Leila Guchmazova. For the glory of the Bolsheviks

For the glory of the Bolsheviks
Leila Guchmazova

Date of publication: October 25, 2000

Since the end of summer, the Bolshoi Theater has become a Klondike for fellow critics and front-page newspaper newsmakers. In fact, one gets the impression that boats do not sink in the country, pensioners do not starve, and children do not die from armless medicine. Everyone is interested in what is happening at the Bolshoi - apparently, they want something big and beautiful, gold-velvet. What exactly is happening? Nothing - the same farce after the tragedy. A ceremonial march along the rake to the music of Susanin’s “Glory, glory!..”.

Characters. The demon, aka Woland, rejected by heaven - firstly, for the free flight of thought; secondly, for conciliation with dark forces. Ivan the fool, who received the kingdom for living well. An intelligent boss who suffers from ballet headaches; The Bolshoi Ballet gives him a migraine. In the course of the action, depending on the circumstances, the demon turns into an Evil Genius (see “Swan Lake”) or into Pope Carlo, Don Corleone, a noble knight in exile, etc. Touching Ivan the Fool stirs up trouble, plays tricks, writes a hymn, undertakes to stage an opera, blissfully fails to cope with the kingdom and - loses it in the same way, you live a great life. The nobles weave intrigues. The people are silent.

Grigorovich. It has not been noticed today that ballet chronically lags behind the general flow of time in art. From life - even more so. To the envy of the leaders of parties and governments, the dancing people both live and, sitting in a chair, usually rule for a very long time - the habit of staying in shape, ingrained into the veins, gives a firm torso and a firm force. Perestroika in the Bolshoi monarchy took place in 1992, after a unanimous salvo from the then progressive criticism. By this point, for 30 years, the autocratic Grigorovich no longer had full power, coexisting with the Plisetskaya, Vasiliev clan, the Marius Liepa lobby, and the Ananiashvili clan gaining points. The helmsman was accused of creative impotence in recent years and control of access to the stage; in a word, all the evil of the world was concentrated in Grigorovich (aka Grieg, aka dad), the anode of the socialist realist values ​​of the main musical theater. Grieg was thrown off. But over the long years of autocracy, his own name was promoted by the entire state PR of one-sixth. As a result, just one line in the playbill was enough for God knows what theater with a poor flock - Yakut or Krasnodar - to collect the box office. To the author - copyright, honor and respect. Things went worse abroad - the pretentious style of the Bolshoi does not fit well with international troupes. Although his choreography is not the worst in the world in the honorable top three of the symphonic drama ballet genre. After the constructed passions of Grieg's best opuses - "The Legend of Love" and "Spartacus" - the politically correct stories of Sir Kenneth MacMillan look like a soy product, not to mention the insipid "Die Meistersinger" of the Vienna Opera or the clumsy Brownian ballet movement of Michael Morris. Balanchine is about something else, Kilian is also about something else, Bejar (for lovers of tasty coincidences - the same age as Grigorovich) is about something else. Forsythe is a personal icon, I try not to mention it in vain. However, where did it take me - the jungle, the derby, who is better, the IX International Ballet Competition, the return of which to the Bolshoi stage has already been loudly announced by its permanent head.

It's a matter of scale - the concept is now unfashionable, but even at a flea market, among a bunch of used things, others stand out with class. Grigorovich's scale is large; Big. This kind of talent is the product of all of us, which, on the one hand, was forged by the old-school St. Petersburg teachers (Fyodor Lopukhov in the role of old Derzhavin), and on the other, by debriefings of creative flights at party meetings. Question: is there still a passion in the large-scale creative personality for something more than a couple of renewals (the plans include the restoration of “Swan Lake,” which once did not pass Furtsev’s GOST, and “The Legend of Love,” which was quietly strangled by Vasiliev)? And will there be enough will by any means (in our country they are often “any”) to attract to the Bolshoi what exists in the world separately from us?

Without Grigorovich. What happened at the Bolshoi for eight years “without Grieg”? The artistic director of the entire theater, Vasiliev, invited Vyacheslav Gordeev to the position of artistic director of the ballet, who, bowing to the heritage, staged his own disastrous performance. Another artistic director, Alexander Bogatyrev, died without being stained with anything special. By this time, Ananiashvili’s background had become so strong that he was able to push his protege, a second-generation “big ballet dancer” and reliable partner Alexei Fadeechev, into the artistic directorship. A similar phenomenon - with all the reservations - already took place in the last century on the stage of the Mariinsky. Performances were staged especially for Prima Matilda Kshesinskaya, which turned into events in artistic life. The Mariinsky was thundering. Everyone is happy. Well, almost everything - ballet gerontology is different from general humane gerontology.

