Carmen suite content. Principal ballet by Maya Plisetskaya. "Carmen Suite". Plot and story

Production history

After the premiere performance, Furtseva was not in the director's box, she left the theater. The performance did not look like the “short Don Quixote” she expected, and it was raw. The second performance was supposed to go to the "evening of one-act ballets" ("troichetka") on April 22, but was canceled:

“This is a great setback, comrades. The play is raw. Solid erotica. The music of the opera is disfigured ... I have big doubts whether the ballet can be improved. " .

After arguing that "I'll have to cancel the banquet" and promises "Cut all erotic supports that shock you", Furtseva gave up and allowed the play, which was staged at the Bolshoi 132 times and about two hundred around the world.

Music

Screen adaptation

Reviews from critics

All of Karmen-Plisetskaya's movements carried a special meaning, challenge, protest: both a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a set hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing glance from under the brows ... her static pose conveyed colossal internal tension: she fascinated the audience, attracted their attention, involuntarily (or deliberately?) distracting from the effective solo of the Toreador.

The new Jose is very young. But age itself is not an artistic category. And does not allow for discounts on inexperience. Godunov played age in subtle psychological manifestations. His Jose is wary and distrustful. Trouble awaits people. From life: - dirty tricks. Injured and proud. The first exit, the first pose - a freeze-frame, heroically sustained face to face with the audience. A living portrait of the fair-haired and light-eyed (in accordance with the portrait created by Mérimée) Jose. Large, strict features. The look of the wolf cub is sullenly. Expression of alienation. Behind the mask you guess the true human essence - the vulnerability of the soul, thrown into the world and the world hostile. You contemplate the portrait with interest. And so he came to life and "spoke." The syncopated "speech" was perceived by Godunov precisely and organically. No wonder he was prepared for his debut by the talented dancer Azary Plisetskiy, who perfectly knows both the part and the whole ballet from his own experience. Hence - the carefully worked out, carefully polished details that make up the stage life of the image. ...

New production at the Mariinsky Theater

The performance was resumed by choreographer Viktor Barykin, former soloist of the Bolshoi Ballet and performer of the part Jose.

The first cast at the Mariinsky: Irma Nioradze - Carmen, Ilya Kuznetsov - Jose, Anton Korsakov - Bullfighter

Alicia Alonso in Moscow

Elizariev's version

“The suite is a picture of the life, or rather, of the spiritual fate of Carmen. The conventionality of the ballet theater easily and naturally shifts them in time, making it possible to trace not external everyday events, but the events of the heroine's inner spiritual life. No, not the seducer, not the femme fatale Carmen! We are attracted in this image by the spiritual beauty of Carmen, the integrity, the uncompromising nature of her nature. " Conductor Yaroslav Voshchak

“Listening to this music, I saw my Carmen, which was significantly different from Carmen in other performances. For me, she is not only an outstanding woman, proud and uncompromising, and not only a symbol of love. She is a hymn to love, love, pure, honest, burning, demanding, love of a colossal flight of feelings that none of the men she met is capable of. Carmen is not a doll, not a beautiful toy, not a street girl with whom many would not mind having fun. For her, love is the essence of life. No one was able to appreciate, understand her inner world, hidden behind a dazzling beauty. He fell in love with Carmen Jose. Love transformed the rude, narrow-minded soldier, opened up spiritual joys for him, but for Carmen his arms soon turn into chains. Intoxicated by his feelings, Jose does not try to understand Carmen. He begins to love not Carmen, but his feelings for her ... She could also love Torero, who is not indifferent to her beauty. But Torero - exquisitely gallant, brilliant and fearless - is internally lazy, cold, he is not able to fight for love. And naturally, demanding and proud Carmen cannot love someone like him. And without love there is no happiness in life, and Carmen accepts death from Jose, so as not to embark on the path of compromise or loneliness together. " Choreographer Valentin Elizariev

