Ballet carmen suite summary. Tickets for the ballet "Carmen Suite" at the Bolshoi Theater

Carmen Suite is a one-act ballet by choreographer Alberto Alonso, based on the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet, orchestrated especially for this production by composer Rodion Shchedrin. The libretto of the ballet based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée was written by its director, Alberto Alonso. In the center of the ballet is the tragic fate of the gypsy Carmen and the soldier Jose, who fell in love with her, whom Carmen leaves for the sake of the young Torero. The relationship of the characters and the death of Carmen at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Fate. Thus, the story of Carmen (in comparison with the literary source and Bizet's opera) is resolved in a symbolic way, which is strengthened by the unity of the scene.
For the sake of staging the famous "Carmen" by Bizet-Shchedrin, the first choreographer of Plisetskaya, Alberto Alonso, arrived from Cuba.

"Plisetskaya is Carmen. Carmen is Plisetskaya." However, few now realize that Plisetskaya's main ballet was born by chance. “So the card lay down,” Maya Mikhailovna recalled. Although I dreamed of this role all my life. Back in 1966, she could not even imagine that she would find the choreographer of her dreams in the middle of winter at Luzhniki at an evening of Cuban ballet. After the very first bars of the incendiary flamenco, Plisetskaya could hardly stay in her chair and literally burst into the backstage during the intermission. All she could say, seeing the choreographer: "Will you put on Carmen for me?" "I dream about it," Alberto Alonso replied with a smile. The production turned out to be defiantly innovative, and the main character - damn sexy, but no one dared to ban the performance of the choreographer from the Island of Freedom - this meant a quarrel with Fidel Castro. “You are a traitor to ballet,” Minister of Culture Furtseva threw in Plisetskaya’s face. “Your Carmen will die!” "Carmen will live as long as I live," Plisetskaya proudly replied then.

All the movements of Carmen-Plisetskaya carried a special meaning, a challenge, a protest: a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a retracted hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing glance from under the brows ... It is impossible to forget how Carmen Plisetskaya, like a frozen sphinx, looked at the dance of the Toreador, and all her static posture conveyed a colossal inner tension: she fascinated the audience, riveted their attention to herself, involuntarily (or consciously?) distracting from the spectacular solo of the Toreador.

Almost 40 years later, fate laid out a new solitaire. Her last stage partner Alexei Ratmansky became the director of the Bolshoi Ballet. And on the day of the resumption of "Carmen" on the main stage of the country on November 18, 2005, Maya Plisetskaya said: "I will die. Carmen will remain."

Maya Plisetskaya turned to the Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso, who is on tour in Moscow, with a request to stage a ballet about Carmen based on a story by Prosper Merime.

Her cherished idea coincided with Alonso's old dream, and he very quickly composed the choreography of the future performance.

There was a question about music. Plisetskaya asked to write music for Dmitri Shostakovich's Carmen, but the composer refused, not wanting, according to him, to compete with Georges Bizet. Another refusal came from Aram Khachaturian.

"Do it on Bizet!" Alonso advised...

The deadlines were running out, the music was needed "already yesterday". Then Shchedrin, who perfectly mastered the profession of orchestration, significantly rearranged the musical material of Bizet's opera. The music for the ballet consisted of melodic fragments from the opera Carmen and The Arlesian by Georges Bizet. Rehearsals began under the piano. In record time - twenty days - Shchedrin made a transcription of the opera by J. Bizet. In Shchedrin's score, percussion instruments, various drums and bells gave a special character... In the thirteen numbers of the suite, the idea of ​​opposing two worlds unfolded: the bright, impetuous, filled with human feelings and suffering, and the cold, impassive, inexorable world of masks.

In his brilliant orchestration, the composer assigned the main role to string and percussion instruments. The percussion group was intended to imitate Spanish folk instruments, the string group, in turn, played the role of a voice.

Although in a hurry, the performance was nevertheless prepared. But the workshops did not keep up, the costumes were finished only by the morning of the premiere day. Only one day was allocated for the general rehearsal (it is also orchestral, lighting and editing) on ​​the main stage.

Magnificent, metaphorically accurate scenery for the performance, the main idea of ​​which was formulated by the choreographer with a capacious phrase: "Carmen's whole life is a bullfight", was created by the famous theater artist, Plisetskaya's cousin Boris Messerer.