Thanks to Ananiashvili’s desire to dance the best choreography in the world and the counter-desire of the Balanchine Foundation to develop a previously closed market, a grandiose premiere took place at the Bolshoi - “Agon” and “Symphony in C” by Balanchine. As usual - against all odds. The troupe learned the most complex dance scores in three (three!) weeks, I don’t remember the optimists, the ironists - darkness and darkness. But it happened! Balanchine is dancing in the bastion of leavened patriotism! Vasiliev, meanwhile, at the instigation of Maya Plisetskaya, gave seven months of rehearsals to the young under-talented stage performer for “The Little Humpbacked Horse.” Which it was awkward to scold - just a volley of flies. Further. The young autonomy invites the French celebrity Pierre Lacotte to the Bolshoi to restore Marius Petipa's "The Pharaoh's Daughter". Jealous Peter sent emissaries - she herself helped get into the Bolshoi. Again with reservations, but - the premiere is grandiose, the Grand Opera enters into a contract with Lacotte, and “The Pharaoh’s Daughter” becomes the claw from which... the new artistic director of the theater Gennady Rozhdestvensky begins to communicate with the ballet. There are three performances left, hurry up, those who haven’t seen it, they will soon be removed from the poster.

Tutti. Having pacified Goskino, the intelligent boss focused on the Bolshoi Theater. Vasiliev received epitaphs . Gennady Rozhdestvensky met the troupe. Nina Ananiashvili went to dance at the American Ballet Theater. Alexey Fadeyechev, sitting on the volcano, gave a hysterical press conference. The hysteria is understandable - the theater is on tour: in London, where the daily pay is equal to the average monthly corps de ballet in their native land, ten weeks in America. A tour to Egypt is on fire, where it was planned to dance “Pharaoh’s Daughter” against the backdrop of natural pyramids - for me, this tour was worth organizing even just for the sake of the picture. For normal producers, our considerations of the highest order go under the “mysterious Russian soul” section - lucrative contracts have been prepared, prospects have been outlined, things are going well - and suddenly... Who will carry high the banner of the Bolshoi Ballet?!

Ballet is an art so conservative in the flesh that even an educated pragmatist minister’s common sense betrays him. I'm not talking about the philosophical "you can't walk into the same river twice." The market economy applies to ballet to the same extent and with the same guidelines as to the rest of the arts. It's only good for him. It also benefits us, the viewers and taxpayers. During my difficult childhood in an English special school, I was forced to cram idioms. Then I remembered that their common sense is not common at all, but only “sound.” That is, rarely seen.

Grigorovich again. They say that binary oppositions are not in fashion these days. And for us, ballet dancers, if not Vasiliev, then Grigorovich. The sticky word “charisma” did not stick to any of the now former chiefs of the Bolshoi Ballet. Usurped by Grieg. Klaka remained faithful to “dad” even in his worst times. As for the youth, who, it seems, should be dissatisfied, reverence for the most important of the main choreographers is brought up in the school (sorry, Academy) from an early age. For an icon from childhood to turn into a real creature like you, you need to read a lot, see a lot and think a little. The current soloists will no longer have sound realism. The next ambitious graduates will have problems with extra-patriotism - why take part in the revolutionary artistic fuss at the Bolshoi when you can earn money by dancing what you like somewhere in a more comfortable place? For example, in Denmark?

This is how we came to a name that occasionally comes up in conversations about Bolshoi. Alexei Ratmansky, a former Muscovite, whom Ananiashvili’s autonomy brought to the Bolshoi and whose only ballet, “Dreams of Japan,” is being withdrawn from the playbill today. He dances in the Royal Danish Ballet, and staged under contract at the Mariinsky - "The Fairy's Kiss", "Middle Duet", "Poem of Ecstasy". Today, a unique choreographer under forty, whose talent deserves attention, is another stumbling block between the Big and the successful rival Mariinsky. There is no alternative to it yet - it’s always bad with new choreographers in ballet, the flesh gets in the way: we are strengthening our backsides more and more, strengthening our rears, clicking on the noses of the upstarts. Until recently, graduates of, if I may say so, the same year of the Choreographic Academy walked around the theater in a flock - out of trepidation, respect for the old-timers and the instinct of self-preservation. Learn, army! Everything is beautiful here, the wreaths and pointe shoes are satin! Volunteer and dance! There is a good constructive rule - when criticizing, suggest. This is where my passion ends, as I am drawn to the pages of some specialized atavistic organ to conduct a professional investigation on the topic “Why choreographers are not born.” Although, in the end, it will all come down to a boring story about the fact that life is bad here, gentlemen.

The situation was formally resolved . The premiere plans of the previous directorate were cancelled, and tours were put on hold. Boris Akimov, people's USSR, a man with a good reputation among his colleagues, a unique type of ballet intellectual, was appointed to the position of artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater Ballet. A real "Bolshevik" - in the troupe immediately after graduating from the Moscow Choreographic School. He danced all the classics, especially distinguished himself in the roles of the Evil Genius and the boyar-intellectual Kurbsky. He writes music - they say it’s not bad for an amateur. An excellent teacher who speaks quietly at troupe meetings and, being a “people’s person,” has still not resolved the damned housing issue. First of all, he suits Grigorovich, therefore he suits the Ministry of Culture, and more or less suits the troupe. Why do they love an intellectual? For the ability to wear into any shoes. For the next three years, until the end of Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s reign, the balance of power in the Bolshoi Ballet will no longer change. All we can do is wear it on.