Sources of

1. Ballet Nacional de Cuba "CARMEN" website. Archived
2. M.M. Plisetskaya"Reading my life ...". - M .: "AST", "Astrel",. - 544 p. - ISBN 978-5-17-068256-0
3. Died Alberto Alonso / Maya Plisetskaya for the site of the Bolshoi Theater
4. M.M. Plisetskaya/ A. Proskurin. Drawings by V. Shakhmeister. - M .: JSC "Novosti Publishing House" with the participation of Rosno-Bank,. - S. 340 .-- 496 p. - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-7020-0903-7
5. “Bizet - Shchedrin - Carmen Suite. Transcriptions of excerpts from the opera "Carmen". " ... Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
6. V.A. Mainiece. Article "Carmen Suite" // Ballet: Encyclopedia. / Chief ed. Yu. N. Grigorovich. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia, 1981 .-- S. 240-241.
7. E. Nikolaev. The ballets "Playing Cards" and "Carmen Suite" at the Bolshoi
8. E. Lutskaya. Portrait in red
9. One-act ballets “Carmen Suite. Chopiniana. Carnival ". (unavailable link - story) Retrieved April 1, 2011.- site of the Mariinsky Theater
10. Carmen Suite at the Mariinsky Theater. Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2011.- Internet TV channel "Art TV", 2010
11. A.Firer"Alicia in the Land of Ballet". - "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", 08/04/2011, 00:08. - V. 169. - No. 5545.
12. Summary of the ballet on the website of the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater of the Republic of Belarus

Works by Rodion Shchedrin
Opera	Boyarynya Morozova (2006) Lolita (1992) Dead Souls (1977) Not Only Love (1961) The Enchanted Wanderer (2002)
Ballets	Anna Karenina (1972) Lady with the Dog (1985) Carmen Suite 1 (1967) The Little Humpbacked Horse (1960) The Seagull (1980)
Symphonies	No. 1 (1958) No. 2 "25 Preludes for Orchestra" (1965) No. 3 (2000)
Concerts	for orchestra № 1 "Mischievous ditties" (1963) № 2 "Zvony" (1968) № 3 "Ancient music of Russian provincial circuses" (1989) № 4 "Round dances" (1989) № 5 "Four Russian songs" (1997) piano No. 1 (1954) No. 2 (1966) No. 3 "Variations and Theme" (1973) No. 4 "Sharp Keys" (1991) No. 5 (1999) No. 6 "Concerto lontano" (2003) other Concerto for trumpet and orchestra (1993) Concerto for cello and orchestra "Sotto Voce" (1993)
Chamber music	Frescoes of Dionysius (1981) Musical Offering (1983)
Note	1 music arrangement

Carmen suite- a one-act ballet by choreographer Alberto Alonso, staged on the basis of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (), orchestrated especially for this production by the composer Rodion Shchedrin (the musical material was substantially rearranged, compressed and re-arranged for an orchestra of strings and percussion without winds). The libretto of the ballet based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée was written by its director, Alberto Alonso.

The premiere of the play took place on April 20, 1967 at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow (Carmen - Maya Plisetskaya). On August 1 of the same year, the premiere of the ballet took place in Havana, in Cuban National Ballet(Carmen - Alicia Alonso).

At the center of the ballet is the tragic fate of the gypsy woman Carmen and the soldier Jose who fell in love with her, whom Carmen leaves for the young Torero. The relationship of the heroes and the death of Carmen at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Fate. Thus, Carmen's story (in comparison with the literary source and Bizet's opera) is solved symbolically, which is reinforced by the unity of the scene (bullfighting ground).

Performance music

Maya Plisetskaya turned to Dmitry Shostakovich with a request to write music for Carmen, but the composer refused, not wanting, according to him, to compete with Georges Bizet. Then she asked Aram Khachaturian about this, but was again refused. She was advised to turn to her husband, Rodion Shchedrin, also a composer.

The order of musical numbers in the transcription of Rodion Shchedrin:

• Introduction
• Dance
• First intermezzo
• Divorce of the guard
• Exit Carmen and Habanera
• Scene
• Second intermezzo
• Bolero
• Torero
• Torero and Carmen
• Adagio
• Divination
• The final

Production history

After the premiere performance, Furtseva was not in the director's box, she left the theater. The performance did not look like the “short Don Quixote” she expected, and it was raw. The second performance was supposed to go to the "evening of one-act ballets" ("troichetka") on April 22, but was canceled:

“This is a great setback, comrades. The play is raw. Solid erotica. The music of the opera is disfigured ... I have big doubts whether the ballet can be improved. " .

