History of Russian ballet: emergence and progress

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The roots of Russian ballet, like any art form, lie in dance folklore. Most likely, these were cult (all kinds of round dances) and game dances (“Dance”, “Kuma, where were you”, etc.) dances. Russian ballet has not only preserved all the aesthetic canons, but has also become a trendsetter in the world of ballet.

Origins

In Kievan Rus at the turn of the 8th-9th centuries, the first dancers began to appear, professionals in their field - buffoons … After a while, when Moscow became the capital, buffoons were no longer necessarily men.

In the 15th-16th centuries, the merry spectacles of mummers with faces hidden by masks, the so-called "mashkars", amazed and surprised visiting foreigners.

In the 17th century, the history of Russian ballet was marked by the opening of the Kremlin Theater in the Poteshny Palace. According to the established tradition, each performance in this theater has always ended with inter-seasons (special ballet performances). These so-called entrées were performed by men dressed in pompous robes. Actors showedseveral elements of ballroom dancing.

Royal fun

The first full-scale ballet performance in Russia is considered to be a performance staged on February 8, 1673. This significant event took place at the court of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and it was called "The Ballet of Orpheus and Eurydice." The history of the emergence of Russian ballet describes it as a change of ceremonial poses, slow dances, bows and transitions. Between them, the actors uttered memorized words or sang. All this was a little like a real theatrical performance. It was only royal fun, enticing with its obscurity.

Meanwhile, I. Gregory, the organizer of the theater, invites Nicola Lima to organize training courses in theatrical skills for the royal theater. At first, 10 children of noble philistines, then 20, successfully completed training and showed the French-style ballet production of "Orpheus" to the tsar.

The task has been set

Only after a quarter of a century, Peter I, having set out to reform the cultural life of Russia, brings music and dance into the life of Russian society. He decides to instill art in the elite layers of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg. To do this, Peter I closes the Moscow theater of Alexei Mikhailovich and issues a revolutionary decree. This decree on assemblies obliged all state institutions to teach ballroom dancing without fail. These reforms made the position of dance master unattainably high. It is to these assemblies that ballet owes its appearance in ballet dance movements that came from abroad,innovations in the form of elements from national Slavic dances.

Author V. Krasovskaya (“History of Russian Ballet” - L. Art, 1978) believes that thanks to the energy and peremptory nature of Peter I, performances of ballet troupes, musicians and opera artists invited from abroad.

At the beginning of 1738, a school of ballet art was organized in the country, which, in fact, became the first. The history of Russian ballet briefly tells about this period. Graduates of the school worked in ballet groups of foreign theaters as the so-called figurants (actors of the corps de ballet). And only much later they were admitted to the main parties.

First vocational training

Cradle of modern ballet historians consider the land gentry corps. The famous Jean-Baptiste Lande worked in it, who staged three court ballet performances with his students. As the history of Russian ballet shows, they were practically the first ballet performances that complied with all the laws and regulations of the Royal Academy of Dances in the capital of France.

The cadets of the gentry corps took part in an academic, lyrical, semi-characteristic and at the same time comic ballet performance by the Fessano troupe from Italy.

Elizabeth I, in order not to lose trained ballet dancers, opens Her Majesty's Own Dance School, the first enrollment of which were 12 children of commoners.

And by the end1742, the Empress signed a decree ordering the establishment of a ballet troupe of Russian dancers. It was in it that the first Russian stars lit up - professional ballet dancers: Aksinya Baskakova and Afanasy Toporkov.

Breaking the impasse

The death of Baptiste Lande brings confusion to the choreographic business in the country. The performances led by Fessano become monotonous and boring burlesques. The audience is not attracted to such performances.

The history of Russian ballet briefly describes that period. At this time, and in Europe there is a question about the reform of the choreographic business. Rousseau and Saint-Mar demand that ballet dancers get rid of their pompous clothes and masks with wigs. Diderot strongly recommends changing the storylines of ballet performances. Meanwhile, John Weaver puts on a dance performance with a well-thought-out plot without waiting for the general changes, and Georges Nover writes the legendary Letters on the Dance.

