All-Russian pack – Newspaper Kommersant No. 34 (7479) dated 28.02.2023

The St. Petersburg Central Exhibition Hall “Manege” hosts the exhibition “First Position. History of Russian ballet. About the themes and techniques of the sweeping exhibition blockbuster tells Olga Titova.

Experience shows that the ballet theme is always in demand among the audience, even if it is simply present in one form or another within the framework of some major exhibition project, be it the recent Diaghilev. Dress rehearsal” in the Tretyakov gallery or “Love for three oranges. Casanova’s Venice – Diaghilev’s Petersburg” at the Sheremetev Palace. It seems that the presence of worn out pointe shoes, a lush tutu, or exquisite strokes of Bakst’s sketch adds weight to the project’s atmosphere and mystery.

Nevertheless, there are few large-scale and significant exhibitions about ballet, where Terpsichore would reign supreme and undivided. First of all, a historical exhibition in the then Leningrad Manezh in 1986, when the city’s Theater Museum showed, it seems, all the ballet that was in its funds. There were “personal” exhibitions of Marius Petipa, dedicated to his 200th birthday, in both theater capitals and organized by theater museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But there is no other such global project that occupied the largest exhibition hall in St. Petersburg.

The authors of the exhibition took the first place: the concept belongs to Anna Yalova, who was appointed director of the St. Petersburg Manege a couple of days before the premiere, and Agnia Sterligova (Planet9), Pavel Kaplevich became the creative curator, and Alexander Karmaev (Planet9) became the producer. They managed to collect almost a thousand items from 40 museums, archives and libraries in Russia, placing them in the thematic blocks “Tsar’s box”, “Russian spirit”, “Soviet ballet”, “School”, “Costume shop”. The story is not told in the language of a typical Soviet textbook, which insists that “Russian ballet is an outstanding cultural phenomenon, which from the first years of its existence took a democratic position, and domestic choreographers sought to reflect the ideological and humanistic principles of Russian art…”. The ballet is known through vivid metaphors and bold allegories, it evokes from the depths of consciousness images that have been firmly imprinted in the memory since childhood. This is an entertaining journey with deciphering one’s own associations, but it is based on historical objects and facts.

The opening date of the exhibition was not chosen by chance: 350 years ago, in February 1673, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was presented with the Ballet of Orpheus and Eurydice, the image of which is captured in a fantasy layout that welcomes visitors. His cardboard figures immediately respond with a cry “I lost Eurydice…” and throw a bridge to one of the most poignant and iconic performances of the Silver Age – “Orpheus and Eurydice” in 1910 staged by Meyerhold, Fokin and Golovin. The era of Emperor Alexander I the Blessed, who was glorified in the images of Cupid or Apollo, will slyly smile at the portrait of cupid illegitimate children of the dancer Maria Kolosova and Prince Yusupov, will amaze with the passionate gaze of the black-eyed Avdotya Istomina and go limp in the tender kiss of Cupid and Psyche from Gatchina. The love of Nicholas I for parades and marches will unfold in full breadth in electronic projections from Grigory Chernetsov’s Parade … on Tsaritsyn Meadow on October 6, 1831, the corps de ballet constructions of the Uprising in the Seraglio and (unexpectedly!) In the meeting of Odette, Siegfried and the hunters in “ Swan Lake. The “Sylphide” by Alexei Maksimov (1852), fluttering with iridescent wings in a languor of love, will beckon to you, and now we are already soaring on “giant steps” in the space of the “Light Stream” model, noticing in passing that the collective farm garden with swings milkmaids is by no means devoid of the melancholy idyll that reigns in the magical forest in La Sylphide.

Here you mentally go over your past – a whole showcase of porcelain figurines of ballerinas, massively stamped at the Leningrad Porcelain Factory; aimlessly poke at the box office, on which hangs the sign “All tickets are sold out”, and sit nostalgically in an armchair by the floor lamp in front of the TV turned on at Swan Lake.

You can stand in the first position yourself and take part in a master class by Leonid Sarafanov. Get a shock in the “Anatomy of the ballet” section, where the mechanics of the most complex lifts are “unfolded” with the help of the most modern technologies (perfectly performed by the modern king of duet dance Marat Shemiunov), learning that each lift costs the dancer about 700 calories. Enjoy the serenity of the white “Costume Shop” with an incredible parade of costumes and evening dresses inspired by ballets.

Here, papier-mâché figurines vividly reproduce two centuries of changes in the ballerina’s aesthetic ideal: from undersized well-built dancers with corseted waists and sloping shoulders of the Romantic era to the modern cosmic proportions of long-legged, elongated “aliens”. And Tchaikovsky’s embroidered slippers from the house-museum in Klin will show the direct path to the giant screen, on which ten versions of the “Dance of the Little Swans” are spinning at once: everyone can set up their own personal swan paradise for themselves.