It was only recently when I heard Spartacus in its entirety, but with its unique story and beautiful music I got the feeling that hearing it or watching a production of it was time well spent. This Paris/Bolshoi performance from 2008 is generally very good, though it could have been better than it was. It is a little better than the 1977 filmed version, I actually preferred the dancing in that but the camera work and cuts really let things down, but the Irek Mukhamedov performance- which strangely as of now is not credited on IMDb- is still the best on DVD. What could have been better? For me the orchestral playing and the portrayal of Crassus. The orchestra do play with a beautiful sound but lack energy and it didn't sound entirely convincing or clean. Some of it did sound even as though they were sight-reading. Alexander Volchkov has all the steps and how he dances them is dead right, though a couple of the attacks in movement could have been more violent. But he seemed too gentle and somewhat meek to me, the menacing and arrogant qualities needed for the role and that was there in Maris Liepa's portrayal was missing. However, the costumes and sets are lovingly rendered and fitting to the atmosphere. The video directing is a major improvement over the 1977 performance, not as obtrusive and the close-ups are thankfully spare. Pavel Klinichev's conducting is musical and accommodates the dancers very well, though in need of a more disciplined touch, while the Bolshoi ballet company dance the beautiful though violent choreography impeccably. Nina Kaptsova is a very expressive dancer- comparing to the colder(not inappropriately so) interpretation of Natalia Bessmertnova- and the fragility seen in her Phrygia is endearing and quite touching. Maria Allash is a very sexy and proud Aegina, looking as though she is enjoying every second. But Carlos Acosta was the most impressive, he may not quite erase memories of Vladimir Vasiliev and Irek Mukhamedov(nor did I expect him to) but he is very sincere and commanding and his dancing is perfectly placed and powerful, the jetees and jumps are incredibly passionate. In conclusion, very good if a little lacking. 8/10 Bethany Cox
2 Reviews
This Slavery in the Roman Empire was our melting pot
Dr_Coulardeau27 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
A ballet is a rich emotional experience merging music, rhythm, and corporal movement into one intense existential epiphany. A ballet speaks to all our senses at once and because of that, it is a unique and amazing cultural, mental, and sensorial adventure. To really understand what this particular ballet is about, we should analyze each scene, and there are only twelve, like the holy apostles of Jesus who spoke for all people including the slaves, and called for their freedom in their equality in the eyes of God himself. I am only going to make a few remarks and I would advise you to get to this DVD and enjoy the recording since anyway you cannot even dream of seeing it on any stage in the world with the same dancers, and I should say with the same four leading dancers. Thirteen years later, they are probably choreographing or directing a ballet company somewhere in this vast world. Luckily, we have DVDs.
The first remark is about the libretto as they call it, the synopsis of the twelve scenes. They generally contain two movements, two dimensions, except scenes 4 and 8 closing act 1 and Act 2. And even within this duality of themes or titles, each scene is conceived as a whole with a great variety of moments. This variety is for me one essential element. Instead of having a succession of clear-cut scenes, we have important but multifarious scenes, and the French word would be better, "tableaux." This word implies each of these scenes has an architecture that gives it not so much a unity, but in fact, power and dynamism that leads from one moment to the next, from one color to another, from one tempo to still another, never-ending, never freezing any moment in one cliché or vignette. We are dealing with slavery and shedding blood is the basic reality of these people, I mean being bled by someone else for the pleasure of a few or at times many. These scenes and their various moments are never cut and pasted one after the other. They systematically bleed from one into the next and this next one into a third one. It is a continuous flow of ever-changing tempi, colors, emotions, and that is my second element.
The choreography follows the music and the variety I have just spoken of finds its source in the music itself from moments of military bombastic pump and power to more sentimental and even intimate moments when the music is becoming some kind of chamber music that could be performed in some boudoir with an alcove behind a drawn curtain of modesty. And then we can shift to the music of the slaves who are dreaming of being free forever, though they know, and the tone is always tragic, that they are free as long as they fight for it, and that in fact, they are not fighting for their freedom they may conquer, but for the freedom they have in this fighting and that will anyway lead them to death and the annihilation, the "decimation" is a military term in the Roman legions meaning one out of ten soldiers guilty of lack of courage or cowardice is to be put to death by the other nine with all sorts of blunt objects, the annihilation, as I was saying, of this dream of liberty. Slave wars are always lost by the slaves, or at least those in the Roman Empire were always lost by the slaves. Has anything changed in this world? We could discuss the idea.
