Stravinsky - Firebird. Rimsky-Korsakov - Sheherazade
State Academic Bolshoi Theatre named after Alisher Navoi, Tashkent, Friday May 24 2019
Conductor: Bobomurod Khudaykulov. Choreography: Michel Fokine, recreated by Andris Liepa and Igor Pivorovich. Sets and Costumes: Léon Bakst, Aleksandr Golovin, Natalia Goncharova, recreated by Anatoly Nezhny, Elena Netsvetaeva. Orchestra, Soloists and Ballet of the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre named after Alisher Navoi
Part of the legacy of Russian and later Soviet domination of Uzbekistan until the declaration of independence in 1991 is the possibility, on almost any evening, to see an opera or ballet at the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre in Tashkent. In May this year, for example, you could see Aleko, La Bohème, Aida, The Czar's Bride or Iolanta, or, if a ballet fan, La Bayadère, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote or the aptly-named Nutcracker, as well as concerts and other performances by local and visiting artistes. Tashkent, 6,000 km from western Europe but only 600 from China's western borders, has a fully-functional opera house with its own symphony orchestra and opera and ballet troupes. Whether by today's exacting ethical standards regarding colonialism, cultural appropriation and so on, this is to be considered a good or a bad thing I don't know. It's certainly remarkable.
The 1,400-seat theatre is a massive, yellow-brick block with white copings and oriental details (e.g. the three high, ogival arches of the façade, facing a park with fountains) designed by Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev (winner of Stalin Prizes in 1941, 1946 and 1948, as I understand it for this very building) and built, partly under forced labour by Japanese prisoners of war, between 1942 and 1947. The interior is a dazzling white cake-icing fantasy of intricately-chiselled stucco panels, some on a pastel ground, others on mirrors, occasionally interspersed with wispy frescos in the style of Uzbek miniatures, all by Uzbek craftsmen. In the auditorium (which has excellent acoustics) the relentless white detail is enriched with gilding and leavened with crimson velvet richly embroidered in massed gold thread.
I had only one free evening in Tashkent so I had to take pot luck. I'd
have loved to see local composer Rustem Abdullaev's opera Sadokat,
about which I know absolutely nothing, playing on Thursday, but that
day I was still in Samarkand. On Friday evening, instead, there was
ballet: Firebird and Sheherazade.
Both halves of the programme were introduced in Russian by Andris Liepa in person, now portly in a blue velvet jacket and with a startling cloud of back-brushed, bright blond hair floating above his head, knocking Donald Trump's wayward yellow thatch into a cocked hat. I had no idea who he was, but have since done some intense googling and discovered he is a People's Artist of Russia and former lead soloist of the Moscow Bolshoi, the Mariinsky and the American Ballet Theater. I also learned that in the 90s, Liepa was instrumental in reconstructing the Ballets Russes's Paris productions of the two works, and that what I saw in Tashkent was an Uzbek revival of this reconstruction, with a few key items (such as the Firebird's red tutu) borrowed from Russia.
The sets were obviously fairly low-budget, but the combination of multicoloured painted flats and equally multicoloured lighting with a fair stab at reproductions of the original cosumes was fun to watch. The troupe of young women dancers (there are no doubt proper terms for these things but I know next to nothing about the world of dance) were visibly better-disciplined than the youths, who were gauche and half-hearted on stage until called on to turn cartwheels and caper about acrobatically, when they all grinned furiously, clearly enjoying themselves at last.
Five teams of Uzbek soloists were, it seems, rehearsed by Liepa in Tashkent. None of them is named on the theatre's website, so I don't know who I saw. They looked very good to me, espcially the main chap, leaping about prodigiously, but again, I'm no judge. The two principals were often applauded over the music: clearly in the audience there were local ballet aficionados. (The tourists in the house - the best seats cost 10 euros so there were plenty in the front rows - were, on the other hand, very badly-behaved, chatting, filming and taking photos with phones tootling all evening despite announcements at the beginning asking for them to be switched off. Even worse than in Budapest.) At the end, Liepa strode out again on stage with a bouquet of red roses of Soviet dimensions for the leading lady, before audience members filed up on stage with their own gifts of flowers and chocolates.