After arguing that "I'll have to cancel the banquet" and promises "Cut all erotic supports that shock you", Furtseva gave up and allowed the play, which was staged at the Bolshoi 132 times and about two hundred around the world.

Reviews from critics

All of Karmen-Plisetskaya's movements carried a special meaning, challenge, protest: both a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a set hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing glance from under the brows ... her static pose conveyed colossal internal tension: she fascinated the audience, attracted their attention, involuntarily (or deliberately?) distracting from the effective solo of the Toreador.

The new Jose is very young. But age itself is not an artistic category. And does not allow for discounts on inexperience. Godunov played age in subtle psychological manifestations. His Jose is wary and distrustful. Trouble awaits people. From life: - dirty tricks. Injured and proud. The first exit, the first pose - a freeze-frame, heroically sustained face to face with the audience. A living portrait of the fair-haired and light-eyed (in accordance with the portrait created by Mérimée) Jose. Large, strict features. The look of the wolf cub is sullenly. Expression of alienation. Behind the mask you guess the true human essence - the vulnerability of the soul, thrown into the world and the world hostile. You contemplate the portrait with interest.

And so he came to life and "spoke." The syncopated "speech" was perceived by Godunov precisely and organically. No wonder he was prepared for his debut by the talented dancer Azary Plisetskiy, who perfectly knows both the part and the whole ballet from his own experience. Hence - the carefully worked out, carefully polished details that make up the stage life of the image. ...

Screen adaptations

• 1968 (1969?) - a film directed by Vadim Derbenev, staged by the Bolshoi Theater with the participation of the first performers (Carmen - Maya Plisetskaya, Jose - Nikolai Fadeechev, Torero - Sergei Radchenko, Corregidor - Alexander Lavrenyuk, Rock - Natalia Kasatkina).
• 1978 - film-ballet directed by Felix Slidovker (Carmen - Maya Plisetskaya, Jose - Alexander Godunov, Torero - Sergey Radchenko, Corregidor - Victor Barykin, Rock - Loip Arauho).
• 1968, 1972 and 1973 - adaptation of the production of the Cuban National Ballet.

Performances in other theaters

The production of Alberto Alonso's ballet was transferred to many stages of ballet theaters in the USSR and the world by choreographer A.M. Plisetskiy:

Performances by other choreographers

“Listening to this music, I saw my Carmen, which was significantly different from Carmen in other performances. For me, she is not only an outstanding woman, proud and uncompromising, and not only a symbol of love. She is a hymn to love, love, pure, honest, burning, demanding, love of a colossal flight of feelings that none of the men she met is capable of.

Carmen is not a doll, not a beautiful toy, not a street girl with whom many would not mind having fun. For her, love is the essence of life. No one was able to appreciate, understand her inner world, hidden behind a dazzling beauty.

He fell in love with Carmen Jose. Love transformed the rude, narrow-minded soldier, opened up spiritual joys for him, but for Carmen his arms soon turn into chains. Intoxicated by his feelings, Jose does not try to understand Carmen. He begins to love not Carmen, but his feelings for her ...

She could also fall in love with Torero, who is not indifferent to her beauty. But Torero - exquisitely gallant, brilliant and fearless - is internally lazy, cold, he is not able to fight for love. And naturally, demanding and proud Carmen cannot love someone like him. And without love there is no happiness in life, and Carmen accepts death from Jose, so as not to embark on the path of compromise or loneliness together. "

Choreographer Valentin Elizariev

Links

• Premiere of the ballet "Carmen Suite" at the Bolshoi Theater// newsreel studio Pathé, 1967

