In dialogue with Petipa. The premiere of The Sleeping Beauty at the Astrakhan Theater completed the triad of ballets by P.I. Tchaikovsky

In dialogue with Petipa

Alexander Maksov

The premiere of The Sleeping Beauty at the Astrakhan Theater completed the triad of ballets by P.I. Tchaikovsky

It seems that not long ago this stage presented the audience with the impressive fresco of La Bayadère by Marius Petipa, and now there is another ambitious creative stage production of the same scale - if not more difficult for the artists and all the team. Like it was with La Bayadère, the artistic director of the ballet troupe Yuri Klevtsov took on the work on The Sleeping Beauty. In the past, when he was the principal dancer of the Bolshoi Theater, he created the image of the courageous and at the same time romantic Prince Désiré in the performance by Yuri Grigorovich. Naturally, when creating his version of the performance, Klevtsov followed Grigorovich's model. At that time, Yuri Nikolaevich managed to achieve the conjugation of Petipa's massive four-act work with the dynamic rhythms of modern times. Having connected the prologue with the first act, and having cut a number of musical and choreographic fragments, the outstanding choreographer brought the result to two acts, having reduced the overall timing. The scene of “Prince Désiré’s Hunt”, where the court ladies and gentlemen were playing blind man’s buff, was ruthlessly cut; then the minuet, gavotte, passepied and rigaudon followed in the score. What remained was the minuet of the “noble and proud” duchesses, the “Dance” (Tempo di mazurka), which is performed by the villagers entertaining the nobility, and the cheerful farandole with the function of a coda.

/Prologue/

Klevtsov did the same. Of course, one can regret, for instance, the lost compositions of the waltz of the fairies in the Prologue, the absence of the piercing musical theme of suffering due to the death of Aurora and the false sympathy for the tragedy on the part of the culprit Carabosse, as well as the missing musical and choreographic beats of the ensemble of the Nereids, or the Polonaise of the guests gathering in the last act... But we will not reproach Klevtsov for what Grigorovich himself decided to do due to objective reasons. However, let's take everything in order.

From the first sounds of the overture it became clear that a remarkable master was at the helm. The musical element he reproduced (and subdued) revealed the reigning universal Evil, which was pacified by the serene theme of Kindness and world Harmony, in order to later triumph in full voice with the culminating fanfares of the Adagio of Aurora with four cavaliers. But the conductor Valery Voronin also succeeds in the elegiac intimacy of the score. The chief conductor of the theater acted as the musical director of this production, which is important to emphasize, since his baton did not simply impart a powerful artistic message and extreme expressiveness to the orchestra's sound. Without sinning against the composer's intention, the maestro was attentive to the dancers. He also demonstrated a deep understanding of the task when he managed to avoid intonation failures in the connection of the Nereids’ coda with the violin intermission. Composed by Tchaikovsky with L. Auer’s phenomenal violin in mind, the music under the baton of Valery Voronin is supported by Anton Kogun’s virtuoso solo. Moreover, when Klevtsov needed additional music for the new love duet of the characters, the second part (Adagio cantabile con moto) of Tchaikovsky's sextet “Souvenir de Florence” in d minor with its fairy-tale and fantastic images was added to the score of The Sleeping Beauty. The organic echo with Tchaikovsky's ballet music (this is one of the brightest and most inspired chapters in the composer's chamber-instrumental work), to some extent reconciled with the directors’ going beyond the huge musical array of The Sleeping Beauty.