The orchestra was raw and rowdy and raucous and you could see the conductor working hard and sweating profusely to keep them all together and on score, which most of the time he did. Least well-behaved were the brass, but what's new? In the west I'd suppose they were tanked up as usual, but in Uzbekistan in the middle of Ramadan, perhaps not. The strings (except the basses) and woodwind were better, though sometimes the latter's tuning was dodgy. Constant, rumbling stage noise - air conditioning? After all, they do ballets in here when it's 40° C outside - was annoying. Whatever. I'm not complaining, especially at 10 euros for a seat on row 3. I enjoyed the evening, ballet or not. But thank goodness, I thought, it wasn't Swan Lake.
Link to the film Return of the Firebird, with Andris Liepa.
Conductor: Bobomurod Khudaykulov. Choreography: Michel Fokine, recreated by Andris Liepa and Igor Pivorovich. Sets and Costumes: Léon Bakst, Aleksandr Golovin, Natalia Goncharova, recreated by Anatoly Nezhny, Elena Netsvetaeva. Orchestra, Soloists and Ballet of the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre named after Alisher Navoi
The 1,400-seat theatre is a massive, yellow-brick block with white copings and oriental details (e.g. the three high, ogival arches of the façade, facing a park with fountains) designed by Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev (winner of Stalin Prizes in 1941, 1946 and 1948, as I understand it for this very building) and built, partly under forced labour by Japanese prisoners of war, between 1942 and 1947. The interior is a dazzling white cake-icing fantasy of intricately-chiselled stucco panels, some on a pastel ground, others on mirrors, occasionally interspersed with wispy frescos in the style of Uzbek miniatures, all by Uzbek craftsmen. In the auditorium (which has excellent acoustics) the relentless white detail is enriched with gilding and leavened with crimson velvet richly embroidered in massed gold thread.
Both halves of the programme were introduced in Russian by Andris Liepa in person, now portly in a blue velvet jacket and with a startling cloud of back-brushed, bright blond hair floating above his head, knocking Donald Trump's wayward yellow thatch into a cocked hat. I had no idea who he was, but have since done some intense googling and discovered he is a People's Artist of Russia and former lead soloist of the Moscow Bolshoi, the Mariinsky and the American Ballet Theater. I also learned that in the 90s, Liepa was instrumental in reconstructing the Ballets Russes's Paris productions of the two works, and that what I saw in Tashkent was an Uzbek revival of this reconstruction, with a few key items (such as the Firebird's red tutu) borrowed from Russia.
The sets were obviously fairly low-budget, but the combination of multicoloured painted flats and equally multicoloured lighting with a fair stab at reproductions of the original cosumes was fun to watch. The troupe of young women dancers (there are no doubt proper terms for these things but I know next to nothing about the world of dance) were visibly better-disciplined than the youths, who were gauche and half-hearted on stage until called on to turn cartwheels and caper about acrobatically, when they all grinned furiously, clearly enjoying themselves at last.
The orchestra was raw and rowdy and raucous and you could see the conductor working hard and sweating profusely to keep them all together and on score, which most of the time he did. Least well-behaved were the brass, but what's new? In the west I'd suppose they were tanked up as usual, but in Uzbekistan in the middle of Ramadan, perhaps not. The strings (except the basses) and woodwind were better, though sometimes the latter's tuning was dodgy. Constant, rumbling stage noise - air conditioning? After all, they do ballets in here when it's 40° C outside - was annoying. Whatever. I'm not complaining, especially at 10 euros for a seat on row 3. I enjoyed the evening, ballet or not. But thank goodness, I thought, it wasn't Swan Lake.
Link to the film Return of the Firebird, with Andris Liepa.
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