The Bolshoi continued cooperating with acknowledged choreographer, director of the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier. We used to show his famous Midsummer Night’s Dream, we perform his glorious Lady of the Camellias (both ballets born in the mid-1970s are among the masterpieces of the world ballet theatre). Still the third work gets out even from this series. For this time John Neumeier displays Anna Karenina (the title speaks for itself).
Non-trivial love triangle, deep passions, several pairs absolutely different in their happiness and misfortune, hidden and obvious ill-will of the society that affected the main character’s tragedy. Anna Karenina’s fate might have been different even at the time the novel unfolds. And at the same time, moving to our days, this story still can remain its tragic.
Thomas Mann once named Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina "the greatest social novel of world literature." For all times, present and future. Neumeier reminds and quotes this statement. BA in English literature, he loves to read and then to adapt his favorite books for dance. Among his ballets (the number has exceeded a hundred) there are many literary productions, based on the works of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, Thomas Mann, Pushkin…
When reading the novel, John Neumeier was deeply fascinated by its characters and the life of various social groups. Realizing that it is impossible to choreograph the entire novel, Neumeier reproduces primarily those feelings that he reads. The story is transposed in the present day. Karenin holds a political rally; Vronsky plays lacrosse. A train becomes a toy in the hands of Seryozha. Anna dies, falling into the underworld, which is the logically justified end for the hell in Anna's soul. Life of secular society goes on. A wealthy landowner Levin finds the strength to feel sorry for Anna and to console her despairing son.
On opening night the title part was performed by Svetlana Zakharova. She danced Titania in Noymayer's Midsummer Night’s Dream and became an outstanding interpreter of Marguerite Gautier’s part in Lady of the Camellias. Thanks to her enthusiasm and interest in the Neumeier’s works, the idea to put Anna Karenina at the Bolshoi emerged.
The costumes for the main character were created by a fashion house A-K-R-I-S. All the other characters were dressed by the maestro himself. He also acted as a set and lightning designer and creator of the filigree score of the ballet, assembled from the music of Tchaikovsky, Alfred Schnittke, and the country music singer Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam.
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The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew Photo: Elena Fetisova
Ballet by Jean-Christophe Maillot in two acts
to music by Dmitri Shostakovich
The 2nd of May, 2023
ARGUMENT
Rather than a macho handbook, The Taming of the Shrew can be construed as an encounter between two forces of nature, who recognise one another at last. If they are abrupt, obnoxious, it stems from their solitude; they are fundamentally different from the society they live in, albatrosses among sparrows, and their excesses signal that they have yet to find a man (or a woman) who can measure up to them. Their love is out of the ordinary: while Petruchio could appear to be interested only in Baptista’s fortune, once the ink is dry on their marriage certificate, he doesn’t let go of Katharina. If he is interested, it’s by this woman; the real dowry, the actual gold mine, it’s her. He still needs to put her through a series of challenges to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken, that they are right for each other — measure for measure, so to speak. He was right. So was she. If she gives in to her husband’s demands, it’s not because she has found her master, but because she has met her match. Her submissiveness is an act. It hardly matters whether or not the sun is the moon, because the two of them have their own, extra-ordinary light. Petruchio isn’t fooled by by his wife’s new attitude. For the outside world, however, the prevalent social norms are safe. Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief: even the most reluctant among them have complied. In truth, Katharina and Petruchio play their parts in perfect harmony, and their singular tune sets them apart in what is a game of artifice.
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THE FLAMES OF PARIS February 21 - 22, 2023
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"Chopiniana" and the Grand Pas Classical from the ballet "Paquita" have compiled a program of one-act ballets, the premiere of which will take place on November 30th.