Turning to the golden fund of Russian classical heritage for the 135th anniversary of The Sleeping Beauty, Yuri Klevtsov did not content himself with mechanical clichés of the work of the great predecessors, but showed creativity, boldly deciding to cheer up. In the program of the performance, he is modestly called the choreography director, but, as the editor of the libretto, he did not simply defeat Carabosse. In different variations of the performance with a stage history of one hundred and thirty-four years, the fate of Carabosse was presented differently. In Petipa’s finale, she was carried in a cage among the royal guests; someone had the vengeful villain killed; someone kept silent as to Carabosse’s fate, hinting that evil had not been finally defeated, but had only lurked. Klevtsov acted radically with Carabosse. It turned out that she, too, had been a victim of a curse. With Desire’s kiss, the evil spell falls not only from Aurora, but also from Carabosse, so that she - already a respectable fairy - returns to the family of her soulful sisters. This solution to the image literally became the coup de théâtre (sensation) of the Astrakhan performance. However, such transformations required the author’s directorial and choreographic innovations. Carabosse acquired pointe shoes and her own prickly choreographic lexis, incorporated into the traditional dramatic and visual structure of the role. There is neither stage time nor music to embody the idea of ​​Carabosse’s transformation, so the director had to carry out two fairy-tale miracles simultaneously: Aurora awakens from sleep, Carabosse changes her black suit for a snow-white outfit in front of the stunned audience.

/Carabosse by Anna Tabachuk/

Klevtsov also manifests himself as a choreography author in Désiré’s skillful monologue, to the music of the above-mentioned violin intermission, and the inserted “Florentine” duet following Aurora's awakening. The choreographer found it strange that the matrimonial events follow immediately, as soon as the princess opens her eyes after a hundred-year sleep (Désiré’s communication with the ghostly vision of Aurora does not count). Having given the romantic fairy-tale conventionality some psychological and even domestic features, Klevtsov staged a lyrical duet, poetically bringing Aurora and Désiré closer together on the way to the altar. Now, before the “wedding” pas de deux, the bride and groom are already better acquainted, which will undoubtedly grant a future happy life together. As a result, it would be quite correct to name among the authors of the choreography of The Sleeping Beauty not only Marius Petipa, Fyodor Lopukhov, Konstantin Sergeyev and Yuri Grigorovich, but also Klevtsov himself.

The performance was arranged by production designer Oleg Molchanov, who declared his desire to participate in the creation of a performance that “stuns the audience with its novelty, the richness of the costumes and dance numbers”. Critics can assess the scenography in different ways, where, despite the idea of ​​“creating a romantic, weightless design”, a careless attempt was made to combine the world of poetic virgin nature and man-made beauty. However, one cannot help but pay tribute to the production designer, a follower of the francoman Ivan Vsevolozhsky.

/The Nereids Scene and Aurora’s Visions/

Like the famous director of the Imperial Theaters, who gave Petipa and Tchaikovsky the idea for The Sleeping Beauty and became the author of the sketches for the scenery and the costumes, Molchanov also knows the history of fashion of the 17th-18th centuries well. As he noted, “the costumes were created in one breath”. It is very likely so, judging by the bodices of the Peisankas, the tunics of the Maids of Honor, Nereids, the riding-habits of the Court Ladies and the camisoles of the Cavaliers in “Désiré’s Hunting Scene”. But it is impossible not to be vexed with the fact that in search for color, modern theater artists miss the conceptual content of the stage costume. They ignore the laws discovered by the wonderful Simon Virsaladze, who came up with not just a spectacular stage outfit for “the desired prince”, but a stylized golden tunic, in which the prince flies onto the stage as a blindingly bright beam of light and the image of the Sun King Louis XIV.

The lighting designer Sergei Shevchenko also contributed to the visual component of The Sleeping Beauty. Certainly, it is very pity that the extravaganza of the performance is expressed only by the mystification of Carabosse’s disappearance through the ground in the clouds of smoke. But, alas, there is no “Panorama” accompanying the movement of the Lilac Fairy’s boat with Désiré along the river of time to the castle of King Florestan. But how can one blame the Astrakhan team for this, if even the Bolshoi Theater of Russia could not restore this once majestic scene on its stage. A huge amount of work was done by the teachers-repetiteurs Natalia Korobaynikova, Esmeralda Mamedova, Mikhail Zinoviev, Maxim Melnikov and Artem Panichkin, who prepared the soloists and built the orderly ranks of the corps de ballet. The mentors carried the responsibility to embody the complex hierarchical structure of classical ballet (not accidentally called the encyclopedia of dance), ascending from character and demi-caractère dances to pure academicism. And in the classical canon itself - from corps de ballet ensembles to duets and solo variations. The teachers and artists coped with this task very successfully.

In The Sleeping Beauty the female dance sparkles in all its glory. In the three premiere ballets, the performers of some parts did not change. For example, Tatyana Toporkova (The Lilac Fairy), Olesya Belevtsova (Enchanted Garden Fairy), Maria Scheglova (Woodland Glade Fairy), Anastasia Gracheva (Fairy of Songbirds), Valentina Khapugina (Fairy of Violent Passions), Valentina Khapugina (The Diamond Fairy), Karolina Sumarok (The Gold Fairy), Sofia Dudoladova (The Silver Fairy). Some of them only varied, like Sofia Dudoladova, who once replaced Karolina Sumarok in the role of the Fairy of Sincerity. Several casts of fairy-tale characters were prepared: Victoria Shalgina and Olesya Belevtsova (the White Cat), Victoria Krotova, Arina Lemeshko and Rinsen Iwakami (Little Red Riding Hood), Askar Siraziyev and Azamat Maykenov (the Wolf), Olesya Belevtsova and Ksenia Rybina (Cinderella), Saveliy Khramkov and Yuri Druzhinin (the Prince).

Princess Florina - Anastasia Gracheva had to change partners in her duet with the Blue Bird. Andrey Arsenyev showed dynamic jetés entrelace, but the dancer needs to work hard on the entrеchat six. Prokhor Zelenin did a better job with this move.

 Anna Tabachuk never left the image of the Fairy Carabosse, sincerely living the life of her heroine: she “bristled” with plasticity and froze in sharp poses. Having rejected the filth of the image, the Fairy Carabosse in the finale touchingly “pronounces” her choreographic parting words to the young couple in a pair with the Lilac Fairy. An amazing, incredible transformation, but how can one not believe in the triumph of a fairy-tale power capable of regenerating the most notorious villain?! But now, to the sounds of the old French anthem Vive Henri IV, attributed to Eustache du Caurroyand and reworked by Tchaikovsky, not only the savior of the dynasty, the Lilac Fairy, is raised to the top of the final pyramid of “the Apotheosis”.

/Aurora - Anastasia Lukina, Prince Désiré - Pavel Mikheev/

The premiere block of performances was opened by the guests from the Mariinsky Theater: Anastasia Lukina (Princess Aurora) and Pavel Mikheyev (Prince Désiré). If the experienced ballerina, the student of Gabriela Komleva (the wonderful Leningrad Aurora, who prepared the part with Lukina), was given such a status naturally, her partner, the artist with the status of a coryphaeus of the great theater, was given a rather formal status. Attractive with his build, good feet, easy jump, he does not yet allow himself to express himself through dance, to maximally reveal the meaning and beauty of movement. One can feel the lack of experience in solo and duet dance technique, and the inconvenience of parterre rotations. Dancing like a student, the guest was also quite constrained as an actor. Perhaps, even outwardly, the partners did not make a harmonious duet. So it turned out that the Astrakhan artists, the girlishly touching Sofia Romanova and the lively, enlightened Marina Arsenyeva (Aurora), their partners - the energetic Artur Almukhametov and the sensual Vsevolod Tabachuk (Prince Désiré) were by no means in the shadow of their St. Petersburg colleagues.

/A scene from the performance/

The performance was born. It will have to be “tested” on viewers of different ages. Like a precious stone, it will be improved by the process of such polishing. But, undoubtedly, it will become a long-liver of this stage, giving new generations of ballet lovers bright emotions.

The photos are provided by the Astrakhan State Opera and Ballet Theater.

The Author - Alexander Potapov