Russian ballet is not far behind. The appearance of Franz Anton Christoph Hilferding is proof of this. This Austrian specialist consolidated plot choreographic productions in St. Petersburg. In Paris, story ballet performances appeared only 15 years later. Hilferding was assisted by Leopold Paradiso. By the 1850s they were creating independent ballets.

Beginning of drama performances

The first drama in Russian ballet belongs to A. P. Sumarokov. He promoted laudatory dance performances, composed the literary basis for the ballet performances "Refuge of Virtue" and "New Laurels".

Gasparo Angiolini,the choreographer invited by the tsar, intensifying the brightness of folk song Slavic notes, puts on the ballet performance "Fun in Christmas time." Catherine II greatly praised the performance. In 1779, the full Legislative Commission approved the ballet, the music for which was written on the basis of Slavic folklore.

After such a colossal success, Angiolini moved on to entertaining theatrical productions that satirized the topic of the day. These were panegyrics that made a splash: “Triumphant Russia” (the defeat of the Turkish army at Cahul and Larga was praised), “New Argonauts” (a glorious ode to the fleet of the Russian Empire) and “Victory Reasoning” (the question of the need for vaccination against rampant smallpox was raised, which was of concern to everyone).

A little earlier, the first heroic ballet performance of "Semir" was staged. From that moment on, choreographers began to pay great attention to the expressiveness of ballet dance. For the dancers can simultaneously be busy in amusing opera performances of non-state theaters, and in pseudo-Russian opera shows, the libretto for which was composed by the Empress herself.

By the new year 1778 in St. Petersburg (as the history of Russian ballet shows, books vividly describe this unique event) there are already two theaters waiting for the audience: the commercial “Free Theater” and the court one.

The first fortress collectives

In the second half of the 18th century, mastering the art of dancing came into fashion. And already at the beginning of 1773, under the tutelage of Leopold Paradis, the first training center was opened in the capital on the basis of the Orphanage, which later becamefirst public theatre. There were 60 children in the first set. Y. Bakhrushin tells about the first choreographic performances staged by the famous Cosimo Maddox in his books.

The history of Russian ballet, studied and described by him in great detail, fully reveals this period of dance art. Medox, with a team of young Russian-trained dancers, staged comic operas, choreographic productions dedicated to real events (for example, The Capture of Ochakov), and divertissement shows.

Against this background, the serf theater began to develop rapidly. In the last decade of the 18th century, large groups of serf actors were already well known. Zorich, Golovkina, Apraksin, Sheremetyev, Potemkin and other landowners had such collectives.

The same period was marked by the development and staging of the technique of female dance and stage decoration for the performance. A new tradition is emerging to concretize the place of action on the stage, to paint scenery in a realistic style, to use the play of penumbra and light.

The triumph of Russian ballet

The history of Russian ballet in the 19th and 20th centuries is rich and varied. By the beginning of the 19th century, the art of ballet reaches that maturity that is appreciated by the viewer. Russian ballerinas bring airiness, nobility and expressiveness to the choreography. This is very aptly noticed by A. S. Pushkin, describing the beauty of the dance movements of his contemporary, the star of the ballet scene, Istomina: “a flight of the soul” (the phrase has become synonymous with ballet). Her facial expressions and perfection of dance movements causedDelight. Most of the audience went to see Avdotya Istomina.

No less beautiful were Anastasia Lihutina, Ekaterina Teleshova, Maria Danilova.

Ballet performances are gaining popularity. Ballet dance, as an art, becomes privileged, and government subsidies are allocated for it.

By the 60s of the last century, the cultural beau monde was embraced by the newfangled trend of "realism". A crisis is coming to the Russian theater. With regards to choreographic productions, it was expressed in the primitivism of the storyline, which adjusted to a certain dance. Ballerinas who have reached perfection are invited to dance in realistic productions.

