Desyatnikov : Lost Illusions
Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Alexander Titov
Alexei Ratmansky's ballet Lost Illusions has an interesting history. The project originates back in the 1930s, when Rostislav Zakharov (the original choreographer of Prokofiev's Cinderella) and Boris Asafiev (a prolific and influential Soviet composer) created a ballet loosely (very loosely) based on Balzac's novel, from a scenario by the designer Vladimir Dmitriev. That work disappeared within a few months from the repertory, victim, like so many other works, of the great cultural purges of Stalin's regime, in the name of socialist realism. Ratmansky, as director of the Bolshoi Ballet in the mid-noughties, expended considerable effort in refreshing the company's repertory, including reviving or re-staging similarly abandoned works; Shostakovich's The Bolt, or Asafiev's The Flames of Paris come to mind. All he retained of the 1936 Lost Illusions was Dmitriev's script, however; he completely re-choreographed it to a newly-commissioned score by Leonid Desyatnikov, and it was premiered at the Bolshoi in 2011.
Dmitriev - at the time, apparently, head-over-heels for the ballerina Olga Spessivtseva, who had recently abandoned the Soviet Union - threw out at least two-thirds of Balzac's novel. He retained the young, talented, ambitious, but easily corruptible protagonist, Lucien, but shifted the whole world from that of writing and journalism (with a sideways glance at the theatre) into that of music, and specifically the Paris Opera and its ballet company. Gentle Coralie becomes a prima ballerina, and the plot revolves around the professional rivalry of Coralie and Florine, in which it is all too clear to see a parallel to the historical rivalry of the dancers Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler ("Florine" being a reference to Elssler's most celebrated role of Florinda). Lucien is a composer, who creates La Sylphide for Coralie/Taglioni, before succumbing to the lures of easy money, meretricious musicianship and the scheming Florine, eager for a success to match that of her rival, but without the vision to appreciate Lucien's true potential, unlike Coralie.
Desyatnikov is a completely unknown element to me. Ukrainian-born and Leningrad-trained, his c.v. clearly indicates a composer in considerable demand at home, with four operas, multiple concert works, and several film scores to his credit. For much of the ballet, it sounded like he was using a large chamber orchestra, with heavy use of orchestral soloists, a very important concertante part for solo piano, specifically associated with Lucien, and a part for a solo mezzo-soprano, notably which opens and closes the proceedings, but as the action grew more dramatic, the orchestral texture thickened too. I never really got a good look around the orchestra pit to establish the size of the orchestra. The music was heavily contextualised, a strong pastiche of early Romantic music, often quite lyrical. When Lucien first presents his music to a generally dismissive audience in the Foyer de la Danse at the Paris Opera, it's in the form of an imitation Chopin Nocturne (which would indeed, at the time, have been 'new music'), and there's an extremely explicit reference to Elssler's hit number "La Cachucha" in the last act. I was a bit more perplexed by the hints of Ravel that crept in - the last part of the long pas de deux between Lucien and Coralie in the middle of Act 1 is very nearly a direct citation of the slow movement of the G major Piano Concerto. I would have to hear the original version of La Sylphide (which only the Paris Opera does) alongside Desyatnikov's evocation of that ballet, which concludes Act 1, to tell if Desyatnikov actually used it as a model. At other times, the clearest influence seemed to be Prokofiev, with long, arching melodic lines, but I suspect that the music that most represents "original Desyatnikov", so to speak, were the song settings, sober and sparsely accompanied, possibly representing a crystallisation of the 'lost illusions' of the story.
Ratmansky's choreography is firmly anchored in the classical tradition. Inevitably, as with the music, there's a very strong element of pastiche in this work, and I think it does undermine his individuality to some extent. There were moments that simply went on too long - the rehearsal in Act 1, the waltz at the ball in Act 2, for example - but when he gets it right, there is true originality. Best of all, to my mind, was the La Sylphide sequence at the end of Act 1. Lucien, watching the first night of his new ballet from the wings, with Coralie in the title role, dreams himself onto the stage, shadowing the ballet's premier danseur in a beautiful pas de trois that expresses the elusive and fragile qualities of inspiration. However, while the choreography for Coralie and Florine was well contrasted, that of Lucien did not seem to me to convey clearly the fundamental weakness of his character, the flaw that makes it so easy for him to be distracted and seduced away both from his artistic integrity, and his true love. Only in his last solo is there a visible realisation of what he has lost, and a sense of self-disgust, that makes him more than just a foolishly naive young man frittering away a talent he does not truly comprehend, or perhaps even value as anything other than a means to attain fame and fortune.
For their current run of performances (including those seen in Paris just a couple of weeks ago) the company has borrowed the Maryinsky's star ballerina Diana Vishneva to dance Coralie. Her floating, effortless grace, concealing a steely technique, made her the very picture of Romantic sensibility, while Ekaterina Shipulina's pert and flashy Florine was the ideal foil. Vladislav Lantratov's Lucien, inspired by Coralie but enticed by Florine, was maybe a little more sympathetic than this character truly deserves, but he built the part progressively, from puppyish to pitiful, with a sure dramatic touch and lovely, clean lines. Particularly noteworthy amongst the secondary roles was Artem Ovcharenko's Premier Danseur, who, without ever really being a clearly defined character, nevertheless has to represent three different ones - himself (that is, a male star dancer), James in La Sylphide, and a sort of Robber Baron in the other ballet pastiche, in Act 3, In the Hills of Bohemia - all of which he managed very stylishly.
I don't know if it's really possible to get emotionally invested in these characters. In one sense, it's their flaws that make them interesting, but there's a slight sense of detachment about Ratmansky's ballet, as if you were observing through the wrong end of the opera glasses. This is echoed in the music, though since this is the fourth ballet Ratmansky and Desyatnikov have worked on together, the complicity of the collaboration is no surprise. However, whether this is mostly a ballet about ballet, or a true story-ballet - something in which Ratmansky has fervently proclaimed his belief - is something that will take at least another viewing for me to determine, and I think that I wouldn't mind doing just that.
[Next : 7th February]
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