Translated material
Fortune telling with chamomile
Extraordinary guest performers performed at the Bolshoi and Musical Theaters
The Bolshoi Theater very rarely invites foreign stars to its performances, and the arrival of American Ballet Theater premier David Hallberg to participate in Giselle was an outstanding event. The musical theater, on the contrary, has recently been trying to act as a hospitable host for non-boring theaters visiting Russia, but the Lyon Ballet sparkles among the precious ranks as a particularly pure pearl. At the same time, each of the theaters continues its policy with guest performers: the Bolshoi remains the theater of stars, a unique, arrogant and picky collection of performing talents, the Musical continues to be interested in the best contemporary choreographers.David Hallberg, whose tour at the Bolshoi was made possible thanks to producer Sergei Danilyan, is an American, born, studied, and became a star in the States, but there is nothing in him of the aggressive, victorious, slightly simple-minded and tricky style that is so loved in America. Either a short internship at the Paris Opera school sculpted and sharpened this prince, or, what is more likely, he aspired to this very school because of an internal precise idea of what ballet should be. A pure arabesque, a line drawn in the air, is more important than ten pirouettes; and arrogant recklessness can be manifested not in super-twists in the air, but in the most precise chirping of entreche. The role of Count Albert, who hit on a peasant girl and suddenly found himself guilty of her death, was danced by Hallberg without the slightest tension - with that noble carelessness that creates real ballet princes. A gathering of balletomanes, the “Society of Friends of the Bolshoi Ballet,” which was organizing a meeting with the dancer at the Theater Museum, began to unanimously dream of Hallberg being offered the status of a guest star at the Bolshoi Theater (after all, his contract at ABT requires only 36 weeks of employment per year). It is clear that given the traditional closeness of the Bolshoi, this would be a miracle, but a miracle is absolutely necessary: the older generation of stars is dancing less and less, the younger generation is just beginning to emerge from the corps de ballet, and 27-year-old Hallberg could provide a decent level to the Bolshoi’s performances, which are increasingly left to the diligent , but rather boring soloists.
Whether Bolshoi General Director Anatoly Iksanov was at this “Giselle” is unknown; at the Lyon "Giselle" at the Musical - I definitely was. All that remains is, like the heroine of the ballet, to tell fortunes on a daisy - “Does he love or not?”; “Did you like it or didn’t you like it?”; “I wanted it to be the same for myself - I thought, ‘God forbid’”?
The Ballet National Opera of Lyon is the main French theater specializing in modern choreography. The Paris Opera is passionate about everything and dances almost everything flawlessly; but it is precisely in the performance of works by contemporary authors that Lyon periodically seizes the championship. Magi Maren and Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jiri Kylian and Russell Malifan - and those writers who are already part of the company of the greats, and those who are actively promoting themselves, and those whom no one knows yet, but everyone will soon know - are included into the repertoire of the Lyon Ballet. Last year, the leading troupe decided to break its customs and took into its repertoire a play staged already in 1982 - this same “Giselle” by Mats Ek, which has now been brought to us on tour as part of the “Year of France in Russia” program. (After riding around the Urals and dancing in Moscow, the troupe goes to St. Petersburg, where it can be seen tomorrow on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater). Thus, confirming the enduring revolutionary nature of the performance created thirty years ago.
Mats Ek is one of those choreographers who shook Europe at a time when our ballet did not want to know anything about the shocks of Europe. Yuri Grigorovich ruled at the Bolshoi, the Soviet Union was ruined in his performances, and not to mention productions in the main theater of the country - it was ridiculous to think about tours (what if they start comparing?). When the theater was ventilated, Ek just decided to retire from choreography and took up drama and installations; now he occasionally produces miniatures (the last one he composed two years ago for his wife Ana Laguna and Mikhail Baryshnikov). It became impossible to invite him to the production; but the Lyon Opera demonstrated that it is never too late to take on an old, but not at all outdated, performance. Will the CEO of the Bolshoi remember this?
In this “Giselle,” Mats Ek preserved the plot outline of the old play: there is a village girl and there is a city slicker who has gone out into nature and is carried away by this simple-minded girl. The townsman has been engaged for a long time and has no serious intentions, but he does not expect the deceived girl to go crazy, die and turn into a ghost. More precisely, about death and afterlife adventures - this was only among the classics, Perrault - Coralli - Petipa. Hallberg visited the cemetery and communicated with ghosts on Theater Square. Mats Ek has no mysticism - if the heroine loses her mind, she is simply locked in an insane asylum, where a repentant boyfriend comes to her.
The plasticity in Mats Ek's performance is torn, sharp, brittle. In a classical performance, even when the poor heroine’s mind is clouded, the ballerina must maintain her status as a ballerina. One must suffer and die gracefully - there is something deeply samurai in classical ballet, it is not for nothing that the Japanese love it so much. Eck rejects decency and recognizes the outstanding rights of suffering: what happens in the writhing soul of Giselle (the role went to Dorothe Delabie) is shaken out onto the stage with wild leaps, twisted legs, thunderous hysteria and heart-wrenching bewilderment.
In Eka's ballet everything is excessive, everything is over-expressive, everything is still capable of shocking the ordinary viewer. If Giselle’s village suitor (Frank Léger) despises the aristocrats wandering into the village, then he is given an insolent, mocking “variation” when he skips the diagonal, squatting and sticking his hand folded into a handful back between his legs (the literal embodiment of the saying “a g...” Would you like it on a shovel?”). If it is not people who are wandering around in a psychiatric hospital, but fragmented personalities, scraps of people, then the backdrop depicting a closed room will depict cut-off pieces of bodies (a piece of a chest, part of a nose, a pair of fingers; - no, without naturalism, the images are close to cartoon ones; and in general, the performance designer Marie-Louise Ekman seems to have been inspired by the works of Henri “The Customs Officer” Rousseau). And if in the finale Albert (Cedric Andrieu) also goes crazy, then he rushes completely naked across the green grass of the village fields, shuddering, shying away from the peasant who accidentally discovered him; I wouldn’t be surprised if the actors visited the corresponding hospitals to prepare their roles in this performance.
Could our artists dance this? To play something like this, given all the glory of the Moscow school as an acting school? In any case, they should have been given a try - if not Ekov’s “Giselle,” then, for example, Ekov’s “Carmen Suite,” where the naivety and intensity of the story amaze the imagination. I really want the two Giselles, with an American guest and the entire French touring one, not to remain just a wondrous memory of the season.