Cal Performances Presents Program Friday, May 1, 2009, 8pm Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg Saturday, May 2, 2009, 8pm Artistic Director Sunday, May 3, 2009, 3pm Boris Eifman, Zellerbach Hall Soloists Maria Abashova, Elena Kuzmina, Natalia Povorozniuk, Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg Anastassia Sitnikova, Nina Zmievets Boris Eifman, Artistic Director Yuri Ananyan, Dmitry Fisher, Oleg Gabyshev, Andrey Kasyanenko, Ivan Kozlov, Oleg Markov, Yuri Smekalov Company Marina Burtseva, Valentina Vasilieva, Polina Gorbunova, Svetlana Golovkina, Alina Gornaya, Diana Danchenko, Ekaterina Zhigalova, Evgenia Zodbaeva, Sofia Elistratova, Elena Kotik, Yulia Kobzar, Alexandra Kuzmich, Marianna Krivenko, Marianna Marina, Alina Petrova, Natalia Pozdniakova, Victoria Silantyeva, Natalia Smirnova, Agata Smorodina, Alina Solonskaya, Oksana Tverdokhlebova, Lina Choe Sergey Barabanov, Sergey Biserov, Maxim Gerasimov, Pavel Gorbachev, Anatoly Grudzinsky, Vasil Dautov, Kirill Efremov, Sergey Zimin, Mikhail Ivankov, Alexander Ivanov, Andrey Ivanov, Aleksandr Ivlev, Stanislav Kultin, Anton Labunskas, Dmitry Lunev, Alexander Melkaev, Batyr Niyazov, Ilya Osipov, Artur Petrov, Igor Polyakov, Roman Solovyov Ardani Artists Management, Inc., is the exclusive North American management for Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg. Valentin Baranovsky Valentin Onegin (West Coast Premiere) Choreography by Boris Eifman Ballet in Two Acts Inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s novel, Eugene Onegin Music by Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky and Alexander Sitkovetsky Cal Performances’ 2008–2009 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank. 6 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 7 Program Cast Friday, May 1, 2009, 8pm Onegin Saturday, May 2, 2009, 8pm Sunday, May 3, 2009, 3pm Zellerbach Hall Onegin music Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Variations on a Rococo Theme in A major, Op. 33 (1876) Suite No. 3 in G major, Op. 55 (1884): II. Valse mélancolique: Allegro moderato Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1874–1875) I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso — Allegro con spirito II. Andantino simplice Elegy in Memory of Ivan Samarin (1884) (reading by Evgenia Igumnova) Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op. 42 (1878): III. Mélodie (arr. Alexander Glazunov) Baranovsky Valentin Fatum (“Fate”), Op. 77 (1868) design The Seasons, Op. 37b (1875–1876) Choreography Boris Eifman No. 10, October: Chant d’automne* Set Design Zinovy Margolin Costume Design Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32 (1876) Olga Schaishmelaschvili, Pyotr Okunev Lighting Design Gleb Filschtinsky, Boris Eifman Eugene Onegin, Op. 24 (1877–1878) (extracts) Video Design Vladimir Bystrov (Leonid Eremin, sound editor) cast — friday & sunday The Storm, Op. 76 (1864) Onegin String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor, Op. 30 (1876): Oleg Gabyshev Tatiana III. Andante funebre e doloroso, ma con moto* Maria Abashova Lensky Dmitry Fisher String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 22 (1874): Olga Natalia Povoroznyuk III. Andante ma non tanto* Colonel Sergei Volobuev Alexander Sitkovetsky (b. 1955) Satan’s Dance cast — saturday Tribe Bolero Onegin Alexey Turko Zello Tatiana Nina Zmievets Double Vision Lensky Nikolay Radiush Camels Olga Zlata Olinich Empty Arena Colonel Oleg Markov * Arr. Mikhail Rakhlevsky. Performed by Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, cond. Mikhail Rakhlevsky. There will be one 20-minute intermission. The cast subject to change. 8 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 9 Program Notes Texts From Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin friends They got quite close, though wave and stone, And ice and fire, and prose and poem onegin Are not so different as they were. At first these differences disturbed, …But piteous he, the all-foreseeing, They thought each other dull, then drolly The sober head, detesting each They rather liked each other, then… Human reaction, every speech Were soon inseparable wholly. In the expression of its being, Whose heart experience has cooled Thinking himself in love a cripple, And saved from being charmed or fooled! Onegin heard, sage-faced, unquivering, [ch. 4 li] The poet tell all of himself, In love with his own heart’s distress… Oh, he did love, as we already act i 2 No longer love, as only bards’ Insane poetic souls unsteady Condemned to love forever are! coup of 1991 [ch. 2 xiii, xix, xx] …Foregathering at private meetings, Over a Russian vodka, wine… But is my freedom’s hour approaching? provincial delights It’s time! It’s time! I call to it! O flowers, and love, and rustic leisure… Valentin Baranovsky Valentin Oleg Gabyshev as Onegin and Maria Abashova as Tatyana in Onegin At first, these plots, initiated… …All this has now gone out of fashion… Were in a friendly tone debated And the rebellious sense was slow So she was called