The first two screenings in the Bolshoi live stream series have now been enjoyed. And enjoyed they definitely were - my ballet friend and I have not, in the past, had a good excuse to do a Thing that was only for the two of us. It feels quite self-indulgent.
The first in the series was a thing I’d never heard of called ‘Raymonda.’ It is set in the time of the Crusades, which of course encompasses a lot of time, but historical accuracy has not been much of a factor in these ballet stories. In any case, it was a good setting with terrific music, another stunning array of costumes and some lovely dancing.
The heroine Raymonda was danced by prima ballerina Olga Smirnova; her lover Jean de Brienne was danced by Artemy Belyakov, who was memorably lovely as the wretchedly-written Prince in last year’s ‘La Bayadere.’ We were provided, for this ballet, with a printed cast sheet and synopsis (I love things like this because nerd). As previously, the synopsis is not super accurate about what we saw on stage.
‘Raymonda’ is a happy-ending ballet. Hero and heroine survive and are united. Along the way there is an attempted seduction (described as an attempted abduction, but it really wasn’t that) followed by a fight between Jean and the bad guy. Now, in this case, the bad guy is not a bad guy. He is a Saracen knight danced by Igor Tsvirko, who instantly shot to the top of my ‘hot ballet dancers’ list. The way his material was choreographed (imaginative) and performed (stunning), what I got was instant powerful attraction, an earnest attempt to woo Raymonda (in a quite legitimate way), offering her his heart, and being crushed by rejection. Then, unsurprisingly, when Jean returns from wherever he’s been and says Hey, get away from my girl, there is trouble. The Saracen dies nobly and I am irritated.
Now, story-wise, the whole Saracen story plays out as a Real Thing following a Dream Thing. Yes! Raymonda dreams of this dark stranger (before meeting him) in a way that made clear - to me at least, if not to the person writing the synopsis - that she was wishing for a little more passion in her love life because Jean is one of those noble Camelot kind of guys who doesn’t properly kiss his lady.
Tip for the men out there: once you have established that you respect a woman and want to share your life with her, for god’s sake kiss her.
Anyway, Act III of this little epic was one of the big pageants in which dozens of people dance. Very pretty, this company knows how to put on a show, but I was bitter about the Saracen.
Then - then! - we had ‘Le Corsaire.’ Which means ‘The Pirate,’ and which is purportedly based on Lord Byron’s poem of the same title, and which has nowhere near enough pirates. For one thing, the lead pirate was danced by the aforementioned Igor Tsvirko, and while he was given one terrific solo in which he was a glorious powerhouse, he really did not have enough to do. (‘Enough’ in my opinion would have been ‘the entire thing, rewritten, because OMG ludicrous plot.’) We didn’t get a printed synopsis for this one, so I had to go looking for it on the Bolshoi site (it’s excellent).
Okay, so. Problematic Act One is split between two settings. I may rant later about the structure. For now, consider that more than half the act is scenes in a bazaar, of the medieval Middle Eastern variety, and have to do primarily with the bazaar owner (did people actually own bazaars?) fussing with various merchants, negotiating with a character identified as the Pasha concerning slave girls, and showing said Pasha a performance (the ‘Pas d’esclaves’) while ignoring the fact that a mob of pirates has been out there all day. And that the lead pirate has been making time with the bazaar owner’s ward. None of the pirates seem at all concerned with Being Pirates in broad daylight.
My favorite dancing in this section was not the ‘Pas d’esclaves’ - it was lovely but I still have no idea why it was even there; it had nothing to do with the alleged story and we never saw those characters again - but the company folk-dance between pirates and … slaves? I don’t know who the women were meant to be. They showed up later identified as slaves, and apparently they were carried off by the pirates for that purpose, but they sure didn’t seem worried about it at the bazaar. Anyway.
Because 19th-century ballet, the bazaar owner eventually agrees to sell his ward (Ekaterina Krysanova) to the Pasha. Even though she tells him hey, I’m in love with this pirate; here, let me dance with him for a minute and show you our Youthful Passion. (This pirate, my goodness.) The solution: pirate Conrad runs off with ward Medora and most of the other women, and Isaac the bazaar owner (how big was the boat, anyway?) leaving the Pasha out a lot of money and fairly irritated. This Pasha was played by Alexei Loparevich, who we’ve seen before in such character parts. He is great.
Anyway ALL THAT has happened, we’re still in Act I, and now we’re at the pirates’ cave. There is some variously piratical action. We get to see Conrad do his thing (not enough of it). There is Medora saying, oh, these women shouldn’t be slaves, and Conrad saying, well I’ve got mine so sure we’ll let them go, and the other pirates saying Hey wait a minute. In short, another of the pirates (Denis Savin) leads a bit of a mutiny, and by intermission the lovers are parted. Conrad has some allies and goes to find and rescue Medora. What he doesn’t know is that his lead ‘ally’ is the same guy who led the mutiny. Intrigue!
Act II is entirely at the court of the Pasha, and more specifically in his harem. Now, from a 21st-century perspective the idea of a harem is fairly disgusting, and the fact that all the women involved look perfectly happy to be there was, to me, strongly annoying. I do understand the conservatism of arts like ballet and opera, I know that these arts rely on the money of rich people who tend to be conservative (and by conservative I mean ‘resistant to change’), but there is a time when the STORY HAS TO FREAKING CHANGE. This would be a good time to rewrite ‘Corsaire.’ It is, story-wise, even worse than ‘La Bayadere’ and that is saying something.
For one thing, the title of the piece is ‘The Corsaire’ not ‘The Harem Girl Who Wants the Pasha.’ And yet what was all of Act II about? You guessed it. A new character, delightfully danced, and her cohort of harem-mates who put on show after show for the Pasha while absolutely nothing happens to advance the Medora-and-Conrad plot for what felt like hours. Hours of watching girls in tutus, and they are beautiful, but let us not trip over the fact that medieval Middle Eastern harem girls are wearing tutus and instead draw a veil over this nonsense. The only interesting thing that happens is that Conrad and his allies come, in disguise, to the court. The Pasha invites them to watch his harem girls. And nothing else happens, until finally there is a moment when Conrad and the pirates reveal themselves, there is a brief fight in which ALL those men are inadequately utilized, and Conrad is captured.
Perhaps you can deduce that I would jettison approximately one hour of girls in tutus in favor of some good strong dancing from the men of the company. IT IS CALLED ‘THE PIRATE,’ PEOPLE.
Act II and Act III blur together. Act III involves the Pasha telling Medora ‘I will let your lover live, if you’ll marry me.’ Yes, that is actually how it reads. He is a Pasha and she is in his harem. He can do whatever he wants with her, up to and including killing her. But marriage, because in 19th-century romances that solves everything. OMG don’t get me started. Anyway, the harem girl who actually wants the Pasha says hey, we can fake him out. You’ll be veiled. We’ll switch places. He’ll marry me and he’ll never know it. The girls communicate this to Conrad somehow (the security at this place is amazingly bad) and carry it off. Now there is more dancing! And now the Pasha tries to get amorous! Medora - who is not passive, though also not terribly bright - flirts and teases and gets his weapons away from him. Then Conrad comes in, says we’ll be going now, and leaves the Pasha to be comforted by the harem girl who says but look, you didn’t lose your wife - I’m wearing your ring!
Alexei could have done a lot more with that scene. He played it awfully well, within its limitations.
Okay. Finally Medora and Conrad are reunited. They are on his boat, sailing away. He has his allies and the guy who wasn’t his ally, who was not killed after Conrad figured him out, but has been brought along so that they can now have a fight on the boat. Medora and Conrad dance (on the boat. They don’t have much space). There is a storm! There is a shipwreck! Everybody goes overboard!
And then Conrad carries Medora safely to shore, they strike a pose, and it is over.
I’m sorry, Bolshoi: I laughed.
I really wanted to re-write ‘La Bayadere;’ that one would have been quick and easy, you could re-stage it with the new script and keep a great deal of the original dancing. This one needs a completely new treatment. Maybe that will be another blog post someday. I am still too bitter about the waste of Igor Tsvirko.