The world premiere took place on April 20, 1967 at the Bolshoi Theatre, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

The extremely passionate, erotic nature of the production caused rejection among the Soviet leadership, moreover, in the USSR Alonso's ballet was in a censored form. According to the memoirs of Maya Plisetskaya: “... the Soviet authorities let Alonso into the theater only because he was“ his own ”, from the island of Freedom, but this“ islander ”just took and staged a performance not only about love passions, but also about that there is nothing in the world higher than freedom. And, of course, this ballet was so well received not only for the eroticism and my “walking” with my whole foot, but also for the politics that was clearly visible in it.” Discouraged by the novelty of the ballet, the audience reacted coolly to the premiere. One of the few spectators who unconditionally accepted the new performance was D. D. Shostakovich. The creators of the Carmen Suite, too unusual, erotic (obviously, it was implied that it was not quite politically reliable) needed support, since they immediately fell into disgrace. “You are a traitor to classical ballet,” Soviet Minister of Culture E.A. Plisetskaya will say in a rage. Furtsev. After the premiere performance, Furtseva was not in the director's box: she left the theater. The performance was not like the "short" Don Quixote "as she expected, and was raw. The second performance was supposed to go in the “evening of one-act ballets” (“troychatka”) on April 22, but was canceled: “This is a big failure, comrades. The performance is raw. Sheer erotica. The music of the opera has been mutilated... I have serious doubts whether the ballet can be improved.” Furtseva invited Plisetskaya to confess through the press about her mistake with the Carmen Suite.

The most expensive thing for Plisetskaya was the recognition of the Spanish public:

“When the Spaniards shouted “Ole!” to me, I realized that I had won.”

The libretto of the Carmen Suite was written by Alberto Alonso. In the center of the ballet is the tragic fate of the gypsy Carmen and the soldier Jose, who fell in love with her, whom Carmen leaves for the sake of the young Torero. The relationship of the characters and the death of Carmen at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Fate. Thus, the story of Carmen (in comparison with the literary source and Bizet's opera) is resolved in a symbolic way, which is strengthened by the unity of the scene (the bullfighting ground).

All the movements of Carmen-Plisetskaya carried a special meaning, a challenge, a protest: both a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a retracted hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing look from under the brows ... Like a frozen sphinx, Carmen Plisetskaya looked at the dance of the Toreador, and her whole static posture conveyed tremendous inner tension. Bewitching the audience, she riveted attention to herself, involuntarily (or consciously?) Distracting from the spectacular solo of the Toreador.

In addition to Maya Plisetskaya, the premiere cast (and for a long time the only one) included N.B. Fadeechev (Jose), S.N. Radchenko (Torero), N.D. Kasatkina (Rock), A.A. Lavrenyuk (Corregidor).

Alexander Godunov became the new Jose. His Jose is restrained, wary and distrustful. It is as if he is always in anticipation of human betrayal, misfortune, a blow of fate. He is vulnerable and proud. Jose's choreography begins with a freeze-frame, Jose is facing the audience. A living portrait of José, fair-haired and light-eyed (according to the portrait created by Mérimée). Large strict facial features, a cold look express alienation. However, behind the mask, the true human essence is guessed - the vulnerability of the soul, thrown into a cruel world. The portrait is psychologically interesting in itself, but then the movement begins. The syncopated "speech" was perceived by Godunov accurately and organically. Carefully worked out nuances have laid down a scenic relief of character and image.

The role of Torero was performed by the brilliant characteristic dancer of the Bolshoi Theater Sergei Radchenko. The artist is stylish, subtly knowing the peculiarities of Spanish dance, temperamental and charming on the stage, he created the image of an outwardly dazzlingly spectacular, but empty bullfight winner.

The triumphal procession of the Carmen Suite on the theatrical stages of the world continues to this day.

Carmen Suite is a one-act ballet by choreographer Alberto Alonso, based on the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet, orchestrated especially for this production by composer Rodion Shchedrin. The libretto of the ballet based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée was written by its director, Alberto Alonso. In the center of the ballet is the tragic fate of the gypsy Carmen and the soldier Jose, who fell in love with her, whom Carmen leaves for the sake of the young Torero. The relationship of the characters and the death of Carmen at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Fate. Thus, the story of Carmen (in comparison with the literary source and Bizet's opera) is resolved in a symbolic way, which is strengthened by the unity of the scene.
For the sake of staging the famous "Carmen" by Bizet-Shchedrin, the first choreographer of Plisetskaya, Alberto Alonso, arrived from Cuba.

