Modern Ballet "International Chereshnevy Les Open-Art Festival" Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman. Ballet "Roden" World famous Bolshoi Ballet and Opera theatre (established 1776) - Small Stage
Schedule for "International Chereshnevy Les Open-Art Festival" Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman. Ballet "Roden" 2022
Choreography: Boris Eifman Composer: Maurice Ravel Composer: Camille Saint-Saens Composer: Jules Massenet Light Designer: Gleb Filshtinskiy Scenography: Zinovy Margolin
Orchestra: Bolshoi Theatre Symphony Orchestra
Premiere of this production: 22 November 2011, Saint-Petersburg
Libretto by Boris
Eifman Choreography: Boris Eifman Set Designer: Zinoviy
Margolin Costume Designer: Olga Shaishmelashvili Lighting Designers: Gleb
Filshtinsky, Boris Eifman The production participates in the Golden
Mask National Festival. New ballet of Boris Eifman "Rodin" is dedicated
to life and creative work of great sculptors Auguste Rodin and his apprentice,
lover and muse Camille Claudel. The story of their passionate relationship is
full of drama. For 15 years Rodin and Claudel had been one sensual and creative
body. But their breakup dealt a death blow to Camille’s mental health and marked
the beginning of her destruction. Almost forgotten, isolated from the outside
world, vegetating in misery, Claudel goes out of her mind. Her obsession about
the deliberate conspiracy against her, of which she considered Rodin the main
participant, has been a permanent torture for the woman’s mind depressed by her
mental disease. For the whole of 30 years she had to spend her life in a mental
asylum, where Camille died in 1943, forgotten and left by everyone. The "Rodin"
ballet of Boris Eifman is a massive artistic utterance about the tragic nature of life of geniuses.
With the help of unique body language of the modern psychological ballet, which
the choreographer had sharpened skillfully in his previous performances
("Onegin", "The Seagull", "Anna Karenina", "Russian Hamlet" and others), Eifman
not only presents a new conception of the world of human passions studied
masterfully by Rodin and Claudel in their works, but also creates a masterpiece
dedicated to the incomprehensible mystery of the process of creation.
Boris Eifman: "Life and love of Rodin
and Claudel is an amazing story of two artists, in an incredibly dramatic
alliance of which everything interlaced: passion, hatred, artistic jealousy.
Spiritual and energetic interchange of two sculptors is a unique phenomenon:
living together with Rodin, Camille was not only inspiring him, helping to find
a new style and to create masterpieces, but also was going through the impetuous
development of her own talent, actually, she was transforming into a great
master.
After her breakup with Rodin, Claudel begins to plunge
into the darkness of insanity. The soul of a poor woman is burnt to ashes with
the pathological hatred to her former teacher and lover man, who had stolen, in
Camille’s opinion, her life and gift. Rodin’s longing for his muse, torments of
his conscience and delusion of Camille, or the insane Erinye, which her ruthless
destiny had turned her to, the delusion caused by her mental disease and full of
sick obsessions – all of these are reflected in the new ballet.
With the help of body language we talk in our
performance about passion, internal struggle, despair – about all of those life
phenomena of human spirit, which are brilliantly expressed by Rodin and Camille
in bronze and marble. To turn a moment frozen in stone into an irrepressible
sensuous stream of body movements is what I was striving for when creating this
new ballet performance.
"Rodin" is a contemplation about the
unreasonable price which geniuses have to pay for creation of eternal
masterpieces, and also about those torments and mysteries of creation process
which will always disturb minds of artists ".
BORIS EIFMAN is one of the few, if not the only Russian choreographer, who
continued his active creative work for decades. Perhaps none of his
contemporaries can take pride in such achievements. There are more than forty
performances on the director’s account. He was the Laureate of the theatrical
award of Saint-Petersburg “Golden Soffitto” five times, received the independent
prize “Triumph”, the State Prize of Russia “For contribution in the development
of modern arts”, the higher spiritual award of Russian children – the Order
“Peace and Harmony”, the Order “Arts Cavalier of France”, the People’s Artist of
Russia title and many other prizes and titles.
