Spartacus | © E. Fetisova
On Saturday night, the Bolshoi Ballet presented Spartacus at the Koch Theater. This was another evening in the Lincoln Center Festival. Spartacus was composed in the mid-1950s by Aram Khachaturian—whose fortunes rise and fall, at least in America.
There was a time when his piano concerto was wildly popular. A recording by Willy Kapell sold like hotcakes. His violin concerto was popular too—particularly in a recording by David Oistrakh, with the composer himself on the podium. These days, you can go many a moon without hearing either work.
No matter what, the “Sabre Dance” endures. People may not know it’s by Khachaturian. But it must be one of the most famous pieces of music.
The “Sabre Dance” comes from a ballet called Gayane, from which orchestral suites are occasionally played. An adagio in Gayane made it into the score of 2001: A Space Odyssey. There is a fairly well-known adagio in Spartacus, too—made into a popular song called “Journey’s End,” sung by Andy Williams.
But opportunities to hear Spartacus, or see Spartacus, are few and far between, at least on these shores. That is a good reason to applaud the Bolshoi’s presentation of it here.
I will remind you briefly of the Spartacus drama: A Thracian warrior (Spartacus) is taken into slavery by the Romans. He is made to perform as a gladiator. He leads a glorious slave revolt against the Romans, before being crushed. For eons, Spartacus has been a symbol, a myth, an inspiration.
Khachaturian’s score begins fanfare-like: The music is heroic, splashy, and brassy. It signals, “This will be a swords-and-sandals affair. Cecil B. DeMille might as well be directing in the wings.”
Khachaturian is very good at propulsion, among other things—shots of energy. Spartacus is often intense, urgent. On Saturday night, I thought of a phrase from American history: “the fierce urgency of now.” Often the score is jagged, but then it swirls—Khachaturian achieves a balance between the “vertical” and the “horizontal.” Also, he has an exceptionally good sense of rhythm.
There are many types of music in Spartacus (to go with the many types of dance). I will name a few. There is aching love music, which veers toward the sappy, but what can you do? There is music that is vaguely “Oriental,” as we used to say. There is a bacchanal, à la Saint-Saëns. There is primitivism, à la Stravinsky. There is demented circus-style music, à la Shostakovich and Prokofiev.
Overall, the score is no one’s but Khachaturian’s. It bears his stamp. I’m afraid the score suffers from bombast—but Khachaturian is a smart fellow, with flair. His Spartacus is nervous, brash, and masculine. Very masculine.
This is a male-heavy ballet, with nary a tutu in sight. There was a lot of testosterone onstage Saturday night. Really, is there a butch-er ballet than Spartacus?
The dominant masculinity makes moments of the feminine all the more welcome, and effective. Maria Vinogradova was effective indeed. She was Phrygia, the love of Spartacus. Vinogradova was touching, poetic, melting. You could practically hear the theater sigh as she danced. The other ballerina was Ekaterina Krysanova, who portrayed Aegina: chief courtesan to the Roman Crassus. She was a slinky spitfire.
The two men, Spartacus and Crassus, were danced by Denis Rodkin and Vladislav Lantratov. (The former is not to be confused with the ex-NBA star, and friend to Kim Jong-un, Dennis Rodman.) Each dancer gave a chest-thumping, “Me Tarzan” performance—but with elegance.
Watching this ballet, I had the following thought: “There will always be storytelling ballets, because there will always be storytelling. This habit or desire seems to be baked into the human condition.” Not very long ago, storytelling in ballet fell from favor. In favor were bare stages, black leotards, and abstraction. Yet storytelling endures (like the “Sabre Dance”).
I have said in my previous Bolshoi reviews that the performances could have been mistaken for concerts—and so it was with Saturday’s Spartacus. This was a fantastically musical evening. The conductor, Pavel Klinichev, seemed to conduct with great freedom, as well as the requisite discipline.
And yet we know—or I think we know—that a conductor’s freedom is restricted in a ballet pit. The conductor must defer to the dancers, who have pride of place in a ballet. I would like to tell a couple of stories (speaking of storytelling).
A few years ago, I interviewed Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Finnish conductor—who worked in the ballet at an early stage of his career. He was fired. Reason: He kept making the dancers fall on their behinds. He was loath to play by the rules, wanting to follow his own rules, or the rules dictated by the music at hand.
Sir Thomas Beecham was not a great one to defer, I think it’s safe to say. I learned a story from David Pryce-Jones, a friend of mine and a friend of The New Criterion’s. One night, Sir Thomas conducted Coppélia, and he favored exceptionally brisk tempos. The dancers must have had a serious workout. Laying down his baton, he remarked to the orchestra, “Made the buggers hop.”
Listening to Klinichev for two hours, I had to ask, “If he were on a concert podium instead of in a ballet pit—if there were no dancers at all—how, exactly, would he conduct differently?” It was hard for me to see how he would. He seemed to lead the dancers, rather than being led by them. There was no visible, or audible, tentativeness in him. He was bold and forthright. And so were his players.
Khachaturian, like his predecessor Tchaikovsky, creates many opportunities for the woodwinds, and the Bolshoi’s came through in spades. The bassoonist made a beautiful sound, doing his instrument proud. The percussionists were alert. (They have to be in this score.) The concertmaster, or mistress (I couldn’t see), contributed a first-class solo. And the orchestra at large was colorful and unified.
So few were the rough spots, they stood out. I could almost list them: a pizzicato here, an entrance there. The playing was as clean as anyone had a right to expect.
And Klinichev, in the pit, put on a conducting clinic. He was technically and instinctually almost unerring. When Klinichev took the stage, to bow with the dancers and gesture toward the orchestra, the orchestra applauded him. I have not seen that often.
I remember something I said after hearing the Berlin Philharmonic at a few Salzburg Easter Festivals, and the Vienna Philharmonic at a few of Salzburg’s summer festivals: I should be less forgiving of errors in the French horns. These guys prove that it is really possible to play this instrument.
Hearing the Bolshoi Orchestra in three ballets makes me think this: I should be less forgiving of poor playing in ballets. There is no law that says ballet playing has to be poor, or mediocre, or uninspired. A lot of good or great composers have lavished attention on ballet scores. They ought to be played right, just as they ought to be danced right.
Right?