"Plisetskaya is Carmen. Carmen is Plisetskaya." However, few now realize that Plisetskaya's main ballet was born by chance. “So the card lay down,” Maya Mikhailovna recalled. Although I dreamed of this role all my life. Back in 1966, she could not even imagine that she would find the choreographer of her dreams in the middle of winter at Luzhniki at an evening of Cuban ballet. After the very first bars of the incendiary flamenco, Plisetskaya could hardly stay in her chair and literally burst into the backstage during the intermission. All she could say, seeing the choreographer: "Will you put on Carmen for me?" "I dream about it," Alberto Alonso replied with a smile. The production turned out to be defiantly innovative, and the main character - damn sexy, but no one dared to ban the performance of the choreographer from the Island of Freedom - this meant a quarrel with Fidel Castro. “You are a traitor to ballet,” Minister of Culture Furtseva threw in Plisetskaya’s face. “Your Carmen will die!” "Carmen will live as long as I live," Plisetskaya proudly replied then.

All the movements of Carmen-Plisetskaya carried a special meaning, a challenge, a protest: a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a retracted hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing glance from under the brows ... It is impossible to forget how Carmen Plisetskaya, like a frozen sphinx, looked at the dance of the Toreador, and all her static posture conveyed a colossal inner tension: she fascinated the audience, riveted their attention to herself, involuntarily (or consciously?) distracting from the spectacular solo of the Toreador.

Almost 40 years later, fate laid out a new solitaire. Her last stage partner Alexei Ratmansky became the director of the Bolshoi Ballet. And on the day of the resumption of "Carmen" on the main stage of the country on November 18, 2005, Maya Plisetskaya said: "I will die. Carmen will remain."

Artist B. Messerer, conductor G. Rozhdestvensky.

Plot

Town Square. Divorce of the guard. Corregidor (officer) puts a soldier Jose on guard post. A handsome young soldier attracts the attention of the gypsy Carmen. She tries to charm him. Her efforts achieve their goal, but Jose remains faithful to his duty and does not leave his post.

Suddenly there is a fight between the workers of the tobacco factory. Carmen is declared the instigator. Corregidor orders José to escort Carmen to prison. On the way, the amorous soldier releases Carmen, thereby committing a crime before the law. In order not to part with the woman he loves, Jose deserts.

The magnificent Torero, the favorite of the public, appears. His passionate story about his exploits in the arena does not leave Carmen indifferent. Overwhelmed by a new feeling, Carmen does not want to notice Jose's jealousy. And only the arrival of Corregidor dramatically changes the situation. Corregidor demands that José immediately return to the barracks. Enraged, Jose grabs a knife and drives the officer away.

Carmen is amazed and delighted with the act of Jose. She is in love with him again, ready to give him her love again.

Carmen guesses. Rock appears - a terrible embodiment of Carmen's fate. Rock portends the inevitability of a tragic denouement.

Arena for bullfighting. Torero demonstrates his brilliant skill. He is opposed by a creature in which the image of a bull and the image of Rock are combined into one. Carmen is watching Torero with delight.

José appears. He demands and begs Carmen to return his love. But for Carmen, his words sound like coercion and violence against her will. She sharply rejects José. Unable to come to terms with the loss of his beloved, Jose stabs her with a dagger.

The plot of Merimee's short story is ideal for a ballet. It is no coincidence that in 1846, already a year after the appearance of the novel in print and almost 30 years before the premiere Bizet's operas, Marius Petipa staged the one-act ballet Carmen and the Bullfighter in Madrid, which was a huge success.

The idea of ​​staging the Carmen Suite at the Bolshoi Theater belongs to Maya Plisetskaya who dreamed of the role of Carmen.

