On how the celebrated Russian ballet troupe solves creative and financial problems
The Year of Russia in Ukraine is over and the finale was marked by a magnificent performance of the Bolshoi’s Swan Lake at Ukraine’s National Opera. Russia’s number one company appeared in Kyiv after an interval of almost fifty years and chose one of the major productions on their repertoire (staged by Yury Grigorovich) for the occasion, to the accompaniment of the National Opera’s symphony orchestra conducted by the Bolshoi’s Aleksandr Kirilov. The leads were danced by Nadezhda Gracheva and Andrei Uvarov.
“Performing in Kyiv was an important event for us,” says Deputy General Director Anton A. Getman, “and we did our best to get ready for it. We had to adjust the Bolshoi schedule. Our visit was made possible thanks to Edweis Company experts and Russian Ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin who arranged it with Bolshoi Director General Anatoly Iksanov. Also, performing on the Kyiv stage was an extremely responsible task, as Ukrainian ballet has very old and strong classical traditions. The troupe flew to Kyiv in a festive mood. And we are deeply moved by the Ukrainian audience’s warm response. We hope to meet with you again, on more than one occasion. We have big plans to enliven contacts between the Kyiv Opera and our company. We know many of your dancers that performed and continue to perform in Moscow with great success. For example, our troupe is headed by former Kyivan Oleksiy Ratmansky, a noted dancer and choreographer.”
Ballet dancers best express their sentiments with their legs, Bolshoi premiere danseuse Nadezhda Gracheva says, smiling, adding, “I enjoyed performing in Kyiv. We showed the full version of Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky’s creation is by right the pride of both our company and all classical ballet. I am glad our rendition made such an impression on the Kyiv audience. I have danced in various Swan Lake productions. Grigorovich just changed the finale, returning to the original concept (originally the ballet has a tragic ending) banned by the Soviet authorities. He made his cherished dream come true. In fact, as an actor, I find both versions interesting; I’m thrilled to find special shades and meanings for Odile and Odette, in choreography as well as in dramaturgy.”
A STATE WITHIN A STATE
“In a sense, our company is a state within a state,” notes Anton Getman. “The current Bolshoi staff numbers over 3,000 and we operate on a contractual basis. All actors sign employment contracts every season. This system is just being established in Russia and the Bolshoi is a pioneer, as befits the country’s leading company. We have problems, of course (as evidenced by the lawsuits of the discontented premiere danseuse Anastasia Volochkova — Author). The Bolshoi administration and creative leadership are also on a contractual basis. Some problems are caused by discrepancies in the Russian labor and other laws lacking clauses relating to actor’s occupation. Anyway, the contractual system exists at the Bolshoi and is being upgraded, relying on the new laws to be ratified by the Russian Duma.
“The Bolshoi has five buildings in Moscow and we annually display 500 performances on two stages. The second one appeared last year, located a short walk from the main Bolshoi stage, connected by an underpass. We try to work on both stages every day, although it doesn’t always happen that way. Anyway, we’ve set ourselves this task and are working on it. As a rule, we produce seven premieres every season (four operas and three ballets).
“We mostly plan concert tours between May and September, as we believe it’s best to spend the most active part of the season in Moscow. There are exceptions, of course, like this time in Kyiv. After that we’ll fly to Paris (the tour will last until January 24 — Author) While our visit to Kyiv was unscheduled, the cast knew about the French tour in advance, owing to the Paris Opera’s repertoire policy. We’ll spend three weeks in France. The Bolshoi hasn’t been to Paris for thirteen years. This time we are invited by Paris Opera Director Juge Halle. Apart from Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece, we have on our repertoire Pierre Lacotte’s production of Caesar Pugni’s Pharaoh’s Daughter and Oleksiy Ratmansky’s version of Shostakovich’s Limpid Stream.
TWO STAGES, BUT NOT ENOUGH JOBS FOR ALL
Russian critics believe that the Bolshoi made a stage direction breakthrough in 2003 as unconventional renditions were added to the repertoire. Operas The Adventures of a Ladies’ Man and Macbeth, ballets The Limpid Stream and Romeo and Juliet are always played to packed houses. These productions turned out daringly innovative, owing to the cast, orchestra, and stage directors Eimuntas Niakroshus, Declan Donnellan, Dmitry Cherniakov, and Oleksiy Ratmansky.
The Day asked Boris Akimov, Bolshoi ballet artistic director, to comment on the company’s repertoire policy.
