Backstage hunting – Newspaper Kommersant No. 242 (7443) dated 12/28/2022

An hour and a half documentary film “Big. Season” about the life of the main theater of the country, created by MTS Media with the support of the Ministry of Culture. The blissful parade of theater heroes – from a baritone novice to the general director – was hosted by Leila Guchmazova.

The film begins with the story of Cinderella, a baritone from Saratov, Andrei Potaturin, who sent his recording to the Bolshoi three years ago and ended up as a full-time soloist. He artlessly talks about his new reality to the camera: “This is the Bolshoi Theater, some kind of Hermitage. There are no ordinary people here, I only watched them on YouTube. Immediately, the wizened pro-concertmaster instructs this new Onegin before the duel: “What emotion are you giving me now? Make fun, otherwise you are kind, like a teddy bear. Onegin-Potaturin is really very similar to a bear. And he grumbles a little: “Auditions, lessons, master classes … the head stops processing, life is divided into before the theater and after.”

The film is interrupted by screensavers with the name of the seasons, premieres around the pandemic serve as a background. Director-producer Anastasia Popova, who is also the author of the script together with Marina Bandilenko, allows herself not to come up with concepts (let alone not stick to them) and simply admire the characters. The plot somehow takes off without reference to the star Svetlana Zakharova, and in response to her “I don’t serve, but work, I just sometimes work like a miner,” the artistic director of the ballet Makhar Vaziev responds: “She is the best classical ballerina in the world. I’ve seen them, she’s the best. If it were not for Zakharova today, the level at the Bolshoi Theater would be different. And look how she works hard.

The atmosphere is created by the prosaic everyday life of other hardworking – editors and seamstresses, pieces of rehearsals and scenes from performances, and the narrative wanders around the characters. The solemn face of CEO Vladimir Urin “for the press” changes to a preoccupied one when talking about talent and the competitive environment. The thesis is supported by the works and days of the Bolshoi Ballet. At the rehearsal of the “white” act of “Giselle”, thin and nervous Makhar Vaziev shouts: “We run faster, girls! Let’s run faster, I say! And although it is completely incomprehensible how he distinguishes Masha from Dasha in a homogeneous white-tunic mass, they get targeted for oblique feet. Vaziev talks about the rigidity of the criteria and the fear of missing out on talent, while debutant Margarita Schneider trembles: “I did not believe my luck. I understood that I would have to stand in the corps de ballet and wait for my turn. With the advent of Mahar Khasanovich, there was a sharp start. And for her speeches, the director mounts the chief’s cold shower: “I just can’t hear anymore“ I’m trying … But why the hell do I need your efforts, who needs them? You take it and get the result!”

Notes about the acidity of the competitive environment in the film are diluted by noteworthy prince Vladislav Lantratov, warmly speaking about the roles of his colleague Denis Savin: “I don’t understand how he does it and every time I admire his level of a dancer and a thinking person.” Out of breath, Savin on the move throws to the film crew that he will learn the text he likes, even if he doesn’t go on stage, and then shines as Leont in Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale, because really made parts not only do not disappear – they pull out the performance.

In general, the ballet in the film is presented more voluminously and looks more charming. The intelligent Boris Akimov suddenly lordly throws at his students: “Spin!” Without seeing the camera, the ballerina throws her leg somewhere up to the ceiling and just stands there, waiting for the elevator. The stern teacher trumpets: “You need to take your leg out!” And the tender creature, having footballed his socks in his hearts, falls to the floor. The camera only slows down the jump once, reminding you along the way that pas de chat means, literally, “cat’s step.”

Twice the camera becomes a reportage camera: a stunned Denis Savin is declared prime minister, and in the middle of the performance the ballerina “breaks down”; Igor Tsvirko, who had just “held” her on stage, rushes to the medical unit with a colleague at the same pace. However, these episodes are everyday, and the only plot that claims to be poignant went to the opera Mazeppa. It began with the director shelling our familiar debutant: “Andrey, put your brains together! It’s good that you remember the name of the play! Andryusha, smile, you are holding a girl in your hands! (And the good-natured Potaturin mumbles behind the scenes: “In the Bolshoi, I’m tempered!”) The beautiful mezzo Agunda Kulaeva with a half-smile assures that half of the director’s finds interfere with singing. And director Yevgeny Pisarev fights with conductor Tugan Sokhiev. Of course, they are not David Pountney and Yuri Temirkanov, who quarreled until the maestro refused to bow, but, thank God, the camera caught the conflict – otherwise the film would have turned out insipid.

Pisarev is angry that the maestro “thinks as taught in a textbook on musical literature”, and Sokhiev that the opera becomes a stage director, but his task, they say, is to convey the composer’s intention to the viewer. The conductor assures: “Tchaikovsky writes “tam-pam” here, ours are victorious,” and Pisarev: “On the contrary! We show not victory, but the horror of war.” And only a wise artist concludes that everything around must be charged with negative, positive, laughter and shouting in order for an explosion to occur and the supersubstance of the performance to be created. Did the film’s supersubstance turn out? It depends what he was born for. If for the first acquaintance with the theater, then, despite the strange distortions, completely. If to determine the specifics of the Bolshoi Theater – it is unlikely, because after it it seems that all theaters are happy and unhappy in the same way.