St. Petersburg State Theater Ballet of Boris Eifman. - Alexandrinsky Theater, St. Petersburg, Russia - dance review

Dance Magazine, Feb, 1996 by Arsen Degen

A new ballet by Boris Eifman, The Karamazovs (based on Fyodor Dostoyevski's novel The Brothers Karamazov), starts with a vast display. We see the house of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov (Andrei Gordeyev), the setting of a brutish orgy that is alien to the Karamazov sons, the reflective intellectual, Ivan (Albert Galichanin), and the young novice monk, Alexei (Igor Markov). Even more sharp is the reaction of the third son, Dmitri (German Rubchikhin), when his father, having barely been introduced to Dmitri's fiancee, Katerina, starts to impose on her his drunken caresses. But a true rivalry between the lecherous old man and this third, dissolute, son begins when they both fall under the spell of the seductive Grushenka (Vera Abuzova). The knot of fate gradually tightens around all the characters - Grushenka can't refrain from tempting Alexei, and Ivan takes a fancy to Katerina, who has been abandoned by his brother.

The first section of the ballet is like a chamber piece: duets, trios, and quartets, resourcefully choreographed, are only occasionally interrupted by crowd scenes. Toward the end of the act the atmosphere thickens: the mocking carnality of the old man becomes intolerable, and in another spree he falls, slain by an unknown hand. Dmitri falls under suspicion; zealous policemen whip him with enormous ropes, and, in the final image of Act One, literally haul him high over the stage, leaving him suspended in midair.

The second act consists mostly of crowd compositions that signify a transition from private to world-size problems. it starts with a famous parable told by Ivan about the new advent of Christ and his dialogue with the Great Inquisitor. Powerful sounds of Wagner's Tannhauser overture serve as a background for Dostoyevski's words about freedom and power, and we see the struggle for human souls in the performance by the excellent corps de ballet. It is astonishing that in Eifman's works the most abstract philosophical problems do not seem dry and intellectual - expressed naturally, the thought both shocks and captivates.

Another balletic "fresco" that practically crowns the performance makes an even stronger impression. Here the choreographer, following the unrealized plan of Dostoyevski, oversteps the bounds of the novel and goes on with the life story of the adult Alexei, whose boundless love of people helps him to open the horizons of freedom for the most luckless of them. But occupants of the "house of the dead" (as Dostoyevski called prisoners and convicts) having broken away, alas, quickly lose the lost vestiges of human appearance. Their protest against all and everything engages Alexei for a time. Only after having seen how the raging "lovers of truth" rob, rape, and kill innocent people does he realize all the horror of such freedom.

The denouement of the ballet is quiet and dreadful. Satiated with human blood, "the possessed" crawl away behind the prison bars; Katerina pushes a wheelchair with mad Ivan; prison barriers separate the loving couple Dmitri and Grushenka; and Alexei, grown wise, creeps along toward a shining cross symbolizing trust and purification from sin.

An economical set design by Vyacheslav Okunev contributes to the success of this ballet, as do the excellently arranged excerpts from the works of Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, and Wagner. The dancers execute perfectly Eifman's distinctive choreographic style; leading roles are not so muck played as they are lived. The choreographic reading of this immortal novel by Dostoyevski is undoubtedly permeated with the anxiety and pain of today's Russia. However, the problems raised in the ballet touch not only Russians; soon after its premiere The Karamazovs was performed in Germany more than forty times to great acclaim.