The Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College
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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF GERMANIC AND SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES THE RISE, FALL, AND RENAISSANCE OF SHOSTAKOVICH’S THIRD BALLET: RECONCILING THE BRIGHT STREAM WITH POST-SOVIET CULTURE ERIKA E. PUGH SPRING 2019 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in Russian and Finance with honors in Russian Reviewed and approved* by the following: Adrian Wanner Liberal Arts Professor of Slavic Languages and Comparative Literature Thesis Supervisor Irina Mikaelian Teaching Professor of Russian Honors Adviser * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT Dmitri Shostakovich’s last and most controversial ballet, The Bright Stream, was set on a Soviet collective farm in the 1930’s as an attempt to reconcile classical ballet with Socialist Realism. Despite its initial success, the ballet caused a scandal and was banned less than a year after its 1935 premiere, remaining untouched until 2003 when Alexei Ratmansky recreated it to worldwide success. Using reviews and memoirs from Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, this thesis provides a contextual backdrop to The Bright Stream and discusses the ballet’s relationship with its creators, critics, political ideology, and cultural identity. It analyzes the problem of implementing Socialist Realism in classical ballet, as well as the issues surrounding the reception of Stalinist culture in present-day Russia. This thesis concludes that Ratmansky’s revival of The Bright Stream displays his love and appreciation for Soviet dance, music, and cultural heritage despite the ballet’s complex relationship with government and politics, both past and present. Furthermore, Ratmansky was able to achieve this objective while simultaneously evoking, without directly commenting on them, the horrors of collectivization by showing modern audiences the falsehoods that Soviet citizens were subjected to. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iv PREFACE .................................................................................................................... v Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Ballet and Ideology in Post-Revolutionary Russia .................................... 4 Soviet Socialist Realism ....................................................................................... 4 Ballet’s Transition and Integration into Soviet Society ........................................ 8 The 1930’s: Introducing the Drambalet ................................................................ 16 Chapter 2: The Bright Stream in the 20th Century ...................................................... 22 Fyodor Lopukhov ................................................................................................. 22 Adrian Piotrovsky ................................................................................................. 26 Dmitri Shostakovich ............................................................................................. 29 The Bright Stream Background and Plot .............................................................. 33 Chapter 3: Reception of The Bright Stream: 1935 – 1936 ......................................... 45 Chapter 4: The Bright Stream in the 21st Century....................................................... 61 Ballet’s Transition and Integration into Post-Soviet Society................................ 61 Alexei Ratmansky ................................................................................................. 67 The Bright Stream Background and Plot in the 21st Century ............................... 70 Chapter 5: Reception of The Bright Stream: 2003 – Present ...................................... 73 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 83 Appendix A: Cast of Characters From The Bright Stream ......................................... 87 Appendix B: Select Translations ................................................................................ 88 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 162 Bibliography of Russian Sources .......................................................................... 166 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Pyotr Gusev as the Male Dancer, Olga Lepeshinskaya as the Ballerina. ..... 33 Figure 2: The original set of The Bright Stream .......................................................... 35 Figure 3: Evgenia Lopukhova as the Anxious-to-be-younger-than-she-is Dacha Dweller, and Feya Balabina as the disguised Ballerina. Taken at the Maly Opera Theatre 37 Figure 4: Sulamith and Asaf Messerer. Taken at the Bolshoi Theatre premiere. ........ 39 Figure 5: Alexander Radunsky as the Elderly Dacha Dweller at the Bolshoi Theatre 45 Figure 6: Photograph featured in Talnikov's article ..................................................... 52 Figure 7: Costume sketches for the 1935 production .................................................. 55 Figure 8: Ruslan Skyortsov as the Male Dancer, Andrei Melanyin as the Elderly Dacha Dweller ................................................................................................................. 71 Figure 9: Backdrop created by Boris Messerer............................................................ 73 Figure 10: Poster promoting Ratmansky’s upcoming ballet, featuring Asaf and Sulamith Messerer. Poster by V. Milovanov. ...................................................................... 74 Figure 11: Scene from Act I......................................................................................... 76 Figure 12: Apotheosis from Act II ............................................................................... 79 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge Dr. Irina Mikaelian and Dr. Adrian Wanner for their invaluable guidance and outstanding commitment to my education here at Penn State. While visiting friends and family in Moscow, Dr. Mikaelian went out of her way to retrieve special documents for this thesis, while Dr. Wanner’s enthusiasm and immense knowledge of Stalinist Russia has directly contributed to my success and continued passion for all things Russian. Both Dr. Mikaelian and Dr. Wanner were an absolute pleasure to work with, and I am very grateful to have been their student. I want to also thank my family for their endless support throughout all of my academic and personal endeavors. Specifically, my parents Frank and Nancy Pugh who have taught me to never give up, my brothers Ben and Brian Pugh who inspire me every day to achieve as much as they do, and my two wonderful cats who have been with me since my first day of Kindergarten, Trixie and Berkeley Pugh. Finally, I would like to give a very special thanks to Sasha Tabachnikova. This thesis would never have been possible without her support, extreme patience, late night consultations on Russian translation, and lifelong friendship. v PREFACE This thesis is structured to contextually present the story of The Bright Stream from different vantage points at two different times in history: the 1930’s and the 2000’s. In order to fully understand this ballet in Stalinist Russia, Chapter 1 provides a background on Socialist Realism and discusses artistic trends in Soviet society after the October Revolution. Chapter 1 also emphasizes the role that Agrippina Vaganova played in creating a unified Soviet dance school and propelling Russian ballet to a new height of world prestige. She offers lots of written insight on the emergence and impact of the drambalet genre, providing the comparative landscape of ballets during the time period in which The Bright Stream was conceived. With this in mind, Chapter 2 introduces the ballet’s plot, its key creators, and all of their experiences leading up to the premiere of The Bright Stream. This transitions into Chapter 3, which discusses the critical reviews of the ballet from its 1935 premiere all the way to its denunciation in February of 1936. Chapter 4 moves forward to the 21st century, beginning with Russia’s transition out of the Soviet Union and how this geopolitical event affected Russian ballet as a whole. Chapter 4 also introduces Alexei Ratmansky, the choreographer who reimagined The Bright Stream in 2003, and discusses his intentions and motivations behind resurrecting the ballet. Chapter 5 then discusses the positive and negative reviews surrounding his production. This thesis ends with a conclusion that ties together the events that happened in the 1930’s and how Ratmansky drew upon this history to portray the Stalinist ballet in contemporary Russia, ultimately defending its place in the 21st century. vi Finally, I would like to mention that there are two appendices in this thesis. Appendix A contains the original casts of The Bright Stream at its 1935 Leningrad premiere, 1935 Moscow premiere, and 2003 Moscow premiere. Appendix B contains my own translations of various articles from both the 1930’s and the 2000’s that are analyzed in this thesis. Unless otherwise noted, all English translations of Russian sources are my own. 1 Introduction On June 4th, 1935 the Leningrad State