These tableaux of this hope, dream, or maybe simply illusion of freedom are danced in such a way that we have to feel some strong emotion in our own minds, own senses, and we feel some strong empathy emerging in us for these genocidal victims that can only, in the end, accept to die, accept to lose, accept to be crucified along a road with nothing but some Requiem to accompany them down into the Tenebrae. I must say the choreography and the bodies of the dancers, the two main couples of dancers, are there to feed these emotions. Crassus is a repulsive control freak who is ready to do anything provided it leads him to kill them all in the end. He is only motivated by this simple desire. He can't even have a real love relationship with Aegina who is the most erotic untouchable forbidden lascivious fruit that no one is supposed to even imagine yielding to any feeling, appeal, or whatever attraction that has only one name in our languages and it is totally rejected by her, even when it comes from Crassus.
On the other hand, Spartacus and Phrygia are able to have a sensuous and sensual relationship that they assume, knowing their time is short and counted, ticking down on the clock, or flowing down in the sandglass. This close and loving relationship is expressed by the pas de deux they have now and then, and the direct contact they can establish for an evanescent moment, or instant. But in this strongly emotional atmosphere, Spartacus dances like a god able to fly over the stage, over the earth. As he says in his interview, he is carrying the weight of slavery, the very slavery Carlos Acosta is a descendant from in Cuba. He has a way to express this dilemma, this heart-tearing situation: he is a dancer whose ancestors were slaves, and he dances as Spartacus, a slave that rebelled in vain and was in the end defeated and killed. For example, the way he dances with the chain that locks his two wrists in one of his monologues is the best way you can express the killing frustration of a slave who may dream of being chainless but who is by definition in chains and will be executed probably on a cross if he managed to get these chains off.
I remember Edmond Linval telling me one day that in dancing the most expressive element in the body is the way the head is positioned and moves, and the eyes that have to look at the audience "all the time" because the audience is going to see these eyes and feel the power of the head. The slaves at the beginning are shown as slaves with dancing, their hands locked behind their back, their general posture, particularly of the head pushed down into some submissive posture, but we reach here something that seems to be the real trademark of the Bolshoi. The dancing of groups of slaves, of soldiers, of freed slaves, or any other assembly of people is extremely dynamic and at times extremely rapid, but the coordination of every single detail in the movements and the postures, particularly the heads, is so good that we are over and over again fascinated by this collective action, and when the heads are positioned to express some challenge from the slaves, or some murderous rejection from the soldiers, or some social self-contentment from the elite in this society, the simultaneous and at times minute movement or stance is so perfectly synchronized and interrelated that we take it as a direct punch into our brains and minds that identify the meaning and the feeling at once bringing up empathy or revulsion. That is the master's brand of the Bolshoi itself. Where some might think slightly uncoordinated variations might bring some charm in the open meaning they carry, the Bolshoi seems to believe that perfect synchronization is essential, and in this ballet where tempi and colors are constantly changing it becomes crucial so that we can follow the meaning by just being carried by the synchronization that mesmerizes us.
The Requiem at the end is a superb ending that has been imitated many times in the Spartacus series (2010-2013) including of course the final death of Spartacus wrapped up in some kind of shroud to be then escorted to the other side of this life of slavery into the freedom of the afterlife, and I must say this ending is so much more powerful than the final crucifixion of Spartacus in Kubrick's film with the sentimentalese presentation of his son by his legally escaping wife.
Thank god, all the gods of all god-endowed religions, we have this recording. It will live forever and cross all climate changes you may imagine.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU.
The first remark is about the libretto as they call it, the synopsis of the twelve scenes. They generally contain two movements, two dimensions, except scenes 4 and 8 closing act 1 and Act 2. And even within this duality of themes or titles, each scene is conceived as a whole with a great variety of moments. This variety is for me one essential element. Instead of having a succession of clear-cut scenes, we have important but multifarious scenes, and the French word would be better, "tableaux." This word implies each of these scenes has an architecture that gives it not so much a unity, but in fact, power and dynamism that leads from one moment to the next, from one color to another, from one tempo to still another, never-ending, never freezing any moment in one cliché or vignette. We are dealing with slavery and shedding blood is the basic reality of these people, I mean being bled by someone else for the pleasure of a few or at times many. These scenes and their various moments are never cut and pasted one after the other. They systematically bleed from one into the next and this next one into a third one. It is a continuous flow of ever-changing tempi, colors, emotions, and that is my second element.
