Red Giselle by Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg April 27, 2008

Time: 2008/4/27-2008/4/28
Venue: The National Centre for the Performing Arts-Opera House
Price: 100/200/400/600/800/1000
MSN: [email protected]
Tel: 86-10-64177845

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Havingcreated over 40 ballets, Boris Eifman is one of the few Russianchoreographers to have sustained such a prolific creative life inrecent decades.
His ballet, “Tchaikovsky” (aswell as the leading cast members of “Tchaikovsky” and “The Karamazovs”)has received the prestigious Russian “Golden Mask” award, and thechoreographer himself has received the Golden Mask award for hislifetime achievement in contemporary choreography.
Mr. Eifman is also a four-time recipient of the St. Petersburg theater award, “The Golden Sofit.”
Hisother awards and distinctions include the “Triumph” award; the Russianstate award for his contribution to the development of the performingarts; induction into France’s Order of Arts and Letters; thedistinguished title of “The People’s Artist of Russia;” and aprofessorship at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet.

Eifmanhas a marvellous company of dancers to work with. They dance the pureRussian style, whose Eifman-evolved contemporary inflection seemsutterly natural to them. The principal dancers are stunningly good:Vera Arbuzova, Yuri Ananyan and Albert Galichanin would grace any stagein any capital of the world. Arbuzova seems to have been designed by ateam of dance deities specifically for existence as a ballerina;effortless and graceful in a long, taxing part, there is never a momentwhen she does not hold the audience's attention absolutely.

Story of Red Giselle

RedGiselle is the dance-told story of the ballerina Olga Spessivtseva(1895 - 1991). It is a moving tale of an artist whose genius at onetime made people say that she performed Giselle even better than didPavlova. After a glittering career, paralleled by a private life filledwith much emotional wretchedness, she became exiled to the United Statesby the threat and then the actuality of war in the late 1930s. In 1940she had a mental breakdown, and languished for many decades in anasylum, where no-one knew of her past. Not long before her death at theage of 96 she was found and moved to the Tolstoy Farm in ValleyCottage, New York, where she had a last moment of recognition and contenment.

Eifman'sretelling focuses on the point in Spessivtseva's career when theRevolution brought her into contact with a KGB agent with whom she hasa torrid and tortured affair, interfering with her development as adancer and in time forcing her to flee to Paris. There she again danced Giselle, but suffered homesickness and nightmares about her past in Russia,and also an unrequited love for her chief dance partner at the OperaGarnier. Eifman's aim is to recapitulate Spessivtseva's story byanalogy with Giselle's - its love, betrayal and madness being thecommon fate of both.

Twokinds of love are central to the story: the dark, brutal, sinisterobsession between the dancer and the KGB operative, in which she lieshelplessly in his emotional thrall, and the yearning, unconsummatablepassion of the dancer for her principal stage partner, in which shelies helplessly outside his ability to respond to her need for him,even though he pities her; for as the story expressly tells us, he isgay.

VeraArbuzova and the choreography of Boris Eifman are the stars of a pieceof dance theatre which, in its every essential - from the choice ofmusic to each member of a brilliant troupe - is unmissably good.

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