Akimov: Our repertoire is rooted in Russian classical opera and ballet. It is a vast creative heritage we have jealously preserved, trying to keep it in ideal condition. There are few troupes in the world capable of representing the Russian classics at such professional level and on such scope. Of course, it takes young blood to prevent such renditions turning into museum exhibits. We are a creative team which is by no means archaic. The repertoire mostly consists of Yury Grigorovich’s productions. In fact, he did various renditions of the Petipa ballets. Recently we staged a new version of Raymonda. Grigorovich used a different stage setting and it was the last rendition made by his friend and production designer Suliko Virsaladze who did it in shades of blue. Grigorovich produces ballets practically every season at the Bolshoi. He restored his masterpiece, [Arif Melikov’s] Legend about Love, as requested by the Bolshoi management and we have his version of Spartacus on the repertoire. We planned to stage his Ivan the Terrible, but Grigorovich did it for Andrei Petrov’s troupe at the Kremlin Palace, so we had to do without the ballet. We asked him to stage a Shostakovich ballet to mark the composer’s centennial. We might return to The Age of Gold. Thus, to say that Grigorovich has been estranged from the Bolshoi would be a mistake. We appreciate him as a top professional and outstanding choreographer. His ballets remain a major attraction on our repertoire.
Our posters feature renditions from the world classical heritage. Thus, Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal GardОe and Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame de Paris have been added to the repertoire in the past three years. To continue evolving, we must combine classical renditions with exclusive new productions. We are on a lookout for interesting choreographers, themes, ideas that can be implemented on the Bolshoi stage. Our new scene is equipped for experimentation and we recently premiered Romeo and Juliet. It’s an international project made by stage director Declan Donnellan, set designer Nick Ormerod (both from the UK), and Moldovan choreographer Radu Poklitaru (Kyiv audiences remember his original productions with Kyiv casts in [Stravinsky’s] ballets The Rite of Spring and Pictures at an Exhibition — Author) and critics have already described it as a theatrical sensation.
Russian audiences are quite familiar with Donnellan and Ormerod. Both were awarded the prestigious Golden Mask for Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale staged at St. Petersburg’s Maly Drama Theater. Their new tandem effort at the Bolshoi has proven quite interesting. Poklitaru proposed free plasticity and a modern setting for Prokofiev’s ballet, lending fresh dynamism to Shakespeare’s tragic plot. The result was a story about teenagers faced with the cruelties of the modern adult world. A critic wrote, “The Bolshoi Theater dances not poetry but prose, forgetting for a while about the pointes.” In other words, the company is not at a standstill, it is looking for new ideas and carrying them out onstage. Among other significant productions are Roland Petit’s Queen of Spades and Oleksiy Ratmansky’s Limpid Stream, to mention but a few.
Our ballet troupe is made up of 230 dancers and all have to be given parts in performances, which is not always possible. Even with two stages available we can’t cast them all, meaning hurt feelings. And we have between 23 and 28 performances every month — in other words, practically a ballet a night.
GUARDIANS
A Board of Trustees was set up at the Bolshoi in 2001, the idea sired by Director General Anatoly Iksanov with his know-how. It’s a very important body, having a great impact on company life — and having nothing to do whatsoever with the creative policy (Mr. Getman went on to say). It is a group of serious-minded individuals representing big Russian business. These people want Russia’s number one theater to live on, with adequate funding and dynamic progress. These people deal with every aspect of the theatrical business. Let me stress that the board represents only Russian companies (among board members are managers of leading banks, oil and steel companies). They really care for the Bolshoi and are actively involved in its life. And they do so without being paid. The Board of Trustees includes an Executive Committee, also composed of businesspeople. It’s an operative body, holding meetings once every month and passing resolutions, whereas the board exercises general supervision. Board meetings are held less frequently, to make strategic decisions. At present, the board’s financial support is quite substantial, making up some 10% of the Bolshoi’s yearly budget. We submit there our creative projects and explain why we want to stage an opera or a ballet, motivating our concert tours, and raising other matters. The board decides on every such project. For example, our last premiere, Romeo and Juliet, became possible thanks to financial aid from the Russian Vneshtorgbank [Foreign Trade Bank]. Our next premiere will be the opera Mazeppa, scheduled for January 30 and sponsored by the Russian Aluminum Co. Our trustees have a right to choose a project they like, also depending on their personal preferences with regard to the author and the cast, but they cannot dictate the company its creative policy.
COMPETITION
All talk about a Mariinsky-Bolshoi rivalry is unfounded (Mr. Getman feels convinced). There is competition on the theatrical market, but not between these companies. There is competition among all opera and ballet theaters, all over the world (take La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, or the Paris Opera). If a company experiments without any regard to the audiences, this company finds itself left out of the competition. But if tickets are sold and people fill the audience, this company is surely among the contenders. In the absence of ideas a company is marking time and will move no further. Geography and frontiers are not the point. One must understand what competition on the theatrical market is all about. I understand it as a quest for an idea that will give the company a fresh impetus. In this sense all theaters are rivals. We compete with the National Opera of Ukraine and vice versa. It’s only natural. We aren’t rivals with the Mariinsky Theater, we are creative contestants and this contest helps our creative progress. We have for three years been involved in a joint program known as “Mariinsky at the Bolshoi, Bolshoi at the Mariinsky Theater.” Under this program our actors perform in St. Petersburg and our Mariinsky colleagues do in Moscow. We take turns inviting guest stars and we have ideas about joint projects. We also invite Ukrainian singers and dancers to take part in our performances and concerts, as this benefits the cast and the audience, adding to the prestige of each company involved.
