The Observer
04.08.19 37Bolshoi Ballet: Spartacus
Royal Opera House, London WC2;
in rep until SatDance
It pays to think big
Liberation! Courage! Indomitable
will! Sacrifi ce for the greater good!
In 1968, the Soviet Union invaded
Czechoslovakia to crack down
on reformist trends, and was still
holding its own in the space race
with the United States. In that same
year, Yuri Grigorovich , the director
of the Moscow-based Bolshoi Ballet,
choreographed Spartacus, an instant
hit for the company that would
come to represent Soviet balletic
power abroad.
Spartacus, based on the
account of a slave rebellion in
Italy in 73BC, and made popular
by Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 fi lm ,
is a perfect Soviet allegory of an
oppressed, noble populace fi ghting
bravely to overthrow a fascist,
decadent ruling class. It has an
uncomplicated plot (the narrative
veers between uprising and
suppression over and over again)
and four principal s untroubled by
nuanced characterisation: the noble,
indomitable gladiator Spartacus;
his pure-hearted beloved, Phrygia ;
the power-crazed Crassus , leader of
the Roman army; the equally venal
courtesan Aegina.
The ballet exemplifi es much
about the style and aesthetic of the
Bolshoi , which arrived in London
last week for a three-week, four-
ballet run at the Royal Opera
House. Spartacus, like the Bolshoi
(which means “big” in Russian), is
huge in scale, tremendous in effect
and not exactly subtle. It’s a big,
thumping warhorse of a ballet, set
to a big, thumping score by Aram
Khachaturian , and it is thrillingly
enjoyable for the pyrotechnical feats
of its leading dancers, the slightly
camp silliness of its balletic warfare,
its melodramatic pas de deux and
cinematic narrative sweep.
But it’s also a puzzling ballet
to watch in 2019. Do we take it
at face value, as an artefact that
bears testament to a moment in
Soviet cultural history? Could
Grigorovitch have intended a
subversive critique of the Soviet
state in his depiction of Roman
tyranny? Should we interpret it in
the light of Putin’s authoritarian
Russian government?
Or is it just a rollicking funnight out, not to be overthought?
The critic Richard Buckle once said
that ballet lives permanently on
a tightrope between the sublime
and the ridiculous, and no ballet
swivels more delicately on that line
than Spartacus. From its opening
scene, with a tight phalanx of
soldiers (the costumes, by Simon
Virsaladze , are uber-1960s fi lm-
Roman, all short battle dress
and strappy leather shin guards)
fanning into massed ranks, the
ballet moves with impetuous sweep
through impassioned virtuosic
solos and lyrical pas de deux, full
of spectacular overhead lifts and
slung-across-the back swirls.
It is custom to dismiss
Grigorovitch’s choreography as
crude and uninteresting, but
it’s worth remembering how
innovative his partnering work
must have seemed in 1968, and
how contemporary some of
the low, stamping, unballeticWhat the Bolshoi’s
Spartacus lacks in
subtlety it makes up
for in sheer virtuosity
and spectacle, fi nds
Roslyn SulcasAnna Nikulina as Phrygia with
Mikhail Lobukhin in the title
role of Spartacus: ‘an ensemble
tour de force’. Photograph by
Tristram Kentonmovement would have looked.
Grigorovitch isn’t really detailing
stories of character or narrative
through specifi c steps. His vision
is cinematic, making structural
use of a curtain that lifts to reveal
friezes of supporting dancers and
spectacular tableaux, then drops
to conceal them and focus our
attention on individual dancers, the
theatrical equivalent of widescreen
pans and closeups.
Last Wednesday, Mikhail
Lobukhin was a strong, compelling
Spartacus and Anna Nikulina a
gorgeous, lyrical Phrygia. But the
ballet, for all its focus on soloist
virtuosity, is also an ensemble
tour de force, a marvellous display
of might from the Bolshoi corps.
Spartacus is still a ballet for the
masses, on stage and off.Why use
a baton
when you
can use your
entire agile
body?
two-night residency at London’s
Royal Opera House with Prokofi ev’s
sprawling War and Peace , in David
Pountney’s staging conducted
by Tomáš Hanus fi rst seen in
Cardiff last year. Somehow, in an
inevitably short rehearsal period,
the company once again marshalled
the large cast and excellent chorus
into exuberant life: 63 named
characters played by 22 singers,
led by Mark Le Brocq as Pierre and
Lauren Michelle as Natasha.
Prokofi ev, like Shostakovich,
had to avoid Stalin’s displeasure,
and rewrote the opera over several
years. Lopsided and particular in its
narrative, it’s a far cry from the novel.
Yet just as you begin to feel restless
and impatient, a moment of intimate
melancholy or a chorus glorifying
Russian valour demand your
attention. WNO the best possible
argument for Prokofi ev’s
contradictory piece. Written out of
love for Russia’s literary master, it
only serves to make Tolstoy’s feat all
the more astonishing.Classical music on CD,
on air and online Now that we
so often hear
Bach’s keyboard
works played on
the piano (and the
debate about whether it’s even
legitimate to listen to them on a
modern instrument has subsided),
returning to performances on
the harpsichord can prove a
revelation. Th is is especially
true in hands as persuasive as
those of the Iranian-American
harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani.
His new disc of Bach’s Toccatas
(Hyperion) conveys the spirit
and expressive freedom of these
seven early works, for which no
single autograph source survives.
Some serious detective work
is required to address issues of
ornamentation and phrasing,
colour and clarity, which Bach
would have expected to vary
according to a performer’s taste.
Esfahani , who explains their
complex history in a detailed essay,
has made his own new performing
edition and reveals these familiar
pieces to have mysteries we may
never have suspected. Th e American
pianist Keith Jarrett ,
mostly celebrated
as a virtuosic jazz
player but always
a devoted performer of classical
repertoire, recorded Bach’s Th e
Well-Tempered Clavier Book I
in concert in Troy, in upstate New
York, in 1987 , a month after his
studio recording which was the
fi rst in a series of Bach discs. ECM
has now released this live version
for the fi rst time. “Th is music does
not need my assistance,” Jarrett
remarked, noting that it’s “the
process of thought” that matters.
He never imposes himself in these
restrained, elegant performances.
Whether or not it’s fanciful to
sense an improvisatory mood, this
is playing of absolute dexterity and
musical fi delity, recorded
in a beautifully clear,
clean acoustic with
the energy of live
performance. Reminding us that
Bach is “authentic”
on any instrument,
Olivier Latry (above) , the
organist of Notre-Dame, Paris, will
include the Toccata and Fugue in
D minor, BWV 565, in his lunchtime
Prom today (11am-12.30pm,
Radio 3), playing the Royal Albert
Hall’s Henry “Father” Willis organ,
as well as Bach arrangements
by Liszt and Widor and “king
of Instrument” showpieces by
Khachaturian and Saint-Saëns.
Fiona MaddocksHome listening
РЕЛИЗ
ПОДГОТОВИЛАГРУППА"What's News"VK.COM/WSNWSРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS