“Shagreen bone” ( fr. Os de Chagrin ) ocus 37-38 (1990) - large ballet (in three acts ) and opera of the same name - intermission ( composer Yuri Hanon). The ballet and opera are written on a libretto based on the novel by Honore de Balzac " Shagreen skin ". The author of the libretto of ballet and opera is also Yuri Hanon .
Content
A Brief History
The Bolshoi ballet The Shagreen Bone (os. 37), as well as the one-act opera intermission for it (os. 38), were written in 1990 by order of the Leningrad Maly Opera House (now Mikhailovsky). The ballet libretto in a condensed form reproduces the entire main plot of Balzac's work, and the short opera intermission is based only on the dialogue of two lyrical heroes removed from Shagreen Skin, Pauline and Raphael.
In 1992, during the intermission opera at the St. Petersburg Documentary Film Studio, the avant-garde film opera Shagreen Bone was shot (with elements of documentary and pseudo-documentary film). The film was based on the same-name opera intermission of Hanon's "Shagreen Bone" ("Os de Chagrin"). In addition to the music of the opera itself, which was fully included in the movie, other musical works by the same author were also used in the film, including: “ Death Song No. 1” and “Mechanics of the Movement of Thought ” (from the series “Public Songs”, Os. 34). Yuri Hanon played the main role of himself in the film: the composer, whose opera can only be staged deep in the basement . The choreographer and set designer of the film is Andrei Bosov , head of the Kirovsky (Mariinsky) Ballet youth troupe. The film was shot and edited on the basis of the Leningrad Documentary Film Studio commissioned by Russian television.
Brief
The large three-act ballet "Shagreen Bone" is written in the genre of " tendentious classical ballet" or "ballet with commentaries ." In a paradoxical way, the Don Quixote of Minkus and the Sati Parade served as a creative guide for the composer. [one]
“The starting point for me was Sati 's Parade . <...> On the first page of the score of "Shagreen Bone" the imperishable words shine: "Dedicated to Father , Comrade , Communist Eric Sati . " Sati partially inspired the idea of “ furniture music ” from the opera ballet during the interval between the second and third acts. According to the singer , the audience can "walk and eat meat", and on the stage between the affair a verist performance unfolds, dedicated exclusively to the relationship of lovers : Polina and Raphael. Every time passions run high, a calmly calm dance follows in the style of ro-ko-ko : minuet , paspier , burr . And so it continues until the death of the hero and author . According to Balzac’s short story , they die of coughing , which looks very scenic. ” [one]
- ( Yuri Hanon : “Starting Position”) .
When working on the ballet's libretto , Yuri Hanon paid special attention to the extent to which "this funny story was hastily and casually written." Literally everywhere in the text one can feel how frantically and hastily Balzac was in a hurry to catch up , as if they were pushing him behind with a whip. Having done a lot of debt, then, under the onslaught of creditors, the writer developed such a vigorous activity that he brought himself to nervous exhaustion . The heavy press of nervous exhaustion, violent activity, as well as the onslaught of creditors, remained to lie on this composition, creating a special kind of futile tension . Looking at a personal example of Balzac, the author decided that the ballet on "Shagreen skin" should also be done as a typical holiday of exhaustion or reduction of life . [1] As soon as in the first act of the ballet the curtain rises, it immediately reveals the huge, stiff line of Stern hanging in the air (the line of fate), fading and steadily leading down. [2]
“For all its eclecticism and scatter, the novel“ Shagreen Skin ”is a very constructive composition: its entire structure is described by one line of a consistent decrease in life. <...> It is also pleasing that this story is carelessly written, everywhere you can feel how Balzac was in a hurry ..., under the influence of his creditors, he developed such a vigorous activity that he began to have nervous exhaustion . Imprints of nervous exhaustion, violent activity, as well as the onslaught of creditors, lie on this composition, creating a special kind of tension. In general, I decided that the ballet on "Shagreen Skin" should be a celebration of a joyful decrease in life. " [one]
- ( Yuri Hanon : “Starting Position”) .
Being the author of the libretto at the same time, the composer created an integral performance , which is a concise version, a “ concentrate ” of formal ballet language. The goal is to bring to the stage not just ballet, but “ballet about ballet”. The genre of the performance Yuri Hanon defined as " rearguard ballet." This is a clear reference to the past, but with the smell of today. [3]
The question often arises: how did it happen that “Shagreen skin ” took the form of “ Bones ”? The answer is very simple. For example, like this: how many years have passed since then? All that does not decompose immediately - first it becomes stony, and then it becomes stony . In the text of the novel, gardener Monsieur Rafael de Valantin (a certain Vanier) accidentally fished shagreen skin from a well, in surprise twirls its remainder in his hands and says bluntly: "it’s dry, as if from wood and not at all slime . " Likewise, the whole composition as a whole illustrates the idea of the later stage of “stiffness” or “ossification” of any culture , including, of course, the theater as a whole and classical ballet in particular. But first of all - the current, decrepit and still aging European civilization . [four]
Thus, the “Shagreen Bone” is, in a certain sense, the “reset” of the ballet culture, which is taken in brackets and placed on the stage together with these brackets. Submitting to the well-known ballet laws of the genre , and in a sense summarizing the results of their development, he shows the whole senselessness of the ballet structure as such and its most inert forms ... [4] The composer crawls out of the orchestra pit like a devil from a snuff-box and throws it into the face of the viewer. bones imposed on teeth with ballet stamps - grand pa , fouet , variations , adagio . But the result somehow turns out to be a beautiful romantic ballet that has been put on stage twice: as it is, with all the meaningless joy and conventionality, and - as if taken into the spiritual brackets of our time and author's attitude. However, this is only one of the reasons for changing the name of the novel ... Of course, there are others as well: perhaps good, dry and hard reasons for replacing the skin with “bone”. [five]
The author’s innovative & eccentric approach to the solution of the modern ballet performance had a certain resonance also in the avant-garde circles. For example, the very first issue of the new literary magazine of conceptual art “The Place of Printing ” on the first page opened as a manifesto with a rather bizarre essay entitled “Shagreen Bone”, [6] which is an excerpt from the libretto (or synopsis ) of the first act of the ballet.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Larisa Yusipova, “Starting Position”, (interview). The magazine "Soviet Ballet" No. 1 - 1991 ISSN 0207-4788 p. 48-49.
- ↑ "The Place of the Press " (regular art magazine). - No. 1. - Moscow, St. Petersburg: Obscuri viri , 1992. - S. 9-11. - 128 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-87852-007-9 .
- ↑ Yuri Hanon: “Rear Guard Ballet” (interview). Newspaper “Dance” January 1991 (No. 1-2), p. 3
- ↑ 1 2 Irina Morozova , “Vector to live.” Theatrical Life Magazine No. 12-1990, pp. 12-13.
- ↑ Irina Morozova, “One of the Three Composers”, “ Capital ” magazine No. 11-12, 1991, ISSN 0868-698 х, pages 118-119.
- ↑ The Place of Printing Magazine 1992 No. 1-2, p.6 [1]