Sources of

1. Ballet Nacional de Cuba "CARMEN" website (unspecified) Archived March 9, 2012.
2. V.A. Mainiece. Article "Carmen Suite" // Ballet: Encyclopedia. / Chief ed. Yu. N. Grigorovich. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia, 1981 .-- S. 240-241.
3. “Bizet - Shchedrin - Carmen Suite. Transcriptions of excerpts from the opera "Carmen". " (unspecified) ... Retrieved April 1, 2011. Archived March 9, 2012.
4. M.M. Plisetskaya."Reading my life ...". - M.: "AST", "Astrel",. - 544 p. - ISBN 978-5-17-068256-0.
5. Alberto Alonso / Maya Plisetskaya died for the Bolshoi Theater website Archived September 1, 2009 at the Wayback Machine
6. M.M. Plisetskaya./ A. Proskurin. Drawings by V. Shakhmeister. - M.: JSC "Novosti Publishing House" with the participation of Rosno-Bank,. - S. 340 .-- 496 p. - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-7020-0903-7.
7. E. Nikolaev. The ballets "Playing Cards" and "Carmen Suite" at the Bolshoi
8. E. Lutskaya. Portrait in Red Archived February 13, 2005 at the Wayback Machine
9. Carmen-in-Lima - "Soviet Culture" of February 14, 1975
10. One-act ballets “Carmen Suite. Chopiniana. Carnival" (unspecified) (unavailable link)... Retrieved April 1, 2011. Archived August 27, 2011.- site of the Mariinsky Theater
11. Carmen Suite at the Mariinsky Theater (unspecified) ... Retrieved April 1, 2011. Archived March 9, 2012.- Internet TV channel "Art TV", 2010
12. A. Firer."Alicia in the Land of Ballet". - "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", 08/04/2011, 00:08. - Issue. 169. - No. 5545.
13. Official site of the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater of the Republic of Belarus Archived copy of September 2, 2010 at

Carmen Suite is a one-act ballet by choreographer Alberto Alonso, staged on the basis of the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet, orchestrated especially for this production by the composer Rodion Shchedrin. The libretto of the ballet based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée was written by its director, Alberto Alonso. At the center of the ballet is the tragic fate of the gypsy woman Carmen and the soldier Jose who fell in love with her, whom Carmen leaves for the young Torero. The relationship of the heroes and the death of Carmen at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Fate. Thus, the story of Carmen (in comparison with the literary source and Bizet's opera) is solved symbolically, which is reinforced by the unity of the scene.
Plisetskaya's first choreographer Alberto Alonso arrived from Cuba to stage the famous "Carmen" by Bizet-Shchedrin.

"Plisetskaya is Carmen. Carmen is Plisetskaya." However, few now guess that Plisetskaya's main ballet was born by chance. "So the card went down, - recalled Maya Mikhailovna. Although I dreamed about this role all my life." Back in 1966, she could not even imagine that she would find the choreographer of her dreams in the middle of winter at the Luzhniki Stadium at a Cuban ballet evening. After the very first bars of incendiary flamenco, Plisetskaya could hardly stay in her chair and literally burst into the backstage during the intermission. All she could say when she saw the choreographer: "Will you stage Carmen for me?" “I dream about it,” Alberto Alonso replied with a wide smile. The production turned out to be defiantly innovative, and the main character was damn sexy, but no one dared to ban the ballet master's performance from the Island of Freedom - it meant a quarrel with Fidel Castro. "You are a traitor to the ballet," Minister of Culture Furtseva threw in Plisetskaya's face. "Your Carmen will die!" "Carmen will live while I am alive," Plisetskaya proudly answered then.

All of Karmen-Plisetskaya's movements carried a special meaning, challenge, protest: both a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a set hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing glance from under the brows ... her static posture conveyed colossal internal tension: she fascinated the audience, attracted their attention, involuntarily (or deliberately?) distracting from the effective solo of the Bullfighter.

Almost 40 years later, fate has laid out a new game of solitaire. Aleksey Ratmansky, her last stage partner, became the director of the Bolshoi Ballet. And on the day of the resumption of "Carmen" on the main stage of the country on November 18, 2005, Maya Plisetskaya said: "I will die. Carmen will remain."

Carmen Suite - a one-act ballet to music by Georges Bizet (1875) orchestrated by Rodion Shchedrin (1967).

Based on the opera Carmen, the musical material of which Shchedrin substantially re-arranged, compressed and re-arranged. Based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée, which formed the basis of the opera, the libretto of the ballet was written by its first director, the Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso.

First staged on August 1, 1967 at the National Ballet of Cuba (Spanish: Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Havana) by choreographer Alberto Alonso for Alicia Alonso as Carmen (filmed in 1968, 1972 and 1973) and on April 20, 1967 at the Bolshoi Theater for Maya Plisetskaya (filmed in 1969 and 1978).

