Translated material
There are no bad styles
“Esmeralda” has been restored at the Musical Theater
Each theater has its own “golden reserve,” or what it considers such, the works of a significant choreographer for the theater. The history of ballet flows and rolls, the dunes of time shimmer, and suddenly a man appears and presses such a mark in the sand that it remains for a very long time. At the Paris Opera it is Nureyev, at the English Royal Ballet it is Ashton and MacMillan, at the Bolshoi it is, of course, Grigorovich. Critics can discuss the merits and demerits of a person for decades; the degree of talent can vary greatly. But there is a trace, and theater artists have a keen sense of “their” history, for which they are ready to go into battle, the dates of which they are happy to celebrate.The Musical Theater also has such a choreographer - Vladimir Burmeister. His “Swan Lake” is the theater’s calling card, his “Snow Maiden” inevitably attracts full houses. Naturally, these days, when restoration of old performances is in fashion, Burmeister’s “Esmeralda” was resurrected on Bolshaya Dmitrovka.
Staged in 1950, the play ran at the Musical for decades, disappeared and reappeared in the repertoire - and each time it amazed with its vitality. It’s amazing even now - the structure is reliable, and the artists work in it with enthusiasm. And so the theater, which has a keen sense of contemporary choreographers of the first row, intelligently and accurately reproduces the works of Neumeier and Nacho Duato, and in the finale of this season, the promising evening of Jiri Kylian (the first in the country to reach an agreement with the Hague guru!), confidently plays Soviet drama ballet. Stating the elementary truth: there are no bad styles, there are mediocre choreographers.
And Burmeister was truly talented, this can be seen in every mise-en-scène. He believed that ballet should be understandable to the audience without a libretto, and in his dance retelling of the novel by Victor Hugo, all the circumstances are revealed, all the causes and consequences are spelled out. At the same time, the action never slows down, it moves at a brisk pace, and everyone - even the minor characters - has dances.
The action begins with the appearance of Gudula (Inna Ginkevich) - an exhausted beggar woman wanders with a child across the stage and falls unconscious from fatigue near the cathedral; The tiny daughter is busily going to bed next to her mother; it is clear that she is accustomed to this. A camp of gypsies passing by draws attention to a woman; She is considered dead (the hand forcibly raised upward falls lifeless), they cover her face with a scarf and take the child away. When Gudula comes to her senses, the gypsy scarf will tell her who is to blame for the misfortune. This is a prologue; but also in the prologue (which, according to the laws of the genre, could have been purely mimetic-narrative), Burmeister staged Gudula’s wild outburst of emotions, her desperate jumps, and the promise of a tragic development of events.
The poet Gringoire has disappeared in this version; only three men, not four, play an important role in the life of a girl who was once taken by gypsies and turned into a wild young beauty (Natalia Ledovskaya wonderfully reproduces the youthful impetuosity of her movements). At the same time, according to the same old canons, only the beautiful Phoebus has big dance monologues (the role went to Semyon Chudin). Quasimodo (Anton Domashev) wears a huge fake hump and walks on crooked legs - the time when physical deformity began to be depicted only through dance was not even visible on the horizon in the 1950s. And Claude Frollo (Victor Dick) has a stern gait and once (in a prison scene) bursting with violent gestures. But huge folk scenes have been composed - sometimes arousing admiration, sometimes a knowing smile.
Burmeister knew how and loved to work with the corps de ballet - and the Parisian population swarms, sympathizes with the heroine, has fun and grieves in an exciting and varied way. Sometimes it even goes into battle - right in the palace of Phoebus, when the guards begin to kick out the gypsies who did not come to the court, French proletarians appear out of nowhere and without any problems destroy the guards to the floor - they say, don’t touch our girls. And the brilliant battle scene in front of the cathedral, when the people defend Esmeralda! What kind of warrior is there with a giant boulder on a rope - the projectile unwinds, the bad guys scatter. In this reality, in Burmeister’s reality, the Great French Revolution could have happened three hundred years earlier - and none of the spectators would have protested, the readiness of the ballet people for it was so colorfully described.
But still, “Esmeralda” is a love story, and Burmeister could talk about tender feelings, and not just revolutionary ones. The best conceived (and now perfectly performed in the Musical) is the duet of Esmeralda and Phoebus in his palace. Phoebe and Fleur de Lys (Natalya Somova) got engaged, ceremonial dances took place, and the guests went somewhere backstage. Phoebus is left alone and invites a passing camp to join him; in it is Esmeralda, already in love with the shine of the officer’s armor. Just now - with his bride - Phoebus behaved patronizingly and gallantly; Now he lets go, you can be yourself. And he grabs the girl in his arms, squeezes her like a sparrow in the palm of his hand, is surprised at her, surprised at himself, rejoices... The duet consists of supports that seem spontaneous, sharp and stunningly tender. Thus, Esmeralda, seated on the hero’s shoulder, curls up into a ball to kiss him, and in this small movement there is so much natural feeling that can rarely be observed in classical ballet.
And another duet - Esmeralda and Quasimodo: Phoebus' soldiers have just taken the girl from the hunchback, who was supposed to kidnap her on the orders of Claude Frollo. Several blows that the guards inflict on the freak are delivered with non-balletic cruelty - oh, in the fifties everyone knew what servants of justice were. Then the girl rushes and shields her unlucky kidnapper from retribution; the soldiers are leaving. And there is a duet, that is, not a duet at all, they do not touch each other, but parallel monologues. Dreamy, slow steps of Esmeralda, enchanted by the brilliant Phoebus, and several movements of Quasimodo, who at the same time winces from the pain in his ribs and cannot help but involuntarily reach out to the amazing creature who took pity on him. He manages to crawl to the place where Esmeralda freezes for a moment, but, having done a good deed, the girl no longer sees the poor fellow and moves away... and between them there is again a gigantic distance for a cripple.
In a month, the Bolshoi is expecting its own “Esmeralda” - Yuri Burlaka and Vasily Medvedev are releasing a reconstruction of Marius Petipa’s play. It is clear that other money is being invested in the production there (although the Musical’s performance cannot be called poor; the painted backdrops with views of medieval Paris look nice), but whether the ballet will be just as successful remains to be seen. Marius Petipa in its pure form was never a “signature” author of the Bolshoi Theater, so surprises are possible.