Absolutely different in spirit and letter, they nevertheless not only perfectly complement each other, but are also able to coexist in close logical unity. The Grand Pas from Paquita, which became one of the pinnacle achievements of the Russian imperial ballet of the Petipa era, requires virtuosic technical brilliance, perfection of every movement and bravura aristocracy of execution. Chopiniana, a no less famous ballet staged already at the dawn of the 20th century, fully reflects the spirit of the new time, being a magnificent example of the finest stylization - the stylization of airy romantic ballets that preceded the era of Petipa. It is no coincidence that she comes first in this program, personifying both the forerunner of Petipa's ballets and the new one that came to replace him. “Fokine’s work is the completion of style, a twentieth-century look at the Taloniev era. "Sylphide" and "Chopiniana" are two points of the circle. A century later, the circle closed” (Yuri Slonimsky, researcher of the history of ballet).
“The sylph, the winged hope, flies into the moonlit romantic garden. A young man is chasing her. It was a Taglioni-style dance, in the style of that long-forgotten time, when poetry dominated the art of ballet, when the dancer climbed onto her pointe shoes not to demonstrate her steel toe, but in order to, barely touching the ground, create an impression with her dance lightness, something unearthly, fantastic. There was not a single pirouette, not a single trick in this dance,” recalled Mikhail Fokin, the famous reformer of academic traditions, one of his most successful productions, which was carried out at the very beginning of his career as a choreographer at the Mariinsky Theater.
In the Bolshoi "Chopiniana" was first "sounded" in 1932. Then the ballet was resumed several times. Capitally - in 1958. And during the second half of the century he never left the theater repertoire for a long time. However, this season he returns to the stage after a ten-year hiatus. The Bolshoi invited Natalya Bolshakova and Vadim Gulyaev, formerly outstanding dancers of the Kirov (Mariinsky) Theater, and now no less recognized teachers, tutors and keepers of the “spirit and letter” of the classical and neoclassical heritage, to carry out the new production.
Without a doubt, the test of our - the latest - time, so prone to all kinds of melodramas, "Paquita" would stand with honor. The heroine - a young lady of aristocratic origin, kidnapped in childhood by robbers - roams with a gypsy camp through Spanish cities and towns, experiences various adventures and, in the end, finds parents and a noble groom. But Time as such made its own selection, leaving out the plot and its pantomime development and sparing only the dance.
This was the first (another "roll call" with Fokine's ballet!) production of the young Marius Petipa on the Russian stage (1847, St. Petersburg), which followed a year after the premiere at the Paris Opera, where "Paquita" saw the light of the stage through the efforts of the composer E.M. . Deldevez and choreographer J. Mazilier. Soon - again a year later - the ballet was reproduced on the stage of the Moscow Bolshoi Theater.
In 1881, at the Mariinsky Theater, Paquita was given as a benefit to one of Petipa's most beloved ballerinas, Ekaterina Vazem. The maestro not only significantly revised the ballet, but also added the final Grand Pas (and a children's mazurka) to the music of Minkus. This Grand Classical Pas, timed to coincide with the wedding of the main characters, along with the pas de trois from the first act and the already mentioned mazurka, survived in the 20th century from the entire large, full-length performance. The Grand Pas is an example of an extensive classical dance ensemble, remarkably built, giving the opportunity to both show off their virtuosity and recklessly “compete” with each other for almost all the leading soloists, among which the one that performs the part of Paquita herself is supposed to demonstrate a completely unattainable level. skill and ballerina charisma.
Yuri Burlaka met Paquita at an early age - Pas de trois from Paquita became his debut at the Russian Ballet Theater, where he came immediately after graduating from the choreographic school. Later, when he was already actively engaged in research in the field of ancient choreography and ballet music, he took part in the publication of the clavier of the surviving musical numbers of the Paquita ballet and the recording of Petipa's choreographic text. The Bolshoi receives Petipa's masterpiece from the hands of his great connoisseur for the second time. Yuri Burlaka originally staged the Grand Pas from Paquita in 2008, his first performance at the Bolshoi Theater since his appointment as Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet was announced. It was last shown in 2010. It's time for a new edition.
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