“I always wanted to dance Carmen,” says the ballerina. - The thought of my Carmen lived in me all the time - it smoldered somewhere in the depths, then imperatively rushed out. With whomever she spoke about her dreams, the image of Carmen was the first. I started with a libretto. I decided to captivate with my idea - what the hell is not joking - Shostakovich. He gently but adamantly refused. His main argument was - "I'm afraid of Bizet" - with a half-joking intonation. Then she approached Khachaturian. But things didn’t go beyond talking ... And here is a new character. At the end of 1966, the Cuban National Ballet arrived in Moscow on tour. staged by their chief choreographer Alberto Alonso. From the very first movement, it was as if a snake had stung me. This is Carmen's language. This is her plasticity. Her world. During the intermission, I rush backstage. "Alberto, do you want to stage, Carmen"? For me?" - "This is my dream..." Soon Alberto Alonso arrived in Moscow with a libretto already composed, but Shchedrin promised to write music for me... "

“I was attracted by the idea of ​​Maya Plisetskaya,” said Alberto Alonso, “to tell the story of the gypsy Carmen in choreographic language. Do not shift the brilliant opera and novel by Prosper Merimee to dance, no! “And to create a ballet to this passionate, temperamental music, solve it entirely through the image of Carmen, one of the greatest in the world of musical and literary classics.”

The artist Boris Messerer made a significant contribution to the success of the performance. Victor Berezkin explained: “Messerer in Bizet’s Carmen Suite - R. Shchedrin (Bolshoi Theater, 1968) turned the stage space into a kind of semicircular wooden corral, denoting both the circus platform - the place of the bullfight, and the generalized metaphorical arena of life, on where the tragic spectacle of human existence is played out.In the center of the wooden fence is the entrance to the arena, and above, in a semicircle, are chairs with high backs, on which people sit, who are both spectators of the performance unfolding in the arena and judges.This duality was the principle of the stage solution, The huge conditional mask of a bull, which hung over the stage as a kind of emblem of the ballet, could be considered a poster inviting to the performance of a bullfight, and at the same time an image of facelessness. Duality was also in the costumes. For example, one hand of the toreador artist makes it black and smooth, the other - lush and white.

He spoke about his work on the score of the ballet Rodion Shchedrin: “Our memory is too firmly connected with the musical images of the immortal opera. So the idea of ​​transcription came up. Once upon a time, this genre of musical art, almost forgotten today, was one of the most widespread. Having chosen the genre, it was necessary to choose the instrumentation. It was necessary to decide which instruments of the symphony orchestra could sufficiently convincingly compensate for the absence of human voices, which of them would most clearly emphasize the obvious choreographic nature of Bizet's music. In the first case, this task, in my opinion, could be solved by string instruments, in the second - by percussion instruments. This is how the composition of the orchestra was formed - strings and percussion.<...>Opera and ballet are undeniably fraternal art forms, but each of them requires its own laws. The ballet orchestra, it seems to me, should sound a few degrees "hotter" than the opera. It has to "tell" much more than the opera orchestra. Forgive me the comparison that the "gesticulation" of music in ballet should be much sharper and more noticeable. I worked with sincere enthusiasm on the score of the ballet. Bowing to the genius of Bizet, I tried to make this worship always not slavish, but creative. I wanted to use everything virtuosic possibilities of the selected composition.

Taking Bizet's work as a basis, Shchedrin proceeded not from Mérimée's short story, but from an opera that had won worldwide fame. He narrowed the plot of the opera, excluding the display of the background of life, and limited himself to Carmen's conflicts with José and with the society, conditionally called the "society of masks." Carrying out a seemingly almost official task at the request of his beloved wife, Shchedrin managed to create a bright work full of contrasts. The Carmen Suite is performed on the concert stage as often as on the stage.

After the premiere at the Bolshoi Theater, heated debate flared up about the music of the ballet. Some warmly accepted what they heard, enjoying the new orchestral attire of the well-known themes of the French composer. Others sincerely wondered why Shchedrin chose to use the music of Bizet's world-famous opera as the basis of the ballet, and not create his own for him. There were even those who indignantly protested against such an "experiment" with the opera of world classical heritage.