Production history

At the end of 1966, the Cuban National Ballet (Spanish Ballet Nacional de Cuba) came to Moscow on tour. Rachel Messerer, dreamed of a new development of the original talent of her daughter Maya Plisetskaya, whose characteristic talent might have liked Alberto Alonso. She made an appointment and Maya came to the show. Behind the scenes, Alberto promised to return with a finished libretto if an official invitation from the Soviet Ministry of Culture arrived by the deadline. During this period, Maya received the Stalin Prize not at all for the ballerina role of Persian in the opera Khovanshchina. She persuaded Ekaterina Furtseva to invite Alberto to stage the ballet Carmen, whose plans already included the image of a freedom-loving Spanish gypsy, which he tried on his sister Alicia Alonso. Ekaterina Alekseevna helped organize this event:

“- A one-act ballet for forty minutes in the style of a holiday of Spanish dance, like Don Quixote, right ?. This can strengthen the Soviet-Cuban friendship. "

Alberto remembered a few words in Russian from his youth, when he danced in the Russian ballet Monte Carlo. He began rehearsals for his ballet, a version "for the Soviet stage". The performance was prepared in record time, the workshops did not keep pace, the costumes were finished by the morning of the premiere day. Only one day was allocated for the dress rehearsal (orchestral, lighting and assembly) on the main stage. In a word, the ballet was done in a vain haste.

The world premiere took place on April 20, 1967 at the Bolshoi Theater (production designer Boris Messerer, conductor G. N. Rozhdestvensky). At the same time, the extremely passionate nature of the production, not alien to eroticism, aroused rejection among the Soviet leadership, and in the USSR Alonso's ballet was censored. According to the memoirs of Maya Plisetskaya:

the Soviet government let Alonso into the theater only because he was “their own”, from the Island of Freedom, but this “islander” just took and staged a play not only about love passions, but also about the fact that there is nothing higher in the world than freedom. And, of course, this ballet got so great not only for the eroticism and my “walking” with all my feet, but also for the politics, which was clearly visible in it.

After the premiere performance, Furtseva was not in the director's box, she left the theater. The performance did not look like the “short Don Quixote” she expected, and it was raw. The second performance was supposed to go to the "evening of one-act ballets" ("troichetka") on April 22, but was canceled:

“This is a great setback, comrades. The play is raw. Solid erotica. The music of the opera is disfigured ... I have big doubts whether the ballet can be improved. "

After arguments that “the banquet will have to be canceled” and promises “to reduce all erotic support that shocking you,” Furtseva gave up and allowed the play, which was staged at the Bolshoi 132 times and about two hundred around the world.

Maya turned to Dmitry Shostakovich with a request to write music for "Carmen", but the composer refused, not wanting, according to him, to compete with Georges Bizet. Then she turned to Aram Khachaturian, but was again refused.
- Do it on Bizet! - said Alonso ... We were running out of time, the music was needed "already yesterday." Then Shchedrin, who perfectly mastered the profession of orchestration, substantially rearranged the musical material of Bizet's opera. Rehearsals began to the piano. The music for the ballet consisted of melodic fragments from the opera Carmen and Georges Bizet's Arlesienne. In Shchedrin's score, percussion instruments, various drums and bells gave a special character

The order of musical numbers in R. Shchedrin's transcription:
Introduction
Dance
First intermezzo
Divorce of the guard
Exit Carmen and Habanera
Scene
Second intermezzo
Bolero
Torero
Torero and Carmen
Adagio
Divination
The final

At the center of the ballet is the tragic fate of the gypsy woman Carmen and the soldier Jose who fell in love with her, whom Carmen leaves for the young Torero. The relationship of the heroes and the death of Carmen at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Fate. Thus, the story of Carmen (in comparison with the literary source and Bizet's opera) is solved symbolically, which is reinforced by the unity of the scene (bullfighting platform)

Screen adaptation

Based on this production in 1969, the director Vadim Derbenyov made a film with the participation of the first performers: Carmen - Maya Plisetskaya, Jose - Nikolay Fadeechev, Torero - Sergei Radchenko, Corregidor - Alexander Lavrenyuk, Rock - Natalya Kasatkina.

