Modern Ballet Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman "Onegin". Music: Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Alexander Sitkovetsky Alexandrinsky Imperial Ballet Theatre (established 1756)
Schedule for Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman "Onegin". Music: Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Alexander Sitkovetsky 2022
Orchestra: Symphony Orchestra "Congress"
Music: P. Tchaikovsky, А. Sitkovetsky Scenery: Z. Margolin Lighting: G.
Filshtinsky Costumes: О. Shaishmelashvili, P. Okunev Video-art: V.
Bystrov Premiered on 3rd of March 2009, St. Petersburg,
Russia
‘Onegin’ is a choreographic version of A. Pushkin’s two-act novel in verse
‘Eugene Onegin’. While preserving poetics and philosophy of Pushkin’s work
Eifman’s new ballet presents the opportunity to view the story through the eyes
of a contemporary. The production of ‘Onegin’ by Eifman Ballet Company became
one of the major events in contemporary cultural life in 2009.
Eifman’s name is always associated with most interesting experiments and
audacious interpretation of classical works; he renews and enriches the form and
the content of the contemporary ballet. The artistic images present an amalgam,
a mixture of the real and fantastic, and that causes powerful emotional
experience. The same concerns the light and the music. This time the director
brings together classical and contemporary music. The combination of P.I.
Tchaikovsky’s classical music and A. Sitkovetsky rock music make the audience
comprehend the choreographer’s message better.
Libretto
…The things took on a different look… And a cool-headed
general… Gathered supporters to his call… Hastened with strength and
boldness to See the uprising carried through. (Chapter 10 XIII, XVI,
XVII)
BOREDOM The illness with which he'd been
smitten Should have been analysed when caught, Something like spleen…or
Russia's chondria, for short; It mastered him in slow gradation…
Yes,
spleen was waiting like a sentry, and dutifully shared his life just like
a shadow, or a wife.
No, nothing caused his heart to stir, And nothing
pierced his senses' blur... (Chapter 1 XXXVIII,
LIV)
FRIENDS They got quite close, though wave and
stone, And ice and fire, and prose and poem Are not so different as they
were. At first these differences disturbed, They thought each other dull,
then drolly They rather liked each other, then… Were soon inseparable
wholly.
Thinking himself in love a cripple, Onegin heard, sage-faced,
unquivering, The poet tell all of himself, In love with his own heart’s
distress…
Oh, he did love, as we already No longer love, as only
bards’ Insane poetic souls unsteady Condemned to love forever
are! (Chapter 2 XIII, XIX, XX)
PROVINCIAL
DELIGHTS O flowers, and love, and rustic leisure… …All this has
now gone out of fashion…
So she was called Tatyana. Truly She lacked
her sister's beauty, lacked The rosy bloom that glowed so newly To catch
the eye and to attract.
…by depression Her heart had long been
overrun: Her soul was waiting... for someone. Tatyana now need wait no
longer. Her eyes were opened, and she said `This is the one!'
All
for our tender dreamy maiden Are coloured in a single tone, All blend into
Eugene alone. (Chapter 1 LVI; Глава 2 II; Глава 3 VII, VIII,
IX)
DISCO But you perhaps find no attraction In
any picture of this kind: For nature's unadorned reaction As something low
and unrefined.
... we … glide on waxed parquet. In country towns and
suchlike places … Heeltaps, and leaps… All of this it keeps As fresh as
ever, for its graces Are here untouched by fashion's reign, Our modern
Russia's plague and bane. (Chapter 5 III, XLII)
TATYANA'S
LETTER TO ONEGIN … Lit by the moon. Elbow on table, spirit
seething, Still filled with Eugene, Tanya wrote, And in her unconsidered
note
‘I write to you - no more confession Is needed, nothing's left to
tell. I know it's now in your discretion With scorn to make my world a
hell. But, if you've kept some faint impression Of pity for my wretched
state, You'll never leave me to my fate… Why did you visit us, but
why? Lost in our backwoods habitation I'd not have known you, therefore
I Would have been spared this laceration… But who are you: The guardian
angel of tradition, Or some vile agent of perdition Sent to seduce?
Resolve my doubt. Oh, this could all be false and vain, A sham that
trustful souls work out; Fate could be something else again.., Imagine it:
quite on my own I've no one here who comprehends me, And now a swooning
mind attends me, Dumb I must perish, and alone. I close. I dread to read
this page... For shame and fear my wits are sliding... And yet your honour
is my gage And in it boldly I'm confiding''... (Chapter 3 XXI,
XXXI)
ONEGIN’S REBUKE … ‘You wrote to me, and nothing spoken Can
disavow that. And your sincerity of thought Is dear to me, for it has
brought Feeling to what had long been heartless:
‘But I was simply not
intended For happiness -- that alien role. Should your perfections be
expended In vain on my unworthy soul?
But you must teach Your heart
some self-restraint; for each And every man won't understand it As I
have... learn from my belief That inexperience leads to grief.'' (Chapter
4 XII, XIV, XVI)
TWO LOVES From hour to hour a surer capture For
Olga's beauty, Lensky gives His soul to a delicious rapture That fills him
and in which he lives.
Poor Tanya's bloom begins to languish, And
pale, and fade without a word! (Chapter 4 XXIV, XXV)
TATYANA’S
DREAM Now all was still. Tatyana slept. She dreamt of portents. A group
of monsters round But ever stranger and more fearful But how she jumped,
when in this hovel Among the guests she recognized The man she feared and
idolized ‘She's mine!’ Evgeny's voice of thunder Clears in a flash the
freezing room; Onegin takes her Into a corner, gently makes her Sit on
a flimsy bench, and lays His head upon her shoulder... (Chapter 5 X, XI,
XVI, XVII, XX)
RAGE Between them, every topic started Reflection or
provoked dispute: Looked down in an access of hate, Pouted, and swore in
furious passion To wreak, by stirring Lensky's ire, The best revenge one
could desire. (Chapter 2 XV, XVI, Chapter 5 XXXI)
TATYANA’S NAME
DAY The festal name day… Since dawn, whole families have been
driving Towards the Larins' A ball: the joy of every
guest!
Revenge's hour is near, and after Evgeny, full of inward
laughter, Has gone to Olga… …beginning To talk of this and that… All
are dumbfounded. Lensky shies Away from trusting his own eyes…
Louder
and louder sounds the wrangle: Eugene has caught up, quick as quick, A
carving-knife -- and in the tangle Lensky's thrown down. The murk is
thick And growing thicker; then, heart-shaking, A scream rings
out… (Chapter 5 XLI, XXI, XXV, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX,
XXXI)
LENSKY’S DEATH A moment earlier,
inspiration Had filled this heart, and detestation And hope and passion;
life had glowed And blood had bubbled as it flowed; But now the mansion is
forsaken; Shutters are up, and all is pale And still within… (Chapter 6
XXXII)
from St.-Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theatre of Boris
Eifman
Schedule for Modern Dance Ballet of Boris Eifman "Onegin". Music: Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Alexander Sitkovetsky 2022
|