Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 09/04/2017
Ilya Demutsky : A Hero of our Time
Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Anton Grishanin
This recent ballet was commissioned as part of the celebrations of the bicentenary of Lermontov's birth, and first staged in July 2015. Attempting to stage Lermontov's novel - one of the masterpieces of Russian literature, by any measure - could never be anything less than a stretch, for A Hero of our Time is atypical in structure, in that it is a non-linear sequence of five novellas, and challenging in its content, with one of the most significant anti-heroes in all literature.
Lermontov's Pechorin, by his own account, is an almost indefinable creation, his character unstable in the sense that it appears different in each tale we are given of him. To capture this, the choreographer Yuri Possokhov, and the director Kirill Serebrennikov (involved in the project from the outset), cast three separate dancers in the role, one for each of the three stories represented in the ballet, but bringing them together in the last minutes of the work. Each section begins with a solo, a danced soliloquy, for Pechorin, with an accompanying on-stage musician to give him a 'voice' of sorts - a bass clarinet for "Bela", a cello (beautifully played by Boris Lifanovsky) for "Taman", and a cor anglais for "Princess Mary".
In many respects, these were the most satisfying moments of the whole ballet, both choreographically and musically. Demutsky's score otherwise was in a blustery post-Mahlerian idiom, with nods to the traditional musics of the Caucasus for "Bela", and the social dances of the 19th Century for "Princess Mary" to provide some leavening. Inoffensive, but unmemorable, in other words. Possokhov's choreographic language here is solidly classical, very firmly anchored in the Russian tradition, readily legible in visible terms, but not too repetitive. Yet the principal character remains elusive, ill-defined and not really persuasive.
Pechorin is the ultimate superfluous man, a peculiarly Russian figure inspired by Byron's (anti-)heroes, gifted yet unfocused, nihilistic, destructive and self-destructive, and yet consistently perceived as attractive nevertheless. It's that attraction that must absolutely come across in any portrayal, and despite the excellence of the dancing, neither Igor Tsvirko (in "Bela") nor Artem Ovcharenko (in "Taman") really succeeded. It was a mystery as to why Olga Smirnova's lovely, wistful Bela should fall for Tsvirko's Pechorin, while Ovcharenko's athletic, youthful version was nevertheless upstaged by Ekaterina Shipulina's fiery and desperate Undine.
Only Ruslan Skvortsov produced a more fully fleshed-out character, and his section was, in any event, the clearest in narrative terms, but there too, much of the strength of that reading was derived from the contrast with, and opposition to Denis Savin's oustanding Grushnitsky, febrile and neurotic. Svetlana Zakharova was elegant as ever as the titular Princess Mary, and the principal pas de deux with Skvortsov was splendid, while Kristina Kretova's solo as Vera, after the duel, was compelling, but the depiction of these characters' relationships with Pechorin was neither fully developed, nor convincing as a whole.
Even those last moments, where the three Pechorins come together, brought no additional illumination to the proceedings, and the curtain came down on a well-produced and well-danced show that, like some phantom feast, satisfied the eye, but not the appetite.
[Next : 11th April]
Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Anton Grishanin
This recent ballet was commissioned as part of the celebrations of the bicentenary of Lermontov's birth, and first staged in July 2015. Attempting to stage Lermontov's novel - one of the masterpieces of Russian literature, by any measure - could never be anything less than a stretch, for A Hero of our Time is atypical in structure, in that it is a non-linear sequence of five novellas, and challenging in its content, with one of the most significant anti-heroes in all literature.
Lermontov's Pechorin, by his own account, is an almost indefinable creation, his character unstable in the sense that it appears different in each tale we are given of him. To capture this, the choreographer Yuri Possokhov, and the director Kirill Serebrennikov (involved in the project from the outset), cast three separate dancers in the role, one for each of the three stories represented in the ballet, but bringing them together in the last minutes of the work. Each section begins with a solo, a danced soliloquy, for Pechorin, with an accompanying on-stage musician to give him a 'voice' of sorts - a bass clarinet for "Bela", a cello (beautifully played by Boris Lifanovsky) for "Taman", and a cor anglais for "Princess Mary".
In many respects, these were the most satisfying moments of the whole ballet, both choreographically and musically. Demutsky's score otherwise was in a blustery post-Mahlerian idiom, with nods to the traditional musics of the Caucasus for "Bela", and the social dances of the 19th Century for "Princess Mary" to provide some leavening. Inoffensive, but unmemorable, in other words. Possokhov's choreographic language here is solidly classical, very firmly anchored in the Russian tradition, readily legible in visible terms, but not too repetitive. Yet the principal character remains elusive, ill-defined and not really persuasive.
Pechorin is the ultimate superfluous man, a peculiarly Russian figure inspired by Byron's (anti-)heroes, gifted yet unfocused, nihilistic, destructive and self-destructive, and yet consistently perceived as attractive nevertheless. It's that attraction that must absolutely come across in any portrayal, and despite the excellence of the dancing, neither Igor Tsvirko (in "Bela") nor Artem Ovcharenko (in "Taman") really succeeded. It was a mystery as to why Olga Smirnova's lovely, wistful Bela should fall for Tsvirko's Pechorin, while Ovcharenko's athletic, youthful version was nevertheless upstaged by Ekaterina Shipulina's fiery and desperate Undine.
Only Ruslan Skvortsov produced a more fully fleshed-out character, and his section was, in any event, the clearest in narrative terms, but there too, much of the strength of that reading was derived from the contrast with, and opposition to Denis Savin's oustanding Grushnitsky, febrile and neurotic. Svetlana Zakharova was elegant as ever as the titular Princess Mary, and the principal pas de deux with Skvortsov was splendid, while Kristina Kretova's solo as Vera, after the duel, was compelling, but the depiction of these characters' relationships with Pechorin was neither fully developed, nor convincing as a whole.
Even those last moments, where the three Pechorins come together, brought no additional illumination to the proceedings, and the curtain came down on a well-produced and well-danced show that, like some phantom feast, satisfied the eye, but not the appetite.
[Next : 11th April]