| "It takes a lot of
effort and responsibility to create a full-fledged ballet
about Soviet life themes. But difficulties do not scare me.
Although it’s easier and safer to go along the beaten path,
it is a drag, it's not challenging, it's good for nothing."
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Dmitry Shostakovich
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... A group of Soviet actors sets out
for Kuban, to meet some Kuban kolkhozniks (collective farmers).
It's their first meeting. The collective farmers take the
actors for people belonging to a strange unfamiliar society
and do not know how to approach them. For the actors it's
also problematic to find a common language with the collective
farmers.
But soon, however, the ice is broken
and both parties find that they have a lot in common: they
are both involved in building the Soviet life with the only
difference that the former do it in the fields and sheds while
the latter do it in the field of art. The romance and love
affairs, which emerge on the Kuban picturesque landscape,
make the two teams feel friendly.
The plot of the ballet is very simple
and trivial.
The music, to my way of thinking, is
light, cheerful, easy, entertaining and, which is the main
point, danceable. I intently did my best to find clear, simple
in design tunes equally understandable both for the public
and performers. It's not only difficult but also absolutely
impossible to dance to rhythmically and melodically indistinct
shapeless music.
To tell the truth every time I see the
so-called "pure pantomime”; I cannot get rid of a feeling
that I witness to deaf and dumb people communicating. There
is some desperate unnaturalness in this seeming realism.
The opera can't do without singing and
in the same way I can't do without people dancing in the ballet.
You shouldn't try to fight it; you'd better try to justify
it.
“The Bright Stream” comes third on the
list of my ballets based on Soviet themes. I do consider both
my first and second ballets - “The Golden Age” and “The Screw”
a complete flop in terms of drama. As I see it the main error
lies in the fact that librettists in their attempt to show
our reality in a ballet performance failed to take into consideration
the very nature of ballet. Reflecting the Soviet Socialist
reality in a ballet should be taken seriously. It cannot be
approached superfluously. And such episodes as “The Dance
of Enthusiasm” or pantomime imitation of the work of a blacksmith
(hammering) reveal some mistakes in the approach to the problem
of social realistic ballet performance inspired by the Soviet
themes.
I am far from being sure that my third
try (work) will meet the high cultural standards of the Soviet
Ballet but even if it doesn't I'll never stop trying.
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