The
choreographer was born in Siberia, finished a ballet college and the department
of choreography of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Conservatoire. In 1977 he
organized Leningrad New Ballet (today called “Saint-Petersburg State Academic
Ballet Theatre”), the only individually managed theatre in Russia, developing
the art of modern choreography. He did not only create an original style, which
absorbed the achievements of new time art and which is based on the classical
school, but also brought up a team of kindred spirit, for whom no unsolvable
tasks exist The diversity of genres in his repertoire is truly
impressive: chamber ballets ("Autographs", "Metamorphoses"), ballets bouffe
("The Mad March Day or the Marriage of Figaro", "The Twelfth Night", "Love
Plots"), ballets-parables ("Legend"), fairytale ballets ("Firebird",
"Pinocchio"). His theatre also focuses on productions based on the classical
works of the world literature. Eifman was the first who used Dostoevsky’s novels
in ballet. His "Idiot" has become one of the highlights of the cultural life. It
was followed by the "Duel" (adaptation of Kuprin’s novel), "Master and
Margarita" (based on Bulgakov) and "Murderes" (based on Zola's novel "Therese
Raquin"). Among his most recent works that have been already recognized
worldwide are "Requiem", "Tchaikovsky", "Don Quixote, or Fantasies of a Madman",
"The Karamazovs", "Red Giselle", "My Jerusalem", "The Russian Hamlet", "Don Juan
or Moliere Passions", "WHO is WHO", "Musagete", "Anna Karenina", "The Seagull",
"Onegin".
Boris Eifman is a choreographer-philosopher and thinker. He is concerned by
the problems of the modern world. He is thrilled by the secrets of creativity
and the magic of geniuses, which uncover themselves in his interpretation of the
fates of Tchaikovsky, Spesivtseva and Moliere. He makes experiments with such
dark and fearful sphere as human psyche (“Idiot”, “Murderers”, “Don Quixote or
Fantasies of a Madman”, “Russian Hamlet” and “Anna Karenina”), creating the
images of stage psychoanalysis. He strives for showing extreme states of human
mind, regarding his heroes` madness not as an illness but as their ability to
penetrate into another worlds. The choreographer pulls apart the limits of his
imagination with the help of his heroes` fantasies, deepening in the questions
of spiritual and philosophic life of humankind, which interest him most. The
ballets “Russian Hamlet”, “Anna Karenina”, "The Seagull", "Onegin" are the
examples of it.
Creating his own style Eifman worked at various dancing systems. The theatre
became a kind of laboratory for him. The choreographer did not limit himself
with the frames of a purely ballet performance, since the most important thing
for him is theatricality. His plays are synthetic shows, revealing new forms and
new principles of dancing action. Boris Eifman has created his theatre – a
theatre of unconcealed emotional feelings.
Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman
SYNOPSIS
ACT ONE
A mental asylum, where patients wander like
somnambulists, is the last shelter for Camille Claudel, a lover of the great
Rodin. After a visit from the sculptor, she feels nothing but pain and despair.
In his memories, Rodin returns in his past... Sculptor’s workshop. Here is
the place where Rodin’s wild fantasies come to life through clay and bronze.
With her appearance, Camille, a young model, starts a fire in the heart of
Rodin, who is in his middle age. It is intolerable for Camille to wake up in
the mental asylum. However, her sufferings at the hands of the other female
patients, who beat and abuse her, are nothing compared to the horrible emptiness
that enlaced Camille’s soul. The life of old Rodin is full of grief. The
tenderness of his devoted Rose is heavier than iron bonds. The sculptor is
buried in his thoughts, where he finds himself an impetuous creator again.
Camille is by his side, with her passion and gift of genius that give him power.
Rodin’s indifference makes Rose suffer. Camille’s coming insanity is already
near: her mind becomes bedimmed with an obsession. But still her life is an
endless vortex, in the very center of which is Rodin. Without hesitation, she
gives her genius to her beloved and her master. Envy of Camille as an artist
grows in the sculptor’s soul. Rodin wins his success. Camille, his mate and
co-author of his works, is left behind as an unknown witness of another’s
glory.
ACT TWO
The Gates of Hell are created in
sufferings. Camille works devotedly with Rodin. Rose follows Rodin constantly,
which makes him go through torment and repentance. Happy moments of his life
revive in his mind: young Rose, beautiful and lovely bacchante, whom Rodin meets
at a grape festival. Camille’s relationship with her master becomes a torture
for her. In a blaze of despair, she escapes from her beloved. A passing affair
with a random lover cannot heal her scars. She has no other choice than to
return to Rodin, who is her destiny and her curse. The sculptor is
embarrassed. His heart is torn between burning passion for one woman and sincere
affection for another one. How can he break this vicious circle of incessant
torments? Camille is coming closer and closer to the edge of the abyss. Her
work on Clotho, fearful anthem to ruthless Fate, exhausts her mental
state completely. Distressed by critics, Camille destroys her sculpture in a
blaze of rage. Camille suffers from nightmares. She sees Rodin as an ugly
beast who is guilty of all her tortures. The poor woman has no way to escape
from this insanity, which captures her mind and soul.
© St.Petersburg
Eifman Ballet.
Schedule for "International Chereshnevy Les Open-Art Festival" Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman. Ballet "Roden" 2022
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