The choreography follows the music and the variety I have just spoken of finds its source in the music itself from moments of military bombastic pump and power to more sentimental and even intimate moments when the music is becoming some kind of chamber music that could be performed in some boudoir with an alcove behind a drawn curtain of modesty. And then we can shift to the music of the slaves who are dreaming of being free forever, though they know, and the tone is always tragic, that they are free as long as they fight for it, and that in fact, they are not fighting for their freedom they may conquer, but for the freedom they have in this fighting and that will anyway lead them to death and the annihilation, the "decimation" is a military term in the Roman legions meaning one out of ten soldiers guilty of lack of courage or cowardice is to be put to death by the other nine with all sorts of blunt objects, the annihilation, as I was saying, of this dream of liberty. Slave wars are always lost by the slaves, or at least those in the Roman Empire were always lost by the slaves. Has anything changed in this world? We could discuss the idea.
These tableaux of this hope, dream, or maybe simply illusion of freedom are danced in such a way that we have to feel some strong emotion in our own minds, own senses, and we feel some strong empathy emerging in us for these genocidal victims that can only, in the end, accept to die, accept to lose, accept to be crucified along a road with nothing but some Requiem to accompany them down into the Tenebrae. I must say the choreography and the bodies of the dancers, the two main couples of dancers, are there to feed these emotions. Crassus is a repulsive control freak who is ready to do anything provided it leads him to kill them all in the end. He is only motivated by this simple desire. He can't even have a real love relationship with Aegina who is the most erotic untouchable forbidden lascivious fruit that no one is supposed to even imagine yielding to any feeling, appeal, or whatever attraction that has only one name in our languages and it is totally rejected by her, even when it comes from Crassus.
On the other hand, Spartacus and Phrygia are able to have a sensuous and sensual relationship that they assume, knowing their time is short and counted, ticking down on the clock, or flowing down in the sandglass. This close and loving relationship is expressed by the pas de deux they have now and then, and the direct contact they can establish for an evanescent moment, or instant. But in this strongly emotional atmosphere, Spartacus dances like a god able to fly over the stage, over the earth. As he says in his interview, he is carrying the weight of slavery, the very slavery Carlos Acosta is a descendant from in Cuba. He has a way to express this dilemma, this heart-tearing situation: he is a dancer whose ancestors were slaves, and he dances as Spartacus, a slave that rebelled in vain and was in the end defeated and killed. For example, the way he dances with the chain that locks his two wrists in one of his monologues is the best way you can express the killing frustration of a slave who may dream of being chainless but who is by definition in chains and will be executed probably on a cross if he managed to get these chains off.
I remember Edmond Linval telling me one day that in dancing the most expressive element in the body is the way the head is positioned and moves, and the eyes that have to look at the audience "all the time" because the audience is going to see these eyes and feel the power of the head. The slaves at the beginning are shown as slaves with dancing, their hands locked behind their back, their general posture, particularly of the head pushed down into some submissive posture, but we reach here something that seems to be the real trademark of the Bolshoi. The dancing of groups of slaves, of soldiers, of freed slaves, or any other assembly of people is extremely dynamic and at times extremely rapid, but the coordination of every single detail in the movements and the postures, particularly the heads, is so good that we are over and over again fascinated by this collective action, and when the heads are positioned to express some challenge from the slaves, or some murderous rejection from the soldiers, or some social self-contentment from the elite in this society, the simultaneous and at times minute movement or stance is so perfectly synchronized and interrelated that we take it as a direct punch into our brains and minds that identify the meaning and the feeling at once bringing up empathy or revulsion. That is the master's brand of the Bolshoi itself. Where some might think slightly uncoordinated variations might bring some charm in the open meaning they carry, the Bolshoi seems to believe that perfect synchronization is essential, and in this ballet where tempi and colors are constantly changing it becomes crucial so that we can follow the meaning by just being carried by the synchronization that mesmerizes us.
The Requiem at the end is a superb ending that has been imitated many times in the Spartacus series (2010-2013) including of course the final death of Spartacus wrapped up in some kind of shroud to be then escorted to the other side of this life of slavery into the freedom of the afterlife, and I must say this ending is so much more powerful than the final crucifixion of Spartacus in Kubrick's film with the sentimentalese presentation of his son by his legally escaping wife.
Thank god, all the gods of all god-endowed religions, we have this recording. It will live forever and cross all climate changes you may imagine.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU.
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