RUSSIAN HAMLET
By the excellent, russian choreographer and librettist Boris Eifman.
By Henning Hoholt
Photos: Mikhail Rashkovsky
The Company have done a fantastic job, by learning and presenting this excellent ballet piece in such a virtouse way.
In the performance Russian Hamlet, the audience finds the living contemporary art, a new form language and new choreographic ideas, all together in a way, where you also are feeling well at home, if you like the more classical academic ballet language, just that this is renewed, in such a way, that it is demanding the audiences, to be present in their mind.
And indeed the ballet company, and the soloist are having a big job. We are impressed to see how elegant they are presenting, this demanding dance language, Mr. Eifmans many strong balances, lifts, atitudes, and his new idea of jumps, as one for the male dancers, that I have never seen, and how wonderful it was to see, that not only the soloists managed so well, but also all the company.
This was a great ballet evening.
For our own case, we are looking forward to see this performance next time, (in december). To consume so strong a history completely, with so complicated a choreographic language, is not any thing that you can be accuainted with, only by watching one performance.
Another thing is to get hold in the whole history, maked up by facts and phantasy about the Czarewitch Paul and his mother, Empress Catharine the Great of Russia.
We experienced a wonderful entertaining performance, where there were several focusses. One was the superb use of light by Jurij Timofelev and Levas Kleinas.
The scenography, a beautiful palace interior, or exterior, all if how the light was used, on it. In Tromph Oeil arrangement. With columns, mirrors behind the columns, a cuppolo, which could be a cuppolo, or a stage with heavy velour curtains behind, or a fantasy decoration. Designed by Vlaceslav Okunev, who also was responsable for the beautiful costumes, in either old gold, or green velour look for the corps de ballet, and other matching colurs for the soloists.
We watched an excellent cast, headed by some of this excellent ballet company's leading soloists. With the primaballerina her self, Egle Spokaite, in the role as the Empress. Nerijus Juska as the Heir to the Throne and son of the Empress. Aurelijus Daraskevicius as the Favorite of the Empress. The Wife of the Heir was Julia Repet. As the Ghost of the Heir's Father (Czar Peter III) Edvardas Smalakys and in the role as theLittle Son of the Empress Andrejus Fadejevas, following excellently in the family footsteps.
Two Composers figures on the list of composers: Ludwig van Beethoven in all the first part, and Gustav Mahler in all the second part, except for one large scene, the Masque Ball, where Beethoven is back again. Then there must be one more composer, because the singing in the beginning and end of the second act is not, to my knwledge, by any of these two mentioned composers.
An importent detail is missing in the programme. There is not any information, as far as I can find it, about whch orchestras is playing and with what conductors. According to the Law of Copyright, that is wrong. The editor of the program is responsibel for, that these names appears to the audience.
An other detail. To me it seemed like there was very much focus on sex in the ballet. That was OK for me, but I feel that many other details, in the life of the young czarewitch too, could have been interesting objects to tell about, and that could have done that the performance, as a whole, not have been so focussed in one direction.
Henning Hoholt, hoeholthus@c2i.net
RUSSIAN HAMLET
The fate of czarewitch Paul, some what reminiscent of Hamlet (hence called Russian Hamlet by his contemporaries), is veiled in manifold mysteries and mystical prophecies. Noble-minded by nature ad excellently educated, he prepared himself to serve his country. However, the murder of his father and uncaring attitude of his mother who was apparently afraid of her son, the heir, as well as the atmosphere of constant persecution, intrigues, fear and humilitiatation have plunged the young czarewich into the world of fantastic halluciations, delusions of persecution, and loneliness. Having a strong leaning towars mysticism since childhood (it is known that he once saw a ghost of his father, Czar Peter III) Paul foreboded his tragic end, which urged him to take up his regal powers that would enable him to undertake progressive reforms in Russia. Nevertheless he was misunderstod, brutally murderer and cursed.
With the young czarewitch Paul in the titel role, the performance depicts the period of his lofty, virtuous aspirations and first tragic failures. It portrays him seeking his own answer to Hamlet's timeless quesestion To be or not to be.
This performance is based on an episode from Russian history of the late 18th century. Russian Hamlet, first staged in 1999, clearly deviates from accurate historical depiction. The story begins with the murder of Paul's father, which he witnessed as a child, and goes on about Paul's relationships with his mother, her Favourite and his doomed first wife, (Natalya Alekseyevna) - which he didn't get any children with. However with his second wife (Maria Theodorovna), he got 10 childrens.
We see Paul as a child, a teenager, a youngster in love, a matured man, ready to serve his cuntry by taking resolute actions, he is finally cruched by will of his imperious mother. Having read this story with his heart and presented it as a profound psycogical drama fraught wich suffering and mysticism rather than an historical epic. Boris Eifman gives generic names to his characters: Catherine is called here the Empress, and Paul is simply the Heir to the Throne. Other dramatic peronate are likewise disguised under generalized masks. Eifman admits, however, that he digresses from the actual fact quite insubstantially, mostly in ordeer to vindicate Paul the son of Catherine the Great.
The Empress Catherine the Great is well known in the West for her famous love affairs and support of French encyclopaedists. While the personality of Paul, who succeded her her to the throne in 1796 and whose reign lasted barely five years until he was assasinated is largely unknown, save for being described by Sovjet historiographers as tyrannical and despotic. These qualification, however, seemed quite unjust to Eifman. De elevated Paul i, the heir to the Russian throne and future emperor, a dreamer and an outcast, to the maginitue of Shakespeare's hero, and made him appear the suffering seeker after meaning who was, like Hamlet, savaged by the treachery of his mother and murder of his father. To Eifman, Paul I is, first of all, a human being beset by his own anxiety and doubts, a man who is destined to live in the appalling world of intrigue-filled court, and compelled to submit to oppressive whims of Catherine, surrounded by her lovers, flattering delators and conspirators.
Murder, power, love and loss.... The vicious circle from which the Heir cannot escape.One is struck withn the volume of spiritual pain that Eifman's hero experiences in his struggle for justice, caused by his aim to remedy the shortcoming of being. Reality and fantasy become interwined, exposing the inner conflict of the uman soul. By freelu deviating from strict chronological sequence and extending the outline of the plot. Eifman draws his audience in a gabling game of history. Are there any trump cards valid for all times? And what does really rule the world?
OUTSTANDING SCENIC SPECTACLES
Eifman's ballet are primarily outstanding scenic spectacles. You can see people dance and hear the music, but at the same time you can hear giggling of agitated servantsm whispering of plutting courtiers and howling demons who rend the frenzied soul of the Heir. In this Russian Hamlet Boris Eifman managed to conjure up such a vivid and evocative world of ballet that one easily perts unconscious of its muteness.
This performance does not preach or moralize. It only suggests an answer to Hamlet's petrenienial question: the most important is to keep to one's true self and stand for one's truths, for one's self.
The Lithuanian National Ballet, Vilnius
