Classical Ballet Evening of one-act ballets: Sasha Waltz "Sacre". Vaslav Nijinsky "Le Sacre du printemps". Musiс by Igor Stravinsky World famous Mariinsky Ballet and Opera - Mariinsky II (New Theatre)
Schedule for Evening of one-act ballets: Sasha Waltz "Sacre". Vaslav Nijinsky "Le Sacre du printemps". Musiс by Igor Stravinsky 2022
Composer: Igor Stravinsky Costume Designer: Tatiana Noginova Musical Director: Maestro Valery Gergiev Choreography: Vaslav Nijinsky Lighting Designer: Vladimir Lukin Choreography: Sasha Waltz Lighting Designer: Thilo Reuther
Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
Classical Ballet in 2 acts
Sasha Waltz
"Sacre"
Music by Igor Stravinsky Musical Director:
Valery Gergiev Choreographer: Sasha Waltz Costume Designer: Bernd
Skodzig Stage Designers: Pia Maier Schriever, Sasha Waltz Lighting
Designer: Thilo Reuther Assistant Choreographers: Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio
Esnaola, Luc Dunberry, Antonio Ruz and Yael Schnell
The history behind Le Sacre du printemps is the story of a
challenge. Stravinsky’s music, which totally transformed views of composition
technique and proved to be a breakthrough to new possibilities in music, was a
challenge to the entire world’s professional experience. Nijinsky’s choreography
with its approach to movement, its lack of correlation about the traditional
ballet image of what is expressed and depicted heralded a new stage in the
development of dance. The choreographer was drawn by the nature of ritual, the
force of feeling the coming of spring and the terror of the insoluble and secret
universe – the comprehension of the not so much externally formal components as
the energetic message of the event. The rejection of the typical beauty of
ballet was a challenge to refined audiences and the aestheticism of the World of
Art. Since the premiere on 30 May 1913, when the audience was not ready for such
a huge leap forwards, this challenge has remained an integral part of people’s
ideas about Le Sacre du printemps. Each subsequent dance version of the score
has been connected with the expectation of radical innovation. And the most
significant of some two hundred dance versions of Le Sacrehave provided
revelations. Le Sacre du printemps proved to be a driving force in dance in the
20th century. For any choreographer of the 21st century creating their own
Sacre, the importance of the great productions of their predecessors and their
significance on the world scale makes citations all but inevitable. Sasha
Waltz’s production also includes numerous references to masterpieces of the
past. In creating her own version in the year of the work’s centenary, Waltz did
not abandon the recognisable steps and leaps of the characters in Nijinsky’s
ritualistic plot, seemingly so ridiculous to audiences in the early 20th
century. In her Sacre one can also see recollections of Pina Bausch’s cult
production – earth scattered on the stage and the striking dress in which the
victim is “marked out”. Sasha Waltz, in using brief reminiscent symbols that
remind us of themes touched on in earlier productions, has created her own story
within the context of the ideas of those who came before her. Her story is
about human society. From the initial and serene harmony of Adam and Eve it
comes to chaos and the necessity of a victim. And the mound of earth in the
centre of the stage in the first scene is a kind of embodiment of nature,
inherent harmony which will be trampled upon. On the other hand, this mound of
earth is a reminder of the inevitability of sacrifice and death, as the
sacrificial stake or the sword is slowly lowered over them during the
performance – a sacrificial emblem. Waltz does not separate any of society’s
worries or aggressions. The performers in her production depict various social
groups: couples, families, mankind in general. But that doesn’t bring harmony,
it doesn’t stop the cruelty. The women who carry the thread of life, as if
sensing the power that nature has given them, come together – here we see the
motif of the battle of the sexes. Whatever society anyone may belong to
resistance is inherent in human society’s forms, and independent of how society
is structured there are inevitable and powerful shocks that Sasha Waltz
expresses in movement: an organised mass that repeats one and the same movement
in monotones, “expresses” and disperses in the chaos of individuals’ movements.
The cataclysms that are experienced bring suffering to all – including children
(Waltz includes some children in her narrative). In order to save and cure
society a sacrifice must be made. Waltz heard anxiety in Stravinsky’s rhythm
and in her reading of the score of Le Sacre, following the cyclical nature of
the music, she supercharges this anxiety with the composition and graphic
position of the ensemble (the crowd is the main character in her production),
the kaleidoscopic changes of distinct geometric structures against the
background of the confusing chaos of worry, there is anxiety and there are
nervous “sparks” in the movements. Just like Pina Bausch, the German Sasha Waltz
depicts numerous accidental victims of aggression. She does not justify society.
Yet her production of Le Sacre, as with Stravinsky and as Nijinsky
conceived, remains a spring of hope for revival. This is not the optimism of
Béjart’s Sacre with its hymn of love and belief in the power of unity. There is
a victim who dies in the finale of Waltz’ version. She is not a chance victim of
nature – she is sought out and pitied. She is one of that society and turns out
to be resistant to it – she is the individual facing the masses. Her final
monologue is a powerful energetic explosion which brings hope with the sheer
power of its temper. All of the incandescent energy built up throughout the plot
bursts out in this “final word”, and its power is bewitching, bringing us – if
not to catharsis – to amazement at the power Sasha Waltz has managed to recreate
on the stage. Olga Makarova
Premiere of the ballet with choreography by Sasha Waltz: 13 May
2013, Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg
Running time: 40 minutes
Basically I focus on ancient rituals and the wisdom and the
knowledge of wise men, as well as the history of the matriarch. I am also very
interested in society’s relationship with nature. I always take a long time with
any new production, the concept “hovers” around me but I never start to work
until I have a very clear idea. In this production I want to speak about the
relationship between society and the individual and how they interact in
specific situations – such as having one person forced to sacrifice herself so
that society can continue to exist. Rituals are also very cyclical – they
celebrate the return of the cycle of nature and the universe, the stars… This is
very important to me – you have, on one hand, the ritual, the cycle, nature, but
also the relationships within the group – the community or society – and the
individual. On the one hand I wanted to emphasise the music and, on the other, I
didn’t want to yield to it. The music itself is incredibly powerful, so I needed
to keep my “universe” independent so that it can stand alone. That’s how you get
a dialogue – not just following the music. In my productions everything is free
– both the dance and the music. They are two very independent art forms and they
should not be enslaved to each other.
