Mariinsky Theatre tickets 29 April 2025 - Ballet and opera by Béla Bartók: A csodálatos mandarin. A kékszakállú herceg vára | GoComGo.com

Ballet and opera by Béla Bartók: A csodálatos mandarin. A kékszakállú herceg vára

Mariinsky Theatre, Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, Russia
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Important Info
Type: Ballet
City: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Starts at: 19:00
Duration: 35min

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Cast
Performers
Orchestra: Mariinsky Orchestra
Principal Dancer: Diana Vishneva
Ballet dancer: Kimin Kim
Ballet company: Mariinsky Ballett
Creators
Composer: Béla Bartók
Librettist: Béla Balázs
Author: Charles Perrault
Librettist: Menyhért Lengyel
Choreography: Yuri Possokhov
Overview

It was the success of the Diaghilev company, which in the 1910s made ballet a fashionable and popular musical genre, that inspired the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok to turn to ballet.

However, the eerie expressionist plot which underlies the libretto of The Miraculous Mandarin, did not allow this work to be critically acclaimed in the 1920s. The administration of the Budapest Opera that had vouched to stage the ballet was put off by the “immorality of the plot”. The Cologne Opera House dared to mount The Miraculous Mandarin in 1926, but the performance was soon removed from the repertoire. The music gained recognition only after the composer’s death: since the late 1940s, its choreographic interpretations began to appear in various theaters around the world. Among their authors were Fleming Flindt, Roland Petit, Leonid Lavrovsky, who staged his version at the Bolshoi Theater with a slightly modified  (to be less shocking) libretto.

Choreographer Yuri Possokhov, in his version of The Miraculous Mandarin, does not deviate from Bartok's ideas. “The more you listen to this music, the deeper you delve into it and always find something new,” says the choreographer while emphasizing that in creating the choreography he relied mostly on the music. The emotional dance of the soloists does fully justify the intricacies of the magical mystery plot in this minimalist and spectacular performance.

Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók's first and only opera, was written by the young composer in 1911. At two consecutive opera competitions held in Budapest in 1911 and 1912, The Castle was rejected as unperformable. The premiere took place a little later, in Budapest on May 24, 1918 under the baton of conductor Egisto Tango.

The one-act opera is based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play Ariana and the Bluebeard. In it, the protagonist’s wives symbolize the periods of his life: morning – afternoon – evening – night. (A curious coincidence: the year Bartók was working on The Castle the playwright was awarded the Nobel Prize.) Bartók's work was strongly influenced by another opera based on Maeterlinck's story, Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Events unfold just as unhurriedly, each of them having a symbolic meaning, and the orchestra is just as lavish and sophisticated.

The real protagonist of Bartók's opera is a mysterious castle that Bluebeard shows to his young wife. Behind seven doors, as if behind seven seals, the secrets of the owner's soul are hidden.

The immortal plot is moved to Bartok's native soil. The libretto by Bela Balažs, originally intended for another Hungarian composer, Zoltan Kodály, is written in the meter of traditional Székely ballads (according to a legend, Count Dracula came from the Székelys). The structure of the music, especially the Bluebeard’s part, fully corresponds to the neo-folklore structure of the verse. After all, traveling accompanied by a wax roller phonograph (and then processing the songs he had recorded) was nearly the only thing that consoled the composer at the time his music was considered too radical to be performed.

History
Premiere of this production: 27 November 1926, Cologne Opera, Cologne

The Miraculous Mandarin is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918 and 1924, and based on the 1916 story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered on 27 November 1926 conducted by Eugen Szenkar at the Cologne Opera, Germany, it caused a scandal and was subsequently banned on moral grounds. Although more successful at its Prague premiere, it was generally performed during the rest of Bartók's life in the form of a concert suite, which preserves about two-thirds of the original pantomime's music.

Premiere of this production: 24 May 1918, Royal Hungarian Opera House, Budapest

Bluebeard's Castle is a one-act expressionist opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer, and is written in Hungarian, based on the French literary tale La Barbe bleue by Charles Perrault. The opera lasts only a little over an hour and there are only two singing characters onstage: Bluebeard (Kékszakállú), and his new wife Judith (Judit); the two have just eloped and Judith is coming home to Bluebeard's castle for the first time.

