Of course, I can imagine people not liking the program for other reasons, too. It's a risky idea (as the reactions seem to already show), which is perhaps why it took Mishin quite a while to persuade Plushy, and everyone else on their team. We'll have to see what the actual program is like.
BTW, I also want to mention that in the team-russa2014 interview that plushyfan posted above, Plushenko said a little more about the new LP. From the gist of it, it seems that he and Mishin are seeing this as something completely new, and perhaps radically unusual. One specific sentence (google translate, but perhaps there will be better translations soon):
One can not simply add up all of the programs, all the pieces of choreography, which once served - and get a new program. It's just not possible!
He also said that it is in fact harder to choreograph this program. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...