Bolshoi Ballet (live broadcast). 19/05/2019
Shchedrin, after Bizet : Carmen Suiteº
Stravinsky : Petrushka†
Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Sorokinº
Pavel Klinichev†
The Carmen Suite was a commission by and for the great Soviet ballerina Maya Plissetskaya, created in 1967. She knocked on quite a few doors, both musically and choreographically, before landing on Alberto Alonso, brother of another great ballerina, Alicia Alonso, and with her, a founding figure of the Cuban National Ballet, as choreographer, and Plissetskaya's own husband, Rodion Shchedrin, for the music. Although Shchedrin uses Bizet's music (mostly from Carmen, but with a few adjuncts from other sources), his adaptation of it is sufficiently original, and different from Bizet, to warrant his recognition as the composer, rather than just an arranger. Shchedrin plays quirky little tricks with the rhythms of the pieces, and the orchestration, for strings and a significant battery of percussion, is lean and slyly witty.
Never having seen another piece of Alonso's choreography, I don't know how characteristic his Carmen Suite is; it certainly has a very distinctive, and instantly recognisable style of its own, with its flat-soled turns, out-thrust pelvises, or cocked hips. Starkly designed in black and red, boldly set in a bull-ring, the staging is eye-catching without being obtrusive. The characters here are more archetypal; you can name them Carmen, José or Escamillo (and Carmen does usually stay Carmen), but they can also be The Gypsy, The Soldier, The Toreador, and the corps de ballet (quite small), is often seen as spectators sitting around the ring. Svetlana Zakharova smouldered as Carmen, long, beautiful legs always drawing the eye, pride and confidence in every flick of a hand or tilt of the head. Denis Rodkin was a suitably intense, even obsessive José in response to this, a little wild-eyed at times, but dancing with crisp precision. It's a powerful piece, the Carmen Suite, and it was given full weight and measure, as much by the orchestra, on outstanding form, as by the company.
A new choreography of Petrushka seems like a tall order, the Fokine is so familiar, and you wonder why any of the big houses, and particularly the big Russian houses, would bother. That said, I have seen Vinogradov's peculiar version for the then-Kirov, and I was a little afraid Romanian choreographer Edward Clug would have done something similar for this creation at the Bolshoi. Quite the contrary, as it turned out, he's very faithful to the original scenario - almost too much so, because there were times it was so close to the Fokine, I was inclined to wonder why bother doing a new one? However, there were good points too. For starters, it makes the work more accessible to smaller companies. The Fokine, with its Benois designs, makes a heavy consumption of resources, both of dancers and of the staging. Clug's version is substantially pared down, in a much simpler staging of three giant matryoshka doll-shapes sliding gently around the stage as required. With a corps of some fifteen couples, and the four soloists - the Charlatan is much more of a dancing role than under Fokine - these are forces that are well within the means of the average ballet company.
The Moor is sort of replaced by a strongman - at any rate, there's little evident Moorish connotations visible, save in the music - and, as mentioned above, the Charlatan has a much more active role, which was interesting, and offered a particularly nice twist right at the end, when puppet-master and puppet appear to change places. Denis Savin was the Petrushka, not as utterly pathetic in this version as in Fokine, while Vyacheslav Lopatin was suitably devilish (given his make-up and hair) as the Charlatan, a strong figure in his own right. Ekaterina Krysanova's talents, however, seemed a little wasted on this version of the Ballerina, particularly compared to the redoubtably difficult Fokine choreography. A little too close to the original ballet to be a wholly successful venture, in my opinion, but not without its points of interest.
[Next : 1st June]
Stravinsky : Petrushka†
Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Sorokinº
Pavel Klinichev†
The Carmen Suite was a commission by and for the great Soviet ballerina Maya Plissetskaya, created in 1967. She knocked on quite a few doors, both musically and choreographically, before landing on Alberto Alonso, brother of another great ballerina, Alicia Alonso, and with her, a founding figure of the Cuban National Ballet, as choreographer, and Plissetskaya's own husband, Rodion Shchedrin, for the music. Although Shchedrin uses Bizet's music (mostly from Carmen, but with a few adjuncts from other sources), his adaptation of it is sufficiently original, and different from Bizet, to warrant his recognition as the composer, rather than just an arranger. Shchedrin plays quirky little tricks with the rhythms of the pieces, and the orchestration, for strings and a significant battery of percussion, is lean and slyly witty.
Never having seen another piece of Alonso's choreography, I don't know how characteristic his Carmen Suite is; it certainly has a very distinctive, and instantly recognisable style of its own, with its flat-soled turns, out-thrust pelvises, or cocked hips. Starkly designed in black and red, boldly set in a bull-ring, the staging is eye-catching without being obtrusive. The characters here are more archetypal; you can name them Carmen, José or Escamillo (and Carmen does usually stay Carmen), but they can also be The Gypsy, The Soldier, The Toreador, and the corps de ballet (quite small), is often seen as spectators sitting around the ring. Svetlana Zakharova smouldered as Carmen, long, beautiful legs always drawing the eye, pride and confidence in every flick of a hand or tilt of the head. Denis Rodkin was a suitably intense, even obsessive José in response to this, a little wild-eyed at times, but dancing with crisp precision. It's a powerful piece, the Carmen Suite, and it was given full weight and measure, as much by the orchestra, on outstanding form, as by the company.
A new choreography of Petrushka seems like a tall order, the Fokine is so familiar, and you wonder why any of the big houses, and particularly the big Russian houses, would bother. That said, I have seen Vinogradov's peculiar version for the then-Kirov, and I was a little afraid Romanian choreographer Edward Clug would have done something similar for this creation at the Bolshoi. Quite the contrary, as it turned out, he's very faithful to the original scenario - almost too much so, because there were times it was so close to the Fokine, I was inclined to wonder why bother doing a new one? However, there were good points too. For starters, it makes the work more accessible to smaller companies. The Fokine, with its Benois designs, makes a heavy consumption of resources, both of dancers and of the staging. Clug's version is substantially pared down, in a much simpler staging of three giant matryoshka doll-shapes sliding gently around the stage as required. With a corps of some fifteen couples, and the four soloists - the Charlatan is much more of a dancing role than under Fokine - these are forces that are well within the means of the average ballet company.
 |
| Tableau 4 of Edward Clug's Petrushka Bolshoi Ballet (© Bolshoi Theatre, 2019) |
[Next : 1st June]