The
premiere of Raymonda at St Petersburg’s
imperial Mariinsky Theatre marked the last important masterpiece
of choreographer Marius Petipa, then eighty years old, and the
ballet debut of composer Aleksandr Glazunov. Petipa, one of
the most important choreographers of the 19th century,
born in Marseilles,
had created Swan
Lake, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty
(all to music by Tchaikovsky) plus La Bayadčre, and Don
Quixote.
Raymonda
was not a comfortable collaborative experience for either choreographer
or composer. Glazunov, who had been kept on a short creative
leash, wanted his score kept intact; Petipa demanded cuts and
concise powerful passages with emphatic gestures. As the programme
notes relate, “Even today, the many differences between the
stage version of the music and the piano score, printed at that
time, and the full score, tell of this stubborn struggle, which
often prevented fresh changes made during rehearsals ...” The
young Glazunov did not understand the importance of staging
considerations in ballet music until after the premiere of Raymonda.
The following two collaborations between the two artists were
more comfortable; Glazunov holding Petipa in awe.
Glazunov’s
music for Raymonda, nicely mixing classical ballet and
folkdance material is delightful, tuneful and romantic; and,
in many scenes in Acts II and III, tinged with ethnic colour
– by turns Spanish, Hungarian, Arabic and oriental etc. The
large Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra under Algis Zhuraitis gives
the dancers sparkling support bringing out all the music’s allure,
its delicacy as well as its bombast.
The
production itself, staged in 1989, is to our minds, curiously
uneven. The cavernous Bolshoi Theatre stage in Act I set is
low-level lit, so much so that one was often tempted to reach
for the TV’s brightness control. The dark-hued background drapes
did not help, neither did the corps de ballet’s very
subdued pastel-shaded tutus. The latter part of Act I is set
in the magic garden when Raymonda dreams that she meets her
lover, gone off to war, before he is transformed into the dangerous
Arab sheikh, Abderahman. This is atmospheric enough but even
darker making it not at all easy to recognise all the movements
of the (presumably moonlit) silver and black clad corps de
ballet.
Things
improve in Acts II and III when the lighting is stronger. This
reveals, in Act II, the interior of the chateau where Abderahman
tries in vain to court Raymonda. His followers dance exotic
measures in sumptuous costumes especially the Spanish dance
where the women are dressed in seductively-moving, floor-length
gowns in white with narrow orange flame-coloured panels. Act
III is really an excuse for dances, mainly Hungarian, to celebrate
the betrothal and wedding of Raymonda and her lover, Jean de
Brienne who had returned to best Abderahman in the duel at the
close of Act II. The costumes, this time ballet-length and full-skirted,
some with lovely gold and silver panellings, are, again, richly
conceived.
To
the dancers: Natalya Bessmertnova, not in the full bloom of
youth, is nevertheless excellent in her foot work; her solos
when she shows off her skill in slow point movement is quite
awesome but her upper body movements are often stiff. Much more
overall delicacy and grace is shown in the very impressive youthful
support of Olga Suvorova as Henriette and Maria Bilova as Clemence.
Yuri Vasyuchenko is a sprightly Jean de Brienne displaying some
impressive high leaps and quite astonishingly fast turns in
his last act solo but the warmest and most spontaneous applause
was reserved for Gedminas Taranda as a most agile and virile
Abderakhman.
A
not altogether impressive Bolshoi production but it certainly
has its moments but then there is that glorious Glazunov music.
Ian and Grace Lace
Raymonda ... Natalya Bessmertnova
[125:00]
