The Donetsk Theater brought “War and Peace” to life on the ballet stage

The ballet based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy became one of the best performances of the “Seeing the Music” festival

At the VIII Festival of Musical Theaters “Seeing Music”, held in Moscow, more than 40 performances from 30 theaters in the country have already been shown. One of the best was the ballet “War and Peace” of the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater named after A. B. Solovyanenko, the world premiere of which took place on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater.

It must be said that for the premiere in Moscow, the play was performed in Sevastopol and Simferopol back in August. This is the latest creation of the founder of the Kremlin Ballet, Andrei Petrov, and accordingly, Kremlin artists were supposed to be involved in it, and the ballet itself was conceived as a co-production of the Kremlin Ballet and the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater. And Andrei Petrov intended to show the premiere in the Kremlin Palace, on the stage of which, hopefully, the ballet will appear again.

Andrei Petrov did not live to see the premiere, but managed to finish the ballet in rough form. After his death, the project was brought to release by the artistic director of the Donetsk theater Vadim Pisarev and assistants Valery Ryzhov and Zhanna Bogoroditskaya who worked with Petrov. Only two premieres and a prima of the Kremlin were involved in the ballet. In a stalemate, the Mari Opera and Ballet Theater from Yoshkar-Ola came to the rescue, and the ballet was released as a co-production of three theaters at once. The main characters were danced by the premieres of the Kremlin Ballet: Ekaterina Pervushina, Daniil Roslanov, Mikhail Evgenov. The remaining roles and crowd scenes are occupied by artists from the Donetsk and Mari theaters.

The ballet “War and Peace” was created by Andrei Petrov to the music of Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, who was also the author of the music for the film of the same name by Sergei Bondarchuk. Some of the themes used in the film also appeared in the ballet. In Tolstoy’s novel there are more than 550 characters – fictional and historical. Petrov, of course, did not include everyone in his ballet, but in his libretto (together with Viktor Dobrosotsky) he skillfully isolated the action in such a way that the ballet contained meaningful episodes and main characters.

Petrov also introduces symbolic figures into his performance. One of the main ones, for example, is the image of War, with whose solo the ballet begins. Then he will repeatedly appear as the image of a crowned beauty tempting the emperor and pushing him to war with Russia, as a bloodthirsty image enjoying the suffering of the wounded and the sight of the dead, as a defeated image of an already former beauty, gloomily riding in the wagon train of the retreating Napoleon.

Petrov organically uses the techniques of drama ballet, skillfully combines dance and pantomime, contrasting scenes of peace (a ball in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer or scenes in the estate of Count Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova’s ball) and scenes of war with effectively constructed battle episodes. Numerous monologues, duets, adagios, alternating with crowd scenes, are built by the choreographer on the basis of classical vocabulary. The harmonious language of classical ballet is the main means of expression that he uses, although in scenes of folk festivities on the occasion of the victory of Russia, the choreographer also stylized Russian folk dances. Scenes of the people’s war, peasants and partisans are given a lot of space in the play.

Petrov is a master of creating duets, and the entire performance rests on them. This is the magnificent first waltz of Natasha Rostova and Prince Bolkonsky, who is in love with her, which became the final chord of the first act, and the last dying duet of Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha against the backdrop of Eternity. Floating scenery depicting space and the universe, fallen heroes and saints, was beautifully designed by the artist and constant co-author of Petrov’s latest works, Grigory Belov. The beautiful costumes created by Belov and Olga Polyanskaya also help you immerse yourself in the beginning of the 19th century.

Without the participation of the Kremlin Ballet artists, the performance would hardly have been as successful as it was on the Bolshoi stage. They were the ones who carried the main semantic and dance load and coped with it perfectly. Ekaterina Pervushina in the role of Natasha Rostova was organic and feminine. In a duet with her, Daniil Roslanov and Mikhail Evgenov showed their partner and artistic qualities. Mikhail Evgenov is so transformed into the slightly ridiculous and funny, but deep and sincere Pierre Bezukhov that it is impossible to recognize him.

Andrei Petrov’s latest project was realized only thanks to the dedicated work of the Donbass Opera artists, who organically blended into the performance, and their director Vadim Pisarev. Petrov created two versions of the performance, and one of them involves a complete adaptation of the ballet to the troupe of the Donetsk Theater without the participation of artists from other theaters. The confidence that the Donbass Opera dancers will successfully cope with Peter’s complex choreography is given by the duet of Donetsk artists Valery Vidmankin (Nikolai Rostov) and Victoria Gurbiy (Princess Maria). All the artists involved in the performance managed to feel and embody what Andrei Petrov put into the plan – to show on stage how thin and illusory the line between war and peace is, where love and hate, respect and contempt exist on equal terms, and most importantly, the highest patriotism.