Synopsis

There is a room in a big city where three criminals force a street girl to lure clients. She dances in front of an open window. The first client comes her way. He dances with the girl, and then the criminals attempt to mug him. However, having found nothing valuable, they dismiss the loser. The pattern gets repeated with the next client. The third client to respond to the girl's enchanting dance is a mandarin, a Chinese official. He looks at the temptress, and an enormous passion possesses this newcomer from another world. He pursues the girl, trying to embrace her, all in vain. Finally, the three robbers emerge from their hiding place to finish the stranger off. After robbing the mandarin, they attempt to kill him, but he keeps coming back to life, driven by his insatiable passion that is stronger than death itself. Only when the girl takes him into her arms do the charms of immortality disappear. The mandarin dies.

After an orchestral introduction depicting the chaos of the big city, the action begins in a room belonging to three tramps. They search their pockets and drawers for money, but find none. They then force a girl to stand by the window and attract passing men into the room. The girl begins a lockspiel—a "decoy game", or saucy dance. She first attracts a shabby old rake, who makes comical romantic gestures. The girl asks, "Got any money?" He replies, "Who needs money? All that matters is love." He begins to pursue the girl, growing more and more insistent until the tramps seize him and throw him out.

The girl goes back to the window and performs a second lockspiel. This time, she attracts a shy young man, who also has no money. He begins to dance with the girl. The dance grows more passionate, then the tramps jump him and throw him out too.

The girl goes to the window again and begins her dance. The tramps and girl see a bizarre figure in the street, soon heard coming up the stairs. The tramps hide, and the figure, a mandarin (wealthy Chinese man), stands immobile in the doorway. The tramps urge the girl to lure him closer. She begins another saucy dance, the Mandarin's passions slowly rising. Suddenly, he leaps up and embraces the girl. They struggle and she escapes; he begins to chase her. The tramps leap on him, strip him of his valuables, and attempt to suffocate him under pillows and blankets. However, he continues to stare at the girl. They stab him three times with a rusty sword; he almost falls, but throws himself again at the girl. The tramps grab him again and hang him from a lamp hook. The lamp falls, plunging the room into darkness, and the Mandarin's body begins to glow with an eerie blue-green light. The tramps and girl are terrified. Suddenly, the girl knows what they must do. She tells the tramps to release the Mandarin; they do. He leaps at the girl again, and this time she does not resist and they embrace. With the Mandarin's longing fulfilled, his wounds begin to bleed and he dies.

Place: A huge, dark hall in a castle, with seven locked doors.
Time: Not defined.

Judith and Bluebeard arrive at his castle, which is all dark. Bluebeard asks Judith if she wants to stay and even offers her an opportunity to leave, but she decides to stay. Judith insists that all the doors be opened, to allow light to enter into the forbidding interior, insisting further that her demands are based on her love for Bluebeard. Bluebeard refuses, saying that there are private places not to be explored by others, and asking Judith to love him but ask no questions. Judith persists, and eventually prevails over his resistance.

The first door opens to reveal a torture chamber, stained with blood. Repelled, but then intrigued, Judith pushes on. Behind the second door is a storehouse of weapons, and behind the third a storehouse of riches. Bluebeard urges her on. Behind the fourth door is a secret garden of great beauty; behind the fifth, a window onto Bluebeard's vast kingdom. All is now sunlit, but blood has stained the riches, watered the garden, and grim clouds throw blood-red shadows over Bluebeard's kingdom.

Bluebeard pleads with her to stop: the castle is as bright as it can get, and will not get any brighter, but Judith refuses to be stopped after coming this far, and opens the penultimate sixth door, as a shadow passes over the castle. This is the first room that has not been somehow stained with blood; a silent silvery lake is all that lies within, "a lake of tears". Bluebeard begs Judith to simply love him, and ask no more questions. The last door must be shut forever. But she persists, asking him about his former wives, and then accusing him of having murdered them, suggesting that their blood was the blood everywhere, that their tears were those that filled the lake, and that their bodies lie behind the last door. At this, Bluebeard hands over the last key.

Behind the door are Bluebeard's three former wives, but still alive, dressed in crowns and jewellery. They emerge silently, and Bluebeard, overcome with emotion, prostrates himself before them and praises each in turn (as his wives of dawn, midday and dusk), finally turning to Judith and beginning to praise her as his fourth wife (of the night). She is horrified and begs him to stop, but it is too late. He dresses her in the jewellery they wear, which she finds exceedingly heavy. Her head drooping under the weight, she follows the other wives along a beam of moonlight through the seventh door. It closes behind her, and Bluebeard is left alone as all fades to total darkness.