For the second time, Alonso's production was screened in 1978 by director Felix Slidovker with Maya Plisetskaya (Carmen), Alexander Godunov (Jose), Sergei Radchenko (Torero), Viktor Barykin (Corregidor), Loipa Arauho (Rock).

In 1974 the choreographer Valentin Elizariev rewrote the libretto based on the cycle of poems by Alexander Blok "Carmen" and staged a new performance to the music of J. Bizet, arranged by R. Shchedrin at the Bolshoi Theater of the Belarusian SSR, Minsk.

Performances in other countries and cities

The version of Alberto Alonso's ballet was staged in academic theaters in more than twenty cities by A.M. Plisetskiy, among them:
Helsinki (1873)
Kharkiv, theater of opera and ballet them. Lysenko (November 4, 1973)
Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater, together with A.M. Plisetskiy (1973)
Kazan (1973)
Minsk, Opera and Ballet Theater of the Republic of Belarus (1973)
Kiev, Opera and Ballet Theater of Ukraine named after Shevchenko (1973)
Ufa Bashkir Opera and Ballet Theater (April 4, 1974)
Lima, Teatro Segura (1974)
Buenos Aires, Teatro Colon (1977)
Sverdlovsk, Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater (May 13, 1978 and February 7, 1980)
Dushanbe (1981)
Tbilisi, Opera and Ballet Theater Paliashvili (1982)

Reviews from critics

All of Karmen-Plisetskaya's movements carried a special meaning, challenge, protest: both a mocking movement of the shoulder, and a set hip, and a sharp turn of the head, and a piercing glance from under the brows ... her static posture conveyed colossal internal tension: she fascinated the audience, attracted their attention, involuntarily (or deliberately?) distracting from the effective solo of the Toreador

The new Jose is very young. But age itself is not an artistic category. And does not allow for discounts on inexperience. Godunov played age in subtle psychological manifestations. His Jose is wary and distrustful. Trouble awaits people. From life: - dirty tricks. Injured and proud. The first exit, the first pose - a freeze-frame, heroically sustained face to face with the audience. A living portrait of the fair-haired and light-eyed (in accordance with the portrait created by Mérimée) Jose. Large, strict features. The look of the wolf cub is sullenly. Expression of alienation. Behind the mask you guess the true human essence - the vulnerability of the soul, thrown into the world and the world hostile. You contemplate the portrait with interest. And so he came to life and "spoke." The syncopated "speech" was perceived by Godunov precisely and organically. No wonder he was prepared for his debut by the talented dancer Azary Plisetskiy, who perfectly knows both the part and the whole ballet from his own experience. Hence - the carefully worked out, carefully polished details that make up the stage life of the image.

New production at the Mariinsky Theater

The performance was resumed by choreographer Viktor Barykin, former soloist of the Bolshoi Ballet and performer of the role of Jose.

The first cast at the Mariinsky: Irma Nioradze - Carmen, Ilya Kuznetsov - Jose, Anton Korsakov - Torreodor

Elizariev's version

“The suite is a picture of the life, or rather, of the spiritual fate of Carmen. The conventionality of the ballet theater easily and naturally shifts them in time, making it possible to trace not external everyday events, but the events of the heroine's inner spiritual life. No, not the seducer, not the femme fatale Carmen! We are attracted in this image by the spiritual beauty of Carmen, the integrity, uncompromising nature of her nature. " Conductor Yaroslav Voshchak

“Listening to this music, I saw my Carmen, which was significantly different from Carmen in other performances. For me, she is not only an outstanding woman, proud and uncompromising, and not only a symbol of love. She is a hymn to love, love, pure, honest, burning, demanding, love of a colossal flight of feelings that none of the men she met is capable of. Carmen is not a doll, not a beautiful toy, not a street girl with whom many would not mind having fun. For her, love is the essence of life. No one was able to appreciate, understand her inner world, hidden behind a dazzling beauty. He fell in love with Carmen Jose. Love transformed the rude, narrow-minded soldier, opened up spiritual joys for him, but for Carmen his arms soon turn into chains. Intoxicated by his feelings, Jose does not try to understand Carmen. He begins to love not Carmen, but his feelings for her ... She could also love Torero, who is not indifferent to her beauty. But Torero - exquisitely gallant, brilliant and fearless - is internally lazy, cold, he is not able to fight for love. And naturally, demanding and proud Carmen cannot love someone like him. And without love there is no happiness in life, and Carmen accepts death from Jose, so as not to embark on the path of compromise or loneliness together. "

For the first time in Israel, a one-act ballet "Carmen Suite" by the stars of the Russian ballet will be presented, dedicated to the memory of the greatest ballerina of our time - Maya Plisetskaya. The great ballerina is remembered and honored by millions. Her whole life was devoted to ballet.
The brightest stars of the Bolshoi Ballet, as well as the Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky theaters of St. Petersburg, hastened to pay tribute to the memory of the famous ballerina.