The history of the creation of Russian ballet is entering a new round. The revival began with Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who was the first to write music for a choreographic production. For the first time in the history of ballet, music has become as important as dance. And even found herself on a par with opera music and symphonic compositions. If before Tchaikovsky music was written to dance elements, now the ballet actor sought to convey the musical mood and emotion with plasticity, movement and grace, which helped the viewer to unravel the plot, transcribed by the composer into notes. The world still marvels at the famous Swan Lake.

Choreographer A. Gorsky brought elements of modern direction to the productions, began to pay great attention to the artistic framing of the stage, believing that the viewer should be completely immersed in what is happening on the stage. He forbade the use of elements of pantomime. M. Fokin radically turned the tide. He revived the romantic ballet and made the body language in the dance understandable and speaking. According to Fokin, each stage performance should be unique. That is, the musical accompaniment, style and dance pattern should be inherent only to a specific performance. In the early years of the 20th century, his productions of Egyptian Nights, The Dying Swan, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Acis and Galatea, and others were filmed to full houses.

In 1908, Diaghilev S. P. invited Fokine to become the chief director of the Parisian "Russian Seasons". Thanks to this invitation, Fokin becomes world famous. And Russian ballet dancers began to perform annually in triumph in the French capital. The history of Russian ballet glorifies the dancers of the Russian troupe, whose names are known to the whole world: Adolf Bolm, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Vaclav Nijinsky and others. And this is during the decline of European ballet!

Dyagilev took a chance and won. He gathered a troupe of young and talented ballet actors and gave them free rein. He allowed me to act outside the known framework, which was set by the famous, but already quite elderly Petipa.

Freedom of action gave the dancers the opportunity to discover and express themselves. In addition to these revolutionary innovations, Diaghilev attracted to the decoration of his most famous contemporaries artists (J. Cocteau, A. Derain, P. Picasso) and composers (C. Debussy, M. Ravel, I. Stravinsky). Now every ballet performance has becomemasterpiece.

After the October Revolution, many dancers and choreographers left rebellious Russia. But the backbone remained. Gradually, Russian ballet becomes closer to the people. The pages of formative history have seen a lot…

After the middle of the 20th century, a new generation of dancers and choreographers brought back forgotten dance miniatures, symphonies and one-act ballets to the stage. The number of studios and theaters began to grow steadily.

"Triumphant", ballerina, ballet critic

The famous Russian dancer Vera Mikhailovna Krasovskaya was born back in the Russian Empire on September 11, 1915. After high school, she entered and in 1933 successfully graduated from the Leningrad Choreographic School. She studied with the famous Vaganova Agrippina. From that time until 1941, Krasovskaya served in the Theater. Kirov. She is engaged in ballets of the academic repertoire.

In 1951, Vera Mikhailovna graduated from the graduate school of the Theater Institute. A. Ostrovsky, after basic education at the Faculty of Theater Studies.

The school of professionalism Krasovskaya received first in the class of Agrippina Vaganova, then in the ballet productions of the Mariinsky Theatre, together with the baggage of knowledge of an encyclopedic scale, aristocracy, cultural traditions and an amazing command of languages (French and English), allowed her to become brilliant and uniquely the largest ballet art critic.

In 1998, good news spread throughout the theater world. Vera Mikhailovna Krasovskaya received the Triumph Prize. The history of Russian ballet, which she told inbooks (some of them translated into foreign languages) and articles (more than 300) as an art historian and critic, made Vera Mikhailovna a laureate of the free Russian Triumph Prize. This award recognizes excellence in the arts and literature.

In 1999 Vera Mikhailovna Krasovskaya passed away.

Epilogue

The history of Russian ballet gratefully preserves the names of masters of dance art who have made a colossal contribution to the formation of Russian choreography. These are the well-known Sh. Didlo, M. Petipa, A. Saint-Leon, S. Diaghilev, M. Fomin and many others. And the talent of Russian artists attracted and today attracts a huge number of viewers in different countries of the world.

To this day, Russian ballet companies are considered the best in the world.