Tatyana. Truly On Onegin To kindle a defiant passion. She lacked her sister’s beauty, lacked The rosy bloom that glowed so newly n turning to great literature to inspire I use my art to understand the secrets of the …The things took on a different look… To catch the eye and to attract. I my ballets, I try to use the art of choreography Russian soul. Basing a ballet on Eugene Onegin is And a cool-headed general… to express the emotional agitation that comes one more attempt to express innermost spirituality Gathered supporters to his call… …by depression from communing with the wisdom and creative through dance. Hastened with strength and boldness to Her heart had long been overrun: See the uprising carried through. Her soul was waiting…for someone. power of our genius predecessors. The word is an I transported Pushkin’s characters to our Tatyana now need wait no longer. [ch. 10 xiii, xvi, xvii] instrument of both creation and destruction; it can times, placing them in new circumstances, more Her eyes were opened, and she said generate and it can annihilate. dramatic, even extreme, when the old world is “This is the one!” The language of the body, as the most collapsing and life dictates new rules. I needed that boredom ancient form of self-expression, bears universally experiment in order to answer the question that All for our tender dreamy maiden understood emotional and spiritual values. By troubles me: What is the Russian soul today? Has it The illness with which he’d been smitten Are colored in a single tone, turning to the literary original source, I make preserved its uniqueness, its mystery, its attraction? Should have been analyzed when caught, All blend into Eugene alone. Something like spleen…or Russia’s chondria, for short; it my goal to reveal what is of concern to my What would the novel’s characters do with their [ch. 1 lvi; ch. 2 ii; ch. 3 vii, viii, ix] It mastered him in slow gradation… contemporaries and what can be expressed only lives today? What in the novel was just a reflection through the great art of choreography. of the times and what was a sign of the destiny of Yes, spleen was waiting like a sentry, disco Why did I choose Alexander Pushkin’s novel many generations of my fellow countrymen? and dutifully shared his life Eugene Onegin? What is in it that affects me today? The art of choreography is unable to respond just like a shadow, or a wife. But you perhaps find no attraction The novel has been called “an encyclopedia of to the real questions of building a society. But by In any picture of this kind: Russian life,” in which Pushkin saw and created participating in the creative formulation of those No, nothing caused his heart to stir, For nature’s unadorned reaction an amazingly accurate archetype of the Russian questions, analysis and individual evaluation, we And nothing pierced his senses’ blur… As something low and unrefined. character of his time, fashioning a poetic image of participate in the process of society’s perfection. [ch. 1 xxxviii, liv] …we…glide on waxed parquet. the Russian soul as mysterious, unpredictable and In country towns and suchlike places incredibly sensual. Boris Eifman 10 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 11 Texts Texts …Heeltaps, and leaps… “But I was simply not intended tatyana’s name day mourning All of this it keeps For happiness—that alien role. The festal name day… The bard stirs your compassion: As fresh as ever, for its graces Should your perfections be expended Since dawn, whole families have been driving Right in the flower of joyous hope, Are here untouched by fashion’s reign, In vain on my unworthy soul? Towards the Larins’ …His shade, Our modern Russia’s plague and bane. A ball: the joy of every guest! After the martyr’s price it paid, “But you must teach [ch. 5 iii, xlii] Maybe bore off with it for ever Your heart some self-restraint; for each Revenge’s hour is near, and after A secret truth, and at our cost And every man won’t understand it Evgeny, full of inward laughter, A life-creating voice was lost; As I have…learned from my belief tatyana’s letter to onegin Has gone to Olga… …his memory’s fled That inexperience leads to grief.” …beginning As smoke in azure sky disperses. …Lit by the moon. [ch. 4 xii, xiv, xvi] To talk of this and that… Two hearts there are perhaps that keep Elbow on table, spirit seething, All are dumbfounded. Lensky shies A tear for him… Still filled with Eugene, Tanya wrote, Away from trusting his own eyes… And in her unconsidered note [ch. 6 xxxvi, xxxvii, xl, xli; ch. 7 xiv] two loves Louder and louder sounds the wrangle: Eugene has caught up, quick as quick, “I write to you—no more confession From hour to hour a surer capture A carving-knife—and in the tangle Is needed, nothing’s left to tell. For Olga’s beauty, Lensky gives night club Lensky’s thrown down. The murk is thick I know it’s now in your discretion His soul to a delicious rapture And growing thicker; then, heart-shaking, Today a mental fog enwraps us, With scorn to make my world a hell.