The Israeli audience will be able to visit the ballet performance "Carmen Suite" at the end of November and fully appreciate all its beauty and splendor of the production. The program will be presented by two branches, which include:

1. The first part - in Israel for the first time will present the ballet "Carmen Suite", consisting of one act based on the opera "Carmen" by Georges Bizet (1875) based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée. Composer Rodion Shchedrin.

1. The second part - includes a Gala Concert, which includes the best performances created by Plisetskaya during various life periods at the world's leading venues. The performers of the masterpieces will be the soloists of the ballet of the Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky Theaters of St. Petersburg.

The artistic direction of the project is entirely the merit of Yuri Petukhov, People's Artist of Russia, professor at the Vaganova Academy.

Plot and story

The production of the ballet Carmen Suite to the music of Georges Bizet and orchestrated by Rodion Shchedrin has a rather rich history. For the first time, viewers were able to see this masterpiece of art on April 20, 1967. Maya Plisetskaya brilliantly played the passionate and full of life Carmen on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater.

Recall that the plot of the legendary ballet performance of Carmen is tied to the tragic fate of the gypsy Carmen and the soldier Jose, who fell in love with her. However, fate decreed that Carmen preferred the young Torero to him. The action takes place in the vastness of Spain in the 1920s. The relationship of the heroes and even the fact that Carmen eventually dies at the hands of Jose are predetermined by Rock.

Thus, the story of Carmen, if compared with the original source in literature and the opera by J. Bizet, is performed symbolically and is enhanced by the unity of the scene. The tragedy of love in Carmen is in many ways reminiscent of other modern productions or films. Among them - "West Side Story" and "Tabor Goes to Heaven."

Plisetskaya as the personification of Carmen

Saying “Plisetskaya is Carmen. Carmen is Plisetskaya ”means a lot. It cannot be otherwise, but few know that the birth of Plisetskaya's main ballet happened by chance. Maya Plisetskaya says that this is how the card was laid, but she dreamed of the role of Carmen all her adult life.

She could not even think back in 1966 that the choreographer of her dreams would meet her in the winter at the Luzhniki Stadium at an evening of Cuban ballet. Barely waiting for the first bars of incendiary flamenco, Plisetskaya hastened to break into the backstage during the intermission. Seeing the choreographer, she asked: "Will you stage" Carmen "for me?", To which he, smiling, replied: "I dream about it."

The newly-minted production was characterized by an innovative character, and the main character was sexy. No one dared to ban the choreographer from the Island of Liberty, as it would mean a quarrel with Fidel Castro. Ekaterina Furtseva, Minister of Culture, called M. Plisetskaya a "traitor to the ballet" and that "Your Carmen will die!"

40 years later, Alexei Ratmansky, the ballerina's last stage partner, became the director of the Bolshoi Ballet. November 18, 2005, on the day of the resumption of "Carmen" on the main stage of the country, Maya Plisetskaya said: "I will die. Carmen will stay. "

A production full of life

The production of "Carmen" itself is very lively and full of life. Great music, a stellar cast of performers that viewers trust, empathize and be inspired by the mood.

The staging of the performance is thought out down to the smallest detail. From beginning to end, the flavor of Spain is felt, authenticity is present in everything.

Each movement of Carmen already has a special meaning, protest and challenge. A mocking movement of the shoulder, a set hip, a sharp turn of the head, a piercing glance from under the brows become characteristic and recognizable. What is just the observation of Carmen, like a frozen sphinx, at the dance of the Toreador, when, with the help of all the staticness of her posture, a colossal level of internal tension is transmitted.

The tour will be organized by the Producer Center