| Frederick Ashton was born 100 years ago He was born in Ecuador - England sent its sons around the globe, one of them was the father of the future choreographer. There was no talk of a normal ballet education - at the beginning of the 20th century, Britain sent all dances to the music hall (there were no ballet theaters, guest performers performed in the music hall), and children from decent families did not dare to dream of such a career. This one was dreaming; dreamed exactly from the moment I saw Anna Pavlova on stage. And at the age of 19 I went to study, choosing a teacher from a random advertisement in a magazine. This announcement was given by Leonid Myasin.
Next - a career as a dancer in a country whose ballet had yet to be created (and, in particular, it was Ashton who had to do this closely). Small troupes that emerged from Diaghilev's enterprise - the troupe of Ida Rubinstein, the troupe of Marie Rambert. It was with Rambert in 1926 that he composed his first ballet, “The Tragedy of Fashion.” When in the early thirties several enthusiasts created the Camargo Society, designed to promote the development of new art for the country, Ashton was already quite famous in artistic circles. For "Camargo" he composed several performances, including "Façade".
Ballet in England grew, schools multiplied, from 1946 ballet dancers were allowed to perform on the stage of Covent Garden (the Sadler's Wells Ballet troupe settled there, for which Ashton staged a lot), and finally, in 1957, this troupe became the Royal Ballet UK. Ashton was its undoubted artistic leader, and in 1963-1970 he was also its absolute boss.
All these years - both when ballet was just beginning in England, and when it was considered one of the crown treasures, and Ashton became a sir and a personal friend of the Queen Mother - the choreographer was defiantly old-fashioned. He loved good old England, its humor, its fairy tales, its customs. (He was ready to defend them - and went to serve in the army during the war). A lot of his ballets are imbued with this slightly rude humor - both “A Vain Precaution” (not so long ago bought by the Bolshoi Theater) and “Cinderella” (in which he, together with his old friend and rival Robert Helpman, portrayed the sisters of the main character). It cannot be said that Ashton did not notice the current century at all - there were also “Monotones” in his work to the music of Satie, where the trio of characters in silver tights with their evolutions clearly resembled movie aliens (the year is 1966, that is, space - this is still curious ). But all the love and all the interest remained there, at the beginning of the 20th century, and even in Shakespeare’s plot (like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) the heroes wear tailcoats and vests and conduct dialogues in the good, crystal-clear language of classical dance.
He loved these tailcoats and waistcoats; loved restraint, personal secrets. One hundred percent gay (some romances lasted for decades, and the copyright for ballets was bequeathed to close friends), on stage he built a classical ballet world, in the center of which there was always a woman - and that is why ballerinas loved his works so much. (They still love it now - Sylvie Guillem, who has almost parted with the classics, regularly appears in his “Marguerite and Armand” and “A Month in the Country”.) And the dancer, who did not receive a full education, was more of a director than a choreographer, at that moment, when he wanted to glorify the art of ballet itself, to make a “portrait of ballet as such,” to compete with two wonderful choreographers of the twentieth century - Lifar and Balanchine, he composed “Ballet Scenes,” no worse than “Suite in White” or “Symphony in C.” -major". That will remain in history - well, and the dancing old hedgehog he played in the film "The Tales of Beatrix Potter" in his old age. Anna GORDEEVA |
|
