Yakobson Ballet Theater

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

The distant year 1966 was marked by such a bright event in Russian ballet art and cultural life as the creation of a unique, and one of a kind, ballet theater - now the St. Petersburg State Ballet Theater. L. Jacobson. For the first time in the history of theatrical art, the ballet troupe separated itself from the opera company and still exists.

From the history of the theater

People's Artist of the USSR Pyotr Gusev headed the ballet troupe for the first three years, after which the theater was headed by the Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR, the outstanding choreographer Leonid Yakobson. Much has changed with his arrival: the composition of the troupe was updated, and the team received a new name. The Jacobson Ballet Theater began to bear the name "Choreographic Miniatures" and was located in a low and small room on the ground floor. The troupe consisted mainly of visiting artists, unknown to the public and trained in ballet art far from the best schools in the country.

Fateartist

While following his creative path, Jacobson always felt opposition and rejection from the authorities. Having invested his whole life in the idea, he did not stop trying to prove that in addition to classical ballet with its approved canons and norms, there are other forms of expression of expressive art. Proponents of academism feared that Yakobson's free-thinking and innovative approach could undermine the classical foundations that had developed over the years, and therefore all his activities took place against the backdrop of an invariable struggle, despite the full recognition from the audience and the love of the artists. Opponents of his work could not allow his free fantasy to penetrate and take root in classical ballet.

Yakobson long cherished hopes of going on tour: he wanted to present his works to the world, but these plans were not destined to come true for a long time. Existing in the Soviet Union under the yoke of the authorities, Yakobson's ballet got the opportunity to cross the border of the RSFSR only years later, and even then only for a trip to one of the union republics. A contemporary of George Balanchine, Jacobson was no less brilliant than he, and perhaps even more, because, unlike Balanchine, he lived and worked despite many circumstances that darkened his creative path.

The birth of masterpieces

The work, which took place in conditions of ongoing conflicts with officials and disputes with commissions for the right to show performances, was unbearable for such a brilliant artist as Yakobson was. The ballet he created was truly unique. Jacobson often improvised while working. Subtly feeling the music, he easily embodied in movement every musical phrase that came out from the pen of any composer. For him, there were no closed, inaccessible topics and works that he could not take on and that he could not present in his dance sketches. He sincerely loved his creations and always created them for a specific performer, taking into account his individuality and thus revealing the abyss of talent even in the most ordinary dancers who did not go through a classical school. His choreography was able to turn the performers of musical pictures into the stars of the stage, whose success could not be repeated even by the most experienced ballet dancers. Jacobson was always demanding of himself and his performers, not understanding, and not allowing any indulgence or work not with full dedication and diligence.

Ballet as a form of embodiment of life

Jacobson's ballet had its own unique features. For example, his choreography implied a movement to each new musical sound, which required considerable work and skill from the artists, who were forced to react unusually quickly to a change in melody and maintain a fast pace of dance. Jacobson thought over every gesture and pose of the dancer with extraordinary care, sculpting his paintings right on the stage during rehearsals and breathing life into them, which his followers still cannot duly repeat. One of the best productions of Jacobson can be attributed to such works as "Weddingmotorcade", "Rodin", "Spartacus", "Bug".

Continuity

After the death of the maestro, in 1976, Yakobson's ballet was taken over by Askold Makarov, People's Artist of the USSR, laureate of the USSR State Prize. Before, it was one of the artists who performed the main heroic parts in Jacobson's miniatures. For more than twenty years, Makarov headed the ballet troupe, preserving the traditions and memory of his outstanding predecessor, but it was during this period of time that the theater's repertoire was revived with the first classical productions: Swan Lake and Giselle. The artistic director of Yakobson's ballet subsequently changed twice more: in 2001, it was Yuri Petukhov, and since 2011, Andrian Fadeev. The ideological orientation of Yakobson's ballet has changed significantly by now. Now the theater has three goals in front of it, which was not during the life of its founder and inspirer, and these goals are to maintain the artistic heritage of Yakobson, expand the troupe's repertoire and harmoniously introduce them to classical ballet.

Appeal to the classics

The well-known masterpieces of academic ballet are now not left without attention in the Jacobson Theater. The ballet "Swan Lake", popular all over the world, has become a real gem in a number of productions of the troupe. The premiere of the new performance took place in June 2015. Vyacheslav Okunev, a talented theater designer, worked on a new bright stage design. Giving backtribute to the Russian classical ballet art, the troupe took on this work, presenting it in a version close to the original: the ballet is set to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and it also retains the choreography of Marius Petipa, but there is a share of that innovation that has always been characteristic of Yakobson's ballet. "Swan Lake" is an updated version of an academic work.

Best productions in theater history

Inspired by the sculptures of Rodin, Jacobson created many choreographic paintings, such as "The Minotaur and the Nymph", "The Eternal Idol", "The Kiss", "Despair", "Paolo and Francesca", "Eternal Spring", and some of they were subsequently severely attacked by Soviet censorship. The maestro and his artists literally had to ask permission to show their numbers. Jacobson's genre miniatures are imbued with special liveliness and expressiveness: "Snow Maiden", "Village Don Juan", "Viennese W altz", "Baba Yaga" - this list can be continued further, because it was filled with the inexhaustible imagination of a brilliant artist.

Jacobson's "Swan" deserves special mention - a musical miniature composed by him based on the motive of the famous work by Camille Saint-Saens. In it, a ballerina dressed in black appears as a swan, performing her part in a very unusual way.