The image of Carmen is one of the best roles in the repertoire of Maya Plisetskaya. Here, the facets of the talent of an outstanding artist were most clearly manifested, delighting the audience and theater critics. Ballet expert Vadim Gaevsky admired: “In ballet, Carmen’s relationships are important not only with the main characters, but also with extras, bullfighting spectators. The bitterness with which she is surrounded does not frighten her and does not harden her. Carmen Plisetskaya plays with the crowd like a bullfighter with a bull: she fights with fearlessness, resents with dignity, mocks with brilliance. It is not for this crowd to deprive this Carmen of self-confidence, a passionate interest in life, a reckless love of adventure. Plisetskaya's Carmen is not only a gypsy, but also a Spaniard from the Don Juan tribe, and the style of the role is not a romance, not an anguish, but the same as that of Mozart - drama giocosa, a cheerful drama.

However, not everyone was unanimous in their assessment of the ballet. The outstanding choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov, analyzing the ballet language of the performance, in particular, found that “raising the leg, and even poking it in Jose’s stomach, performed by Carmen in the production of A. Alonso’s Carmen, is obscenity.<...>And the poking of the foot at Carmen in Jose does not interpret the love Carmen, which is in Bizet's music, but, alas, the walking girl, which I personally cannot accept.

In 1978, a film-ballet based on the work of the same name by Shchedrin and the performance of the Bolshoi Theater was shot (director F. Slidovker, choreographer A. Alonso, cameraman A. Tafel, artist N. Vinogradskaya, conductor G. Rozhdestvensky). In the main roles: Carmen - Maya Plisetskaya, Jose - Alexander Godunov, Torero - Sergey Radchenko, Corregidor - Viktor Barykin, Rock - Loipa Araujo. After Godunov's emigration in 1979, this film was unavailable to Soviet audiences for a number of years.

The bright music of the ballet, the interesting choreographic concept of Alonso, born under the influence of the unique personality of Plisetskaya, replenished the ballet repertoire of the 20th century. In the 1970s, the Carmen Suite was staged many and often by different choreographers in various cities of the country. The passionate performance filled with symbolism by Herman Zamuel (1972) with Valentina Mukhanova (Carmen), Vasily Ostrovsky (Jose), Nikita Dolgushin (Torero), filled with symbolism, was interesting, surviving 68 performances at the Leningrad Maly Opera and Ballet Theater.

Later, the Bolshoi Theater returned to its repertoire the ballet, specially staged for the outstanding ballerina and forever associated with her name. On November 18, 2005, the premiere of the renewal of Carmen took place (choreographer A. Alonso, production designer B. Messerer, conductor P. Sorokin, assistant choreographer S. Calero Alonso, lighting designer A. Rubtsov). The premiere took place on the new stage of the Bolshoi Theater as part of the festival in honor of Maya Plisetskaya.

Alonso, who specially came to Moscow to resume the ballet, said in an interview: “I brought to the Bolshoi the style that I was looking for back in Cuba. It can be described as a combination of classical pas with Spanish-Cuban dances. Of course, I wanted to get a modern performance. After all, the world is always moving. But what is modern dance? A ballerina puts on pointe shoes - and it turns out a classic, then takes them off and dances without pointe shoes - here's something new for you. I really like drama theatre, a lot of Carmen is based on it. Movements should talk. Carmen swings her leg towards Jose, and it's like shouting "Hey, you!" ... José's problem is that he is a victim. Carmen is a gypsy, a free woman, a thief. She always does only what she wants at the moment. José is a warrior. He lived in a different coordinate system, where the concept of "duty" is above all. He must obey the order, but violates all the foundations, losing his head from passion, goes against the laws of a soldier, loses his service, becomes an outcast, and then loses love - the only remaining meaning of life "Love, for which he sacrificed his social status. José is left with nothing but the fury of despair. He is not a soldier or a lover. He is nobody."

The ballet, based on the unique individuality of Plisetskaya, acquired a new look and a new life. The Afisha magazine noted: “It would seem that without Plisetskaya’s fiery gaze, her provocatively upturned shoulder and her backhanded take-off of the leg in the Carmen Suite batman, there is no such thing as anyone today: who can you surprise today with the black silhouette of a bull’s head on a red backdrop and designed to symbolize rock but with the appearance of Maria Alexandrova in the title role, the legend turned into a live performance. There is nothing from Plisetskaya in the ballerina. Carmen herself". Following Alexandrova, other ballerinas decided to play the role of Carmen - Svetlana Zakharova and even a guest performer from the Mariinsky Theater Ulyana Lopatkina.

A. Degen, I. Stupnikov