Sergei Vikharev and Olga Likhovskaya in the sexually aggressive ballet "Leda and the Swan" (Large jpg - 28K)
A controversial ballet that flies in the face of the Kirov Ballet Company's classical style will be performed with the Kirov's dancers on Thursday, July 13 in the Hermitage Theater.
"Leda and the Swan," a one-act ballet which interprets the emotions of aggression, severity and coldness, brings together leading dancers from the Kirov school and young avant-garde artists from the alternative culture -- two groups who have long regarded each other with skepticism.
The ballet is a mark of disobedience with regard to the Kirov's style, but its producers stress that it is a purely private venture not organized by the Kirov itself.
The ballet is based on the classical Greek myth of the birth of Helen, symbol of beauty. The supreme god, Zeus, turns into a swan in order to possess Leda, wife of the Spartan king Tsindarius. Their encounter gives the world the birth of beauty.
An obsession with the concept of beauty -- particularly apt in St Petersburg, with its magnificent classical buildings -- spurred Kirov Ballet soloists Sergei Vikharev and Olga Likhovskaya, artist Bella Matveyeva and costume designer Kostya Goncharov to produce the ballet.
The initial shock one gets from the stunning images in the paintings, costumes and dance is replaced as the ballet develops by a sense of severity of movement and aggression of the events taking place. Beyond the beauty lies the coldness, detachment and self-sufficiency of Leda and the swan.
Sergei Vikharev said, "Zeus was a warring god. His love for Leda resulted in Helen, the cause of the Trojan War and of discord among the gods on Mount Olympus. The ballet "Leda and the Swan" presents a contemporary view of this ancient myth, conveying a modern sense of life in which everything is permeated with severity, coldness and aggression."
Vikharev believes that many dancers are on tenter-hooks and could lose their positions at the Kirov at any moment since the arrival of new faces in the theater's administration, but he says we should not expect any new productions.
"The Kirov Theater has ceased to be a national theater, due on the one hand to economic problems and on the other because it is too conservative and busy to notice what is going on around it in the St Petersburg contemporary arts world."
Vikharev added, "St Petersburg ballet is like a matroyshka doll or caviar -- there is a market in the West for 'Swan Lake' and so we do 'Swan Lake.' But then you can dance the same roles for five or ten years and it'll drive you up the wall.
"But it's the administration's dream to turn the theater into a sort of museum, to freeze us all into some sort of magical fairy tale world," he said.
Bella Matveyeva's fortuitous meeting with Sergei Vikharev and their mutual understanding were the stimulus for the creation of this ballet, which is a synthesis of different arts.
Matveyeva said, "I see no contradictions in my links with the classical school of St Petersburg ballet. Here in St Petersburg, as the century draws to a close, one of the main tendencies in art is Neoacademicism, which focuses on the art of Greece and Rome, the middle ages and the Silver Age of Russian art."
Diaghilev's ballets, which led to a new view of art and which gave dynamism to cultural life at the turn of the century, were also staged without the involvement of the Mariinsky Theater. "Leda and the Swan" is a purely private initiative.
The ballet can be divided into three parts: music by Schnitke -- music which is full of doubt, accompanying Leda's dance expressing the aching of a woman awaiting the resolution of her destiny.
Then comes a Bavarian march from the 1930s with the dance of Zeus, full of sexual aggression and overflowing with abundant energy demanding release.
Last is the conception, when Leda and Zeus meet to the accompaniment of music from Mozart's Requiem. The act of conception is performed with complete frankness by the dancers, but without exciting sexual arousal. The couple here are not in pursuit of sexual satisfaction. The act they perform is a necessity, intended to resolve the doubts which torment them.
Mozart's Requiem, expressing the mystery of death, is the perfect accompaniment for the scene of conception in as far as love and the birth of new life are mysteries of the same order as the mystery of death.
As is to be expected, "Leda and the Swan" has proved top be highly controversial. It is only regrettable that the producers decided not to use all the symbolism of the classical tradition.
Zeus appeared on stage without the symbolic golden phallus which had originally been part of his costume. What was surprising, though, was that painting, dance and costume could coexist with music by Mozart to form a harmonious partnership.