Gergiev, Plisetskaya, Ratmansky, Shchedrin, Smekalov, Tolstoy, and Vishneva's World of Art
July 14, 2011
Anna Karenina a meeting of great minds
Heading home from Lincoln Center on the subway after seeing Anna Karenina, the 2002 ballet version by choreographer Alexie Ratmansky, I looked at the oncoming train with some trepidation and stepped back further onto the platform. Amazing how the theater and ballet can so transform the perspective. He and the Mariinsky artists succeeded, literally with flying colors, and added something to the timeless, tragic masterpiece.
Lincoln Center Festival could only feature one ballet company; they were right to bring seventy-two members of the Mariinsky to the Metropolitan Opera House. July 11 the Russians surely proved themselves boss of ballet.
As Anna Karenina, Diana Vishneva’s hyperextended backbend is curvaceous and organic-looking. It is an utter expression of despair and strength at once. Yuri Smekalov wonderfully portrays the charismatic bad-boy Vronsky, with space-eating moves that meld personality and role. He shoots his legs out from angular shapes, as if directing his anger and passion. His pointed foot seems to foreshadow the fearsome events. All the acting is dancing rather than mime. The soloists and corps members are like a chorus, shadowing the principal’s moves and expanding upon them or humoring them. They lighten the heavy theme and recapitulate Tolstoy’s irony.
Iconic Mariinsky Theatre director Valery Gergiev conducted the incandescent Rodion Shchedrin music. He composed it for his wife, the great ballerina Maya Plisetskaya who collaborated as choreographer and star in the 1972 production. Now, Ratmanksy and the twenty-first century dancers make it a truly contemporary work. Already, however, Shchedrin was ahead of his time: he inserted an aria passage, I Capuletti ed i Montecchi from Romeo and Juliet into the opera scene. Ratmansky fulfilled this with an electrifying recording of young Mariinsky opera singers. Throughout, the dancing visualized the music to visceral effect.
The spectacular scenery looks minimal, even if it includes an onstage, rotating train car. Mikael Melbye, Jørn Melin (lighting), and Wendall Harrington (video) created illusionistic scenes of riches, literally using smoke and mirrors to evoke Tolstoy’s vision. Projected images of gilded, palatial St. Petersburg interiors move on a curved, mechanized cyclorama. Furniture props are carried in by dancers in gorgeous, changing costumes (Anna wears at least four). They complete the multi-media panoramas of nineteenth century Russian society.
It takes a lot for New York audiences to get on their feet and applaud. Granted there were many Russian-speakers in the audience, but everyone sprang out of their seats with adoration, clapping through the curtain calls. Mariinsky and Ratmansky are state-of-the-art.
horsey fun in serious fare: Ratmansky’s The Little Humpbacked Horse
Ratmansky wowed us again on Wednesday with The Little Humpbacked Horse. No living dance goer had seen it here in the US. The first notable ballet version was made by Arthur Saint-Léon in 1864. The Bolshoi commisioned Shchedrin music for a 1960 production starring Plisetskaya. Ratmansky’s version, using that score, premiered in St. Petersburg two years ago. The music (Gergiev conducted the July 13 performance) is melodic, lyrical, and a bit sleepy in places.
The complicated folk-tale in brief: beautiful maiden chooses clumsy innocent over foolish tzar. I love Ratmansky’s over-the-top characterizations. They are fun and aid us in following the story-line. Having read the program’s synopsis, we know what’s happening.
Ratmansky takes us into the twentieth century Russian avant-garde with constructivist design and costumes fashioned after Malevich and Nijinska. The Tsar Maiden however, is pure post-modern fairy-tale. She wears a crown. Our hero is totally independent and able to leap across class boundaries with her intelligence and beauty. Yevgenia Obraztsova achieves this with apparent ease in her feather light, assured, and understated steps. Her sparkle charms the farmer boy (representing the people), the foolish Tsar, and the audience.
There are several scenes for the full cast, including one undersea, and a gypsy dance. In the most fascinating, a spectacular flock of firebirds flick red-gloved hands, swooping in airy formations.
The comical turn of events makes the audience laugh at the Tsar’s improbable and fatal end. Ivan is a difficult role in which a Mariinsky soloist must act like an oaf and transform. He never does change into a prince, which adds to the ballet’s contemporary relevance. We are swayed to applaud the trio of Ivan, Maiden, and poor Humpbacked Horse, rendered beautifully by soloist Vasily Tkachenko.
The Little Humpbacked Horse is great family fare. I saw but didn’t hear a few children in the orchestra section of the audience. A few danced in the halls during intermission. 