Stravinsky And The Ballet Russes: The Firebird/The Rite Of... [DVD] [2009] [NTSC]

Description

Product Description In celebration of the debut of the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909, this wonderful Stravinsky evening at the Mariinsky Theatre (cond. Valery Gergiev) showcases the original Nijinsky choreography of The Rite of Spring for the first time on DVD along with The Firebird. This DVD won DVD of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010. Review Two minutes of The Firebird the curtain rises and we re dazzled by fairytale splendour. Reconstructions of the original 1910 designs of Alexander Golovin, Léon Bakst and Michel Fokine fill the screen with layered castles and foliage. Flying and leaping in Fokine s reconstructed choreography comes the firebird herself (Ekaterina Kondaurova), sparking into life Fokine s simple scenario of good trouncing evil. Watching and listening bring no disjunctions. Music and design blend like hand and glove, and Gergiev s orchestra brings its own fusillade of colours. The Ballets Russes version of The Rite of Spring is staged in Millicent Hodson s more speculative reconstruction, usefully explored in a bonus interview. Here, ballet s cauldron bubbles very strangely. Today s concertgoers are used to a stark outline in Stravinsky s pounding rhythms, but Nijinsky s revolutionary choreography and Nicholas Roerich s peasant costumes smudge their clarity with neo-primitive stompings and flailings inside the dancers voluminous smocks. Overall, this staged Rite of Spring is a fascinating but disturbing spectacle. No wonder those Paris audiences rioted in 1913. --Geoff Brown, The Times, 14th August 2009