“Romeo and Juliet” was played on the ruins of Chersonese

Chersonese near Sevastopol suits Prokofiev’s music very well. And the sea, and the southern night sky above it, and the stars looking down into the Black Sea. With the ballet Romeo and Juliet, the Mikhailovsky Theater opened the 6th Opera and Ballet Festival in the Chersonese-Tavrichesky Reserve late Wednesday evening.

The stage complex, designed for one and a half thousand people, is mounted almost on the seashore. This is a huge cube with protective sides and a roof in case of weather surprises. To the uninitiated in the intricacies of archaeological work, its location seems very seductive: they say, if you have worked, you can go into the water. But it’s impossible – this is a protected area where excavations are underway and each stone breathes history, and a centimeter of the turf layer is worth its weight in gold. So, under each point of the stage complex (and this is the stage, the orchestra pit and the auditorium with stands), special linings were brought for a long time and carefully, and the stage was leveled by adjusting the support posts.

Five years ago in Khersones, in the scenery of centuries-old ruins, more precisely, elements restored and those in the process of restoration, the first festival of arts was held, which quickly gained credibility among the Crimeans.

Artists from NOVAT, the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters have already performed in the reserve: last year, the latter brought an opera gala concert and Alexei Ratmansky’s one-act ballet Concerto DSCH to music by Shostakovich. This time the guest of the cultural forum is another imperial theater – the Mikhailovsky – with its ballet masterpiece “Romeo and Juliet” staged by Nacho Duato.

Ballet landing from St. Petersburg to Chersonesos – under two hundred people: artists, orchestra, staged part. True, there is no main thing – Vladimir Kekhman: he is in Moscow, has gone headlong into the repair of the Doronin Moscow Art Theater and is preparing to show us something in November. Summer is on the way, so it’s not long to wait. And in Chersonese even without him, Mikhailovsky’s theatrical machine works without failures – everyone was brought on time (they got to Sevastopol by train), in a day and one night Romeo and Juliet was adapted to new stage conditions, and only the production part, led by Olga Alymova, knows what it cost her.

For “the saddest story in the world”, the organizers of the festival also had to increase the height of the stage by five meters, and this is for the sake of a single picture – the wedding of young lovers in front of the cross. On the other hand, the new height of 10.5 meters made it possible to mirror the historical stage of the Mikhailovsky Theater and use the laconic but very expressive scenery by Iraqi artist Jaffar Chalobi without loss. Although it was not without problems.

And here’s the dress rehearsal. Among those invited, I see children aged 9-11, and from their straight backs, smoothly combed heads with small buns, it is easy to understand that they are students of a choreographic school opened in Sevastopol three years ago. They are, in fact, the first set of this school. The very next day after the first performance, they arranged a meeting with Romeo and Juliet. That is, with the artists who brilliantly danced the title roles – Viktor Lebedev and Anastasia Soboleva. There were a lot of questions, and the main ones were not about ballet – about love: how did they meet, when they got married …

“We met in Moscow at a ballet competition when Nastya fell,” Viktor Lebedev told the future ballet dancers. – I felt sorry for the girl, I gave her a frost. Well, since then…

Since then, the ballet couple has been counting down their happiness – professional and personal, although the family formed when Nastya Soboleva, a graduate of the Moscow Choreographic School, who also turned out to be a gifted dramatic actress, moved from the Bolshoi Theater to the Mikhailovsky troupe. Perhaps this is the most beautiful couple in our ballet. It is probably easier for happy people to dance love, even if it is the most tragic. (Ernest Latypov and Valeria Zapasnikova are dancing in line with them in Chersonese.)

“The best ballet score of the 20th century” is the name given to the music of Sergei Prokofiev, which was far ahead of its time. Today it is hard to imagine that in 1936 the Bolshoi Theater, with which the creators of the ballet had signed a contract, refused to stage the production, among other reasons, because of “non-dance” music. And the premiere of the not yet recognized Soviet masterpiece took place in the Czech Republic, in Brno, in December 1938 (choreographer Ivo Psot). And only two years later, “Romeo and Juliet” was honored to enter the Soviet stage – the Kirov (now the Mariinsky) Theater. But even there, the artists did not like the music either, and with their light hand a joke walked around the theater: “There is no sadder story in the world than Prokofiev’s music in ballet.” And now it is a masterpiece – both as a score by the great composer of the 20th century, and as a production by the choreographer Nacho Duato in the 21st century. Behind the conductor’s stand is the chief conductor of the Mikhailovsky Theater Alexander Solovyov.

For Nacho Duato, who staged the ballet ten years ago, the story of young lovers has always been associated with Italy, with the spirit of the Mediterranean. And for him, as the choreographer has said more than once, it consists of sunlight, the proximity of the sea, the smells of oranges and jasmine. “The dramatic dynamics of events spill over the streets and squares of the Italian city, and it is important for me to combine the legendary love story and the aura in which it unfolds.”

Something, but the aura that the choreographer dreamed about is more than enough in Chersonese. To the left of the stage, the sea roars, to the right one can see a partially restored ancient wall, and on a hill there is a temple. And on stage – tender impetuous love and enmity that killed her in the bewitching choreography of Nacho Duato, tough in its graphic quality, but imperceptibly turning into watercolor fluidity. The orchestra sounds voluminous, the sound is clear. The work of everyone is visible on the stage, regardless of the volume of the role, whether it is in the foreground or in an ensemble.

The first performance ends triumphantly – the audience rises, encores. Sailors in summer uniforms carry flowers in a basket from the governor. The tension of the first show is gone. But Olga Alymova, director of the artistic and production part, knows that you can’t relax.

“At the rehearsal, when a light wind blew from the sea, the thinnest white fabric with the coat of arms of the Capulet family, which descends from above after the first picture across the entire mirror of the stage, was thrown onto the winch chains and tore,” Olga Alymova told me during the intermission. – I had to sew. And this is one of the most beautiful moments of the performance. Among ourselves, we call it the “white reset”, it consists, as it were, of four sails. But in conditions of changeable sea weather, these sails behave unpredictably. The first performance has passed, and for me there will be four more quests with this “white reset”. Moreover, they promise a storm warning, which means that every day we will have a new performance.

Already on Sunday, “Romeo and Juliet” from St. Petersburg will be replaced by “Matrosskaya Tishina” from Moscow. “Snuffbox” by Vladimir Mashkov is preparing to leave.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28840 dated August 5, 2022

Newspaper headline:
Shakespeare, Prokofiev, Crimea