The Nutcracker #2 - The Bolshoi Screening

Standard YouTube Licence

Bolshoi Ballet The Nutcracker Screened in cinemas worldwide, 15 Dec 2019, 14:00

In Coppelia in the Cinema 12 Dec 2019, I wrote that the conversation between Merle Park, Darcey Bussell and Marianela Nuñez was the high point of the screening of Coppelia.   Pathé Live went one better with an interview with Ludmila Semenyaka that consumed virtually the whole interval.  As her interviewer, Ekaterina Novikova remarked, Semenyaka was one of the greats of Soviet ballet. She danced all the leading roles including the lead in The Nutcracker.  There are some ballerinas like Antoinette Sibley who could tell a story or transmit emotion with their eyes.  I suspect that Semenyaka must have been able to do that too,  Though now is in her late 60s her eyes remain as expressive as they must have been at the height of her career.  The interview was conducted at a high level because Ms Novikova is exceedingly well informed about ballet.

I arrived at the screening shortly before the curtain rose but I caught the last part of Ms Novikova's introduction to the ballet.  She explained why the Bolshoi's version of The Nutcracker is so different from those in the West.  In the former, Clara (or Marie as she is called there) and the sugar plum are one and the same person which turns The Nutcracker into a journey to adulthood instead of a succession of divertissements as happens here. A few days after the screening I listened to a podcast by Tom Service called The Nutcracker - Strange Enchantments that argued that there was a dark side to the ballet and that the transition from the Stahlbaums' sitting room to the kingdom of the sweets might actually be an entry into paradise.  Mr Service reminded his listeners that infantile mortality was much more common at the end of the 19th century than it is now and that the final pas de deux was performed by the Mariinsky Orchestra at a concert to commemorate the children who were killed in the siege of Beslan.

If one views The Nutcracker through too dark a lens it can look very sinister indeed.  A world of monster mice and outsize Christmas trees can be seen as symptoms of delirium or worse and Drosselmeyer appears more as a child molester and less as a kindly uncle with a line of conjuring tricks. Mr Service even interpreted the Spanish, Arabian and Chinese dances as a defence of imperialism even though the Russia of Tchaikovsky and Petipa possessed no territories in lands that produced chocolate, coffee or tea. 

The version that Pathé Live screened on 15 Dec does not stray too far from ETA Hoffmann's story. Marie may have lost her innocence but she still wakes up in her own home. Semenyaka explained in the interview that there is a tension between Hoffmann's story and Tchaikovsky's score and where he had to choose between the tale and music the choreographer, Yuri Grigorovich chose the music. She added that was why she preferred Grigorovich's version to all others even though she could see merit in other companies' productions.

In the screening of 15 Dec 2019, the title role was performed by Margarita Shrayner, a first soloist in the company who danced more confidently than many principals. She can act as well as dance and has an impressive repertoire.  The male lead was Semyon Chudin who is now a principal with the Bolshoi. Interestingly, he trained not in the Bolshoi's own school but in Novosibirsk and joined the company from the Universal Ballet Company of South Korea.  Drosselmeyer was danced by Denis Savin who was suitably creepy.  Compared to the Royal Ballet's production (a recording of which was screened a few days later) the Bolshoi's sets and costumes seemed a bit dowdy. There was, however, nothing wrong with the dancing or acting which are the most important components of any ballet. There were a couple of nice touches which other companies might consider.  For instance, the Russian dance is performed by a couple rather than a bevvy of boys dressed as Cossacks and Bo Peep and her sheep (on casters) were substituted for "mirlitons" whatever they may be. 

Altogether I enjoyed the screening very much.  I can't wait to see the company in its own theatre which is my Christmas present to myself for the New Year.  As I see that I have finished my review on Christmas morning, I wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year,

Spartacus

Hermann Vogel "Death of Spartacus"

