Translated material
The life of "Mr. V"
The first monograph in Russian about George Balanchine
The book, dedicated to Diaghilev's dancer and then the founder of the famous New York City Ballet troupe, was just published in the summer of 2007. We became acquainted with Balanchine’s work in our homeland also not so long ago - half a century ago, when NYCB came on tour, and our troupes began legally performing his ballets a little over ten years ago, in the late 90s. The first initiator of their execution was Oleg Levenkov, the author of the monograph. A former artist of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater, he put his knowledge into practice - by now he has achieved that Perm is recognized as Balanchine's Mecca, where six titles of his ballets are staged and where former artists of the New York City Ballet transfer them. In parallel with his practical activities, which were extremely useful and invaluable, he carried out research, collected materials and wrote his work.Writing a monograph is not the most rewarding of tasks, at least in our ballet studies there are few of them (the last of the significant ones is Galina Dobrovolskaya’s about Mikhail Fokine, which was prepared for publication for more than ten years and covered only the Russian period). Scrupulous long-term work is behind the return of Balanchine’s legacy to the theater stage, and the same scrupulous work is demonstrated in the dark blue volume about the creator of neoclassicism in ballet. Designed, by the way, in the spirit of the works of the choreographer, who liked to limit himself to a monochromatic backdrop and the play of light.
A modest cover - the name and surname of the choreographer, a smaller one - the name and surname of the author. On the frontispiece is the famous portrait of Balanchine made by Tanaquil Le Clercq, his wife, who ended her dancing career due to illness and found herself in photography, but did not cease to remain the muse of her great husband for many years - dramatic for both - years. No, there is no share of tabloidness in Levenkov’s book; the author is interested in the fate, myth and art of the great choreographer. The story ends with the sad story of Le Clerc: the end of the 1950s was a milestone for Balanchine too. The number I proudly standing under the title of the book means that the first volume will be followed by the second.
In the West, there are several biographies of Balanchine - Bernard Taper, Richard Buckle, Francis Mason. They are full of little-known facts and rumors, as well as quotes from the unpublished in Russian memories of contemporaries and artists of his troupe. Levenkov's polemics with his Western colleagues give the publication of a full-fledged book about Balanchine, now available to Russian readers, the status of a special event. It must be said that Balanchine’s work is a constant subject of study and presentations at international symposiums and conferences by Elizaveta Surits, Vadim Gaevsky and Inna Sklyarevskaya - Levenkov refers to the first two Russian luminaries of the history of ballet. By the way, it is he who is the initiator and organizer of the long-term “Diaghilev Readings” and the festival of the same name in Perm (as you know, the countdown of Balanchine’s masterpieces began with Diaghilev’s troupe).
By analogy with “The Book of Rejoicings,” a prophetic ballet manifesto, I would call Levenkov’s monograph a book of expectations. It is symbolic that the jubilant postulates of Akim Volynsky, who was a fierce opponent of the initiatives of Georges Balanchivadze in Petrograd in the 1920s, were later put into practice by Balanchine himself in Europe and America: be it the dream of a ballet about Apollo, the driver of the muses, and the vision of the future of classical ballet in an Apollonian vein, or a metaphorical understanding and development of the simplest ballet steps.
The turns of fate of a persistent and “careless fatalist” (the title of one of the chapters) immediately immerse us in a biographical narrative, intertwined with inspired intellectual discussions about styles and genres, and lead us to the labyrinths of strict scientific thought. “Labyrinths” is a word exactly found by Yuri Slonimsky about his youth friend Georges; and Levenkov especially singles out Slonimsky, already as a scientist, among others. The author's musical education helps to skillfully analyze the choreographic coordinate system, which for Balanchine is inseparable from the musical structure, its general themes and intersections (as evidence, the musical staff appears more than once on the pages of the voluminous book). The polystylistic method, coupled with the encyclopedic approach, is followed by the researcher to the end.
Waiting for discoveries in the field of Balanchine’s mystical-romantic line, close to the biographer’s structure of thought and speech. The pages devoted to detailed descriptions of Tchaikovsky's "Serenade" or Ravel's "Waltz" are full of passion and exciting frankness. Detail is generally a characteristic feature of Levenkov’s research style. And sometimes in the crowded details and details, in what are called digressions on the matter, the light of the lunar outlines of the adagio from the “Symphony in C” is somewhat lost, the trace of the crescent of his final pose fades a little - a touch of Balanchine’s flourish beautifully found by Levenkov. But it is in these details, surprisingly, that the majority of discoveries and findings are contained, revealing the mysterious personality that Balanchine, however, never ceases to remain.
There are many surprises in the new book "George Balanchine". Some people just have to wait for its first part, published by the Ural publishing house “Book World”. To others - part two, actually ready for publication: it will include the next three decades of the life of “Mr. B” - from 1957 to 1983 - the heyday of his own troupe, which gave the choreographer a new name, shortened to one letter, sounding like a title.