Sasha Waltz
The century-long life of Stravinsky’s ballet has resulted in
the polyphonic quality of the ideas it contains. But the animalistic nature, the
frenzy and the passion which those who interpret Le Sacre du printemps have
generally been fed is not what attracts Waltz. She looks at Stravinsky’s score
with the interest and detachment of a professional biologist, and it is not just
the case that you have to look at her production – you want to look at it as
well, making sense of the constructions which are not always clear.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Sasha Waltz’ production even amazes to start with because of
its asceticism. There is the black box of the stage without wings. In the middle
there is a great heap of cinders – the dancers run and jump through it and over
it, raising clouds of dust. The main conflict in Sasha Waltz’ Sacre is a group
of people against an individual. There is also, of course, the theme of nature
awakening – a nature that is evil and violent, aggressive and
defenceless.
Kommersant
Vaslav Nijinsky "Le
Sacre du printemps"
Musiс by Igor Stravinsky Scene plan: Igor Stravinsky and
Nicholas Roerich Choreography by Millicent Hodson (1987) inspired by Vaslav
Nijinsky (1913) Décor and costumes after Nicholas Roerich Revival of the
sets and costumes and supervision – Kenneth Archer (Revived sets and
costumes © 1987 Kenneth Archer) Set Revival Designer – Boris Kaminsky
Costume Revival Technologist – Tatiana Noginova Lighting Designer –
Sergei Lukin
World premiere of the ballet choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky: 29
May 1913, Les Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghilev, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,
Paris Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre: 9 June 2003 Premiere of the
revival: 13 July 2012
Running time 40 minutes
”I came up with the idea for Le
Sacre du printemps while I was still composing The Firebird. I pictured a scene
of some pagan rite in which a girl who was to be the sacrifice dances herself to
death. But this vision came with no specific musical idea at all <…>. I
told Diaghilev of Le Sacre du printemps even before he came to see me in
Lausanne in late 1910 <…>. In July 1911, after the premiere of Pétrouchka,
I travelled to the estate of Princess Tenisheva near Smolensk in order to meet
Nicholas Roerich there and compile a stage plan for Le Sacre du printemps. I
began to work with Roerich and in a few days’ time the plan of the action
onstage and the names of the dances had been worked out. Roerich also made
sketches of his famous backdrops, Polovtsian in spirit, as well as sketches for
the costumes based on actual examples in the collection of Princess Tenisheva.
Apropos, our ballet was called Sacred Spring in Russian. Le Sacre du printemps
which Bakst came up with is only suitable for French. In English, the title The
Coronation of Spring was closer to my original idea than The Rite of
Spring. <…> I made haste to complete Le Sacre as I wanted Diaghilev to
stage it in the 1912 season. <…> The fact that the premiere of Le Sacre du
printemps was surrounded by scandal is a fact probably known by everyone now.
Although, however strange it may seem, I myself was totally unprepared for such
an explosion of passions. The reaction of the musicians to orchestral rehearsals
had not foretold this, while the plot unfolding on the stage didn’t really seem
to justify causing such a riot. The ballet dancers had rehearsed for months and
knew what they were doing, although what they were doing often had nothing in
common with the music. “I will count to forty; in the meantime you can play,”
Nijinsky said to me, “and we’ll see where we become separated.” He couldn’t
understand that if, indeed, we became separated in one particular instance it
didn’t mean that the rest of the time we had been together. The dancers chose to
follow the counts that Nijinsky beat out rather than the musical tempo.
Nijinsky, of course, counted in Russian, and in as much as in Russian numbers
after ten are made up of numerous syllables – vosemnadtsat (eighteen), for
example – at a fast tempo neither he nor the dancers could follow the
music.
After 1913 I saw only one stage production of Le Sacre du
printemps – that was Diaghilev’s revival in 1920. Then the accord between the
music and the dance was better than in 1913, but Massine’s choreography was too
gymnastic and in the style of Dalcroze for meto like it. It was then that I
understood that I preferred Le Sacre du printemps to be performed in concert.
Twice I reworked a few sections from Le Sacre du printemps – in 1921 for
Diaghilev’s production and then in 1943 (only The Great Sacrificial Dance) for a
performance (which never took place) by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. <…>
But I could rework my own music endlessly <…>. When composing Le Sacre du
printemps I was led by no specific system. <…> It was only my sense of
sound that helped me. I heard and wrote down only what I heard. I was the vessel
through which Le Sacre du printemps passed.”
Schedule for Evening of one-act ballets: Sasha Waltz "Sacre". Vaslav Nijinsky "Le Sacre du printemps". Musiс by Igor Stravinsky 2022
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