The premiere of “Brilliant divertissement” by the legendary choreographer Yakobson was shown in St. Petersburg

Yakobson’s work is one of the brightest peaks of choreographic thought of the past century, which determined the development of Russian and world ballet in the current century. Crystal-clear classics, folklore, grotesque – such is the palette used by the choreographer both in large works and in miniature. It was the miniatures that became the favorite and crowning Jacobson genre.

The theater continues to carefully and scrupulously restore the choreographic heritage of the choreographer.

“Our troupe bears the name of one of the greatest choreographers of all time. Preserving his ballets is not only our duty, but also an honorable mission. We carefully and gradually restore his compositions. This great work largely falls on our tutors, former soloists, on whom the master staged his masterpieces: Tatyana Kvasova, Valentina Klimova, Vera Solovyova, Nikolai Levitsky. Author’s miniatures by Yakobson can only be seen in the repertoire of our theater, and we are happy to show this St. Petersburg treasure on various stages of the world,” says the artistic director of the troupe, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Andrian Fadeev.

The program shown at the Alexandrinsky Theater consisted of three parts. The first two had the common name “Brilliant divertissement” and consisted of 11 miniatures by Yakobson, and the name was given to the last one, which Leonid Yakobson composed in 1973. The third part was also given to the recent premiere – “Mischievous Chastushkas”, staged at the Yakobson Theater by Slava Samodurov to the music of Rodion Shchedrin at the end of last year. The theater not only preserves the legacy of Jacobson and dances the sought-after classics of the 19th century. One of the main directions of his work is the creation of new modern choreography, and “Naughty Chastushkas” is an undoubted hit of the theater in this direction.

And in the first part, when the dancers tried to outdo each other with dashing and twisted unimaginably complex variations, and in the second, lining up like a “train” and increasing and increasing the pace of their dance, they threw such an incredible burst of energy into the auditorium that “carried” the audience out of their chairs. Vyacheslav Spilchesky, a young dancer of this group, who just three years ago graduated from the Perm school, was distinguished by a particularly crazy outburst of energy. What he did on stage is generally difficult to describe.

But the main premiere of the evening is the ballet “Brilliant Divertissement”, which celebrated its half-century anniversary this year. But it seems impossible to say that the ballet was created 50 years ago – its choreographic ideas are so modern and inventive. The 12-minute miniature staged for five pairs of soloists and one premier still captivates today with its unparalleled technical complexity. It seems that it has not been performed for so many years only because there was simply no one to overcome these technical obstacles and tricks. And these artists finally appeared.

Lightness, plasticity, musicality made Kirill Vychuzhanin’s dance exceptionally expressive. He struck with incredible technicality and his charisma. One can only imagine how another famous Jacobson’s Vestris number, once staged for Mikhail Baryshnikov, would have fallen on this dancer. They showed “Vestris” in this program performed by Dmitry Sobolev.

Vychuzhanin also stood out in the intricate Pas de trois to Rossini’s music in a variation with a diagonal of spectacular parterre splits – three splits in one direction, three in the other, creating an unexpected combination of movements. He effectively showed the same complex game in the Brilliant Divertissement.

The musical basis of this ballet was Glinka’s Brilliant Divertissement, one of the works created by the composer under the impression of a trip to Italy in the 1830s. Staying in Milan, he spent evenings at the La Scala theater, listening to Italian operas. In the “Brilliant divertissement” themes from Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” are easily guessed.

Before us is a ball. Five couples. Jeweled camisoles and dresses. Vychuzhanin in the role of a fidgeting butcher-manager, a kind of Figaro from Beaumarchais’s comedy. And judging by the costumes and choreography, the action takes place not at a ball in the era of the Sun King, as some sources say, but rather a century later at the court of Marie Antoinette.

The program of Leonid Yakobson’s miniatures “A Brilliant Divertimento” included not only the one-act ballet of the same name, created by the master, in particular, for the outstanding ballerina Alla Osipenko, but also choreographic sketches from the “Classicism – Romanticism” cycle. Jacobson found the miniature genre to be optimal for the realization of his ideas. These masterpieces combined the choreographer’s admiration for classical dance and overcoming its strict rules.

The Leonid Yakobson Ballet Theater has already restored some miniatures from the Classicism-Romanticism cycle. The program presented at the Alexandrinsky Theater also included Pas de quatre to the music of Bellini, who actually opened the program; and two Pas de deux – one perfectly danced by Polina Zaitseva and Andrey Sorokin to music by Mozart, the other – to the music of Rossini and Hertel in a wonderful performance by the same Sorokin and the temperamental Alena Grivnina. And the famous masterpiece of Jacobson “Flight of Taglioni” to the music of Mozart. In it, the choreographer shows a unique romantic ballerina of the 19th century (her part was performed by the same beautiful dancer Alena Grivnina, but in her fragile sylphic incarnation) hovering over the stage with the help of one visible (dressed in white tights and Denis Klimuk’s tunic) and four invisible in the dark (dressed in black) partners.

In this concerto, Jakobson counters Taglioni’s famous Kachucha with her eternal rival on the ballet Olympus, the complete opposite in dance – Fanny Elsler. The number was set to music by Pablo Sarasate and incendiary performed by Alexandra Korshunova. Here Jacobson is inspired not so much by an interpretation of an old Andalusian folk dance, but by a lithograph from the era of romanticism, depicting one of the brightest ballerinas of the 19th century. Before us is a dance-portrait of Elsler, another of several newly restored and presented in the new program of masterpieces.

Another revival is a miniature inspired by the aesthetics of the Middle Ages “Medieval dance with kisses” to the music of Sergei Prokofiev (Piano Sonata No. 8). Yakobson was fascinated by ancient dance, not only the one that we have already seen – of the 19th or 18th centuries. In his work there is also an exquisite stylization of medieval parties. The decoration of the performance here is not only the choreography, but also the luxurious costumes of seniors and ladies stylized under the era.

“The Swan” to the music of the famous play by Camille Saint-Saens, staged by Jacobson in 1972, is the famous “The Dying Swan” by Mikhail Fokine turned inside out, like a glove, created for Anna Pavlova. Such a “Dying”, or rather “undying swan”, as Jacobson’s number turned out, generally turns out to be “more alive than all living things”. Initially, Fokine’s number was also called “Swan”, but the first performer, under the influence of Konstantin Balmont’s popular poems at that time, describing a dying proud bird, introduced notes of tragedy into the miniature. Before us is the era of modernism – the silver age of Russian culture, Yakobson’s homage to his inspirer Mikhail Fokin, but at the same time a controversy with him. This is not a fragile bird resigned to its death, as in Fokin and Pavlova, but a wrestling swan in a black, and not in a white pack: rebellious, desperately resisting death. The performer of the part, Svetlana Svinko, emphasized the state of the freedom-loving bird with broken, angular lines.

Jacobson opened with this number an innumerable series of interpretations of Fokine’s popular masterpiece. What kind of “dying swans” we have not seen on the ballet stage! This number is danced even by men, having changed packs for flesh-colored swimming trunks. Jacobson did it first. His contemporaries saw in this sketch a self-portrait of the author, who desperately resisted with his ballets the bans that the Soviet authorities imposed on his work.