| Alexei Ratmansky directed "Bright Stream" Airplanes are flying over colorful fields, tractors are rolling towards them, collective farmers who have harvested their crops are preparing for the arrival of guests from the capital - and now a steam locomotive with a smoking chimney is busily running from the left wing to the right... Shostakovich's "Bright Stream", crushed seventy years ago by the article - by the decree of Pravda, “Ballet Falsehood” and now re-staged by choreographer Alexei Ratmansky and conductor Pavel Sorokin, from the first seconds of the overture it sounds so pure, light and fun that all doubts about the collective farm plot fly away. Just think, a Kuban village. This whole crazy story with disguises, mistakes, cross-loves is of course related to ballroom stories, a little frivolous, crafty - with “The Bat,” for example, and not with the hefty ruddy “Kuban Cossacks.”
The plot meanders, giggles, squints under the sun. Collective farm agronomist Pyotr falls in love with a visiting ballerina. (She came to dance at the harvest festival; she is accompanied by a Classical dancer and an accompanist - hmm - Harmonist.) He does not know that his wife, a local entertainer (club manager?), also graduated from a choreographic school, moreover, she and the Ballerina were best friends. And of course, the Ballerina immediately informs her long-unseen friend about Peter’s efforts. Women plot edifying revenge. The entertainer, having changed clothes, goes on a secret date with her husband.
But this is only one line. A young summer resident also begins to court the Dancer, and an Elderly Summer Resident begins to court the Ballerina. Ruthless artists decide to play a trick on them - and the Dancer dresses in a “Chopin” skirt, and the Ballerina in a man’s suit. Two more prank duets. And finally, the capital's Harmonist makes a date with the schoolgirl Gala, and the jealous Tractor Driver, disguised as a dog (! - the size of a grizzly bear), diligently interferes with him.
In ballet comedy (an extremely rare genre), the balance between purely playful jokes and sophisticated dance jokes is important. Ratmansky maintains this balance remarkably well. In the enchanting duet of the Dancer (Sergei Filin) pretending to be a sylph and the stunned Summer Resident (Andrei Melanin), for example: just now the Dancer was heartily singing “sylph” and “giselle” motifs, with half-fainting crossing of his arms, with doomed bows of his head - and here He, collapsing onto the stage, demands a flask from the Summer Resident, forgetting about his role for a second and sitting down like a man with his legs wide apart. But a moment of self-control - and the languid pose was again adopted (and the flask had not yet been removed from the lips). Owl, who in the classical repertoire perfectly dances both James and Albert (catchers of sylphs and wilis), plays this role of the wilis sylph masterfully: without a hint of mannerism, with a condescending, truly masculine mockery of women's ballet cliches.
But not only Owl in this performance deserves enthusiastic words. Gennady Yanin - Harmonist: oh, what a grease, how he picks up a schoolgirl, how he rolls his shoulders round, how he falls on the bench when he discovers that a dog is rushing to dance with the girl! And, of course, Maria Alexandrova - Ballerina: without parting with an absolutely modern style of dance, slightly detached and mocking, she managed to hint at a pre-war style. Not so that it smells of archaic and dangerous mothballs, but so that the glorious Moscow myth about the reckless dance (Alexandrova throws herself into the hands of her partner like Lepeshinskaya once) and victorious comes to life and clicks its tongue.
Alexey Ratmansky usually denies in interviews that the roles in his performances are closely tied to the artist for whom they were directly created. This must be a case where the artist is deceiving himself: there are no more personality-oriented productions than Ratmansky's ballets. You can get involved in his performance, and get introduced well - but no one has yet been able to do the role better than the artist who initially rehearsed with the choreographer. Therefore, the fact that the role of Zina was not a success for Inna Petrova - her sweet heroine had difficulty performing the numerous rotations choreographed for the virtuoso Galina Stepanenko - is not surprising. It is Stepanenko’s non-participation in the performance that is surprising: the ballerina refused rehearsals without comment shortly before the premiere. As a result, there were no two equal ballerinas on stage in the finale, and the fact that the agronomist did not distinguish his wife from the virtuoso guest had to be attributed only to theatrical convention.
The performance features excellent ensembles and mass dances (from the bowing, curling six girls accompanying Zina at the collective farm festival, to the dances of the highlanders and Kuban residents). But what it doesn’t have at all is “epoch”. Boris Messerer, of course, decorated the curtain with slogans of the 30s, but otherwise he was clearly able to restrain himself, and his fantasy on the theme of the VDNH fountain “Golden Spike” looks quite funny. (Although the light, volatile, unpretentious air of this performance would still have been suited to less bold colors). The subtlest hint is only the waltz-macabre in the second act, when, after a toy “duel”, Death with a scythe appears on the stage; but she is quickly kicked off the stage - and does this even belong to the “era”? A little bit of fear, anxiety, and excitement won't hurt any good comedy. And “Bright Stream” is a very good comedy. Anna GORDEEVA |
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