Bolshoi Ballet Spartacus  10 Aug 2019 14:00 Royal Opera House

Ever since I saw a streaming of the ballet from Moscow nearly 6 years ago  I have longed to see it on stage. I have had a long wait because few if any Western companies seem to perform the work and certainly no British ones.  This year, however, the Bolshoi included Spartacus in its London season so I traipsed down to London yesterday to see it.   The ticket in the centre of row G of the stalls wasn't cheap. Neither was the rail fare. The rail network was all over the place as a result of the high winds and the aftermath of Friday's power outage. Nevertheless, I can think of no better use of my time or a better way to spend my money.  I have been going to the ballet for nearly 60 years and see about 50 shows a year.  Rarely have I been more excited by a performance than I was yesterday by the Bolshoi's performance of Spartacus,

As I summarized the plot and discussed the background to the ballet in Spartacus - Streamed Direct to Wakefield 21 Oct 2013, I need not repeat them here. There is, in any case, a full synopsis on the Bolshoi's website and even a video of a performance of the whole ballet adapted for the screen featuring the incoming director of Birmingham Royal Ballet on YouTube.  The show that I saw yesterday featured Igor Tsvirko and Ruslan Skvortsov as Spartacus and Crassus and Margarita Shrayner and Ekaterina Krysanova as Phrygia and Aegina. 

I had already seen Tsvirko on screen in the peasant pas de deux in Giselle (see The Bolshoi does the Business - Giselle streamed from Moscow 12 Oct 2015), the jester in Swan Lake  (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Bradford 25 Jan 2015), Count Pepinelli in Marco Spada (see Marco Spada Streamed from Moscow 31 March 2014) and the jester in A Legend of Love (see The Bolshoi's "A Legend of Love" streamed from Moscow 27 Oct 2014).  Magnificent though he was on screen he is so much more impressive in person.  His strength and endurance are amazing,  Spartacus is a long ballet and he is on stage for most of the show.  There were frequent bursts of applause as he demonstrated that strength such as hoisting Shrayner into the air with one hand as though she were a feather.

The last time the Bolshoi came to London I saw Skvortsov dance Siegfried in Swan Lake  (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Covent Garden 31 July 2016).  Although I thought that the Bolshoi has better shows and other companies have better Swan Lakes I enjoyed Skvortsov's performance very much.  I listed Skvortsov as one of the outstanding male dancers of 2016. I had also noticed him in the screenings of A Hero of Our Time, The Bright Stream and The Golden Age.  Intensely good looking, his was the first face that appears on stage from the centre of a testudo stamping his feet and brandishing a fasces. Another dancer of prodigious strength and agility.

I cannot recall watching Shrayner dance before but she is beautiful. She has a face that communicates emotion like few others.  One of my friends who knows Spartacus well described it as a man's ballet. That is true because both the gladiators and legionnaires as well as the leading artists perform spectacular feats of endurance attracting ripples of applause throughout the show. But it is also a ballet about two strong women and Phrygia's role is by far the more dignified and graceful,  The one bit of the ballet that the British public knows well is the theme from the Onedin Line largely because the show was never off our TV screens when I was young. That is, of course, Phrygia's solo and pas de deux with Spartacus and I could not help rooting for a tissue as she danced that piece.

I was already a big fan of Krysanova before yesterday's matinee.  I loved her performance as Kathrona in Jean-Christophe Maillot's The Taming of the Shrew which is now one of my all-time favourite ballets (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016).  She was a great Kitri in Don Quixote which I saw on screen in April 2016.  Katharina and Kitri are heroines but Aegina is very different.  There is a telling scene immediately after the legions goosestep off to slay the slaves when Aegina appears goosestepping like the soldiers.  She had just lifted the defeated Crassus out of his despair after losing his fight with Spartacus, given him back his sword and filled him with a desire for vengeance.  I admire her all the more for that.

When you watch a show from the amphitheatre as I did when I was a Young Friend the auditorium seems cavernous.  When you sit a few rows from the orchestra the House is intimate.  You feel the audience around you.  When an audience fires up as it did yesterday there can be no experience in the theatre more thrilling.  Yesterday, the audience was boiling.  That brought out the best in the artists - the musicians under Pavel Klinichev as well as the dancers.  It was a performance that I think I shall remember for the rest of my life.

PS  I said that I was no British company had ever performed Spartacus but Sarah Lambert has sent me this footage of a rehearsal by Jenna Roberts & Iain Mackay of Birmingham Royal Ballet which suggests that I may be wrong.   At least bits of it appear to have been performed in Symphony Hall and Northampton.