Elena SORBAN - cronici muzicale

Where could they find such a temerarious idea? There are a lot of risks: the length of the novel, the hard social realities depicted in mass scenes, the numerous characters, their complicated relationships, and, mainly, the risk of giving up its wonderful literary language.

The result of the adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s novel I saw at the Ljubljana Opera and Ballet Theatre (on April 16^th, 2016) could be inspiring for choreographers from everywhere, opening ways for other such adaptations. In order to stay with related themes, I would suggest The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War (in Romanian: "Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război"; 1930) by the Romanian writer Camil Petrescu or The Golden Man (in original: "Az aranyember"; 1872) by the Hungarian author Mór Jókai.

The success is reached by the choreographer Jiří Bubeníček – together with Marko Gašperšič, Jiří Bubeníček, Otto Bubeníček, Elsa Pavanel, Jaka Šimenc, Željka Ulčnik Remic, Mojca Kalar, Stefan Capraroiu, Claudia Sovre. The plot respects the novel’s construction and concentrates it convincingly. The dancers of this evening were: Lukas Zuschlag, Tjaša Kmetec, Rita Pollacchi, Petar Đorčevski, Luka Žiher, Georgeta Capraroiu, Iulian Anatol Ermalai, Barbara Marič , the ballet pupils Svit Pestotnik Stres, Lana Klemen, Vid Vidic, Neža Ana Goričar.

To see an image, click on it.

Music is the soul of its conversion to dance. The "music plot" is amazing and it proves the knowledge "by heart" of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Miaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alfred Schnittke, Pēteris Vasks, and… Chopin. As a music historian, I usually don’t approve such diversity in a music collage – especially the "putting back" of contemporary music to historic events – but this one was completely homogenous and ideally related to the expression.

The piano of Marjan Peternel, the chamber music, and also the orchestra conducted by Marko Gašperšič – especially when visibly located in back on the stage – sounded in a basically good (for the common taste, but for me, somehow artificial) electronic amplification.

If I had to choose one moment that I liked the most within the entire show, this would be the pas de deux on Rachmaninoff’s c-minor Prelude. This evening, the only unwieldy music piece was the hulking interpretation of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony fragment.

The well-staged character dance scenes (also including children) and the troop choreographies are accordingly proportioned. The ballet has many pas de deux, with a great variety of specific moves – which make it poetically powerful.

I suppose there must be a world ballet database for professionals, where this deserves to be saved for the future. If not, the whole production should be uploaded on YouTube. It has to be studied as a model for script, music collage, and choreography.

As I have already mentioned, the Ljubljana production is exemplary – concerning both aesthetics and the stage embodiment. Who could have imagined Camil Petrescu’s novel on Enescu’s music? Or Jókai’s novel on Liszt? It would be a very good way to take national literature to the international level.