Venue Info

Mariinsky Theatre - Saint Petersburg
Location   1 Theatre Square

The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th-century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. Through most of the Soviet era, it was known as the Kirov Theatre. Today, the Mariinsky Theatre is home to the Mariinsky Ballet, Mariinsky Opera and Mariinsky Orchestra. Since Yuri Temirkanov's retirement in 1988, the conductor Valery Gergiev has served as the theatre's general director.

The theatre is named after Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Tsar Alexander II. There is a bust of the Empress in the main entrance foyer. The theatre's name has changed throughout its history, reflecting the political climate of the time.

The theatre building is commonly called the Mariinsky Theatre. The companies that operate within it have for brand recognition purposes retained the Kirov name, acquired during the Soviet era to commemorate the assassinated Leningrad Communist Party leader Sergey Kirov (1886–1934).

The Imperial drama, opera and ballet troupe in Saint Petersburg was established in 1783, at the behest of Catherine the Great, although an Italian ballet troupe had performed at the Russian court since the early 18th century. Originally, the ballet and opera performances were given in the wooden Karl Knipper Theatre on Tsaritsa Meadow, near the present-day Tripartite Bridge (also known as the Little Theatre or the Maly Theatre). The Hermitage Theatre, next door to the Winter Palace, was used to host performances for an elite audience of aristocratic guests invited by the Empress.

A permanent theatre building for the new company of opera and ballet artists was designed by Antonio Rinaldi and opened in 1783. Known as the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre the structure was situated on Carousel Square, which was renamed Theatre Square in honour of the building. Both names – "Kamenny" (Russian word for "stone") and "Bolshoi" (Russian word for "big") – were coined to distinguish it from the wooden Little Theatre. In 1836, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was renovated to a design by Albert Cavos (son of Catterino Cavos, an opera composer), and served as the principal theatre of the Imperial Ballet and opera.

On 29 January 1849, the Equestrian circus (Конный цирк) opened on Theatre Square. This was also the work of the architect Cavos. The building was designed to double as a theatre. It was a wooden structure in the then-fashionable neo-Byzantine style. Ten years later, when this circus burnt down, Albert Cavos rebuilt it as an opera and ballet house with the largest stage in the world. With a seating capacity of 1,625 and a U-shaped Italian-style auditorium, the theatre opened on 2 October 1860, with a performance of A Life for the Tsar. The new theatre was named Mariinsky after its imperial patroness, Empress Maria Alexandrovna.

Under Yuri Temirkanov, Principal Conductor from 1976 to 1988, the Opera Company continued to stage innovative productions of both modern and classic Russian operas. Although functioning separately from the Theatre’s Ballet Company, since 1988 both companies have been under the artistic leadership of Valery Gergiev as Artistic Director of the entire Theatre.

The Opera Company has entered a new era of artistic excellence and creativity. Since 1993, Gergiev’s impact on opera there has been enormous. Firstly, he reorganized the company’s operations and established links with many of the world's great opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, the Opéra Bastille, La Scala, La Fenice, the Israeli Opera, the Washington National Opera and the San Francisco Opera. Today, the Opera Company regularly tours to most of these cities.

Gergiev has also been innovative as far as Russian opera is concerned: in 1989, there was an all-Mussorgsky festival featuring the composer’s entire operatic output. Similarly, many of Prokofiev’s operas were presented from the late 1990s. Operas by non-Russian composers began to be performed in their original languages, which helped the Opera Company to incorporate world trends. The annual international "Stars of the White Nights Festival" in Saint Petersburg, started by Gergiev in 1993, has also put the Mariinsky on the world’s cultural map. That year, as a salute to the imperial origins of the Mariinsky, Verdi's La forza del destino, which received its premiere in Saint Petersburg in 1862, was produced with its original sets, costumes and scenery. Since then, it has become a characteristic of the "White Nights Festival" to present the premieres from the company’s upcoming season during this magical period, when the hours of darkness practically disappear as the summer solstice approaches.

Presently, the Company lists on its roster 22 sopranos (of whom Anna Netrebko may be the best known); 13 mezzo-sopranos (with Olga Borodina familiar to US and European audiences); 23 tenors; eight baritones; and 14 basses. With Gergiev in charge overall, there is a Head of Stage Administration, a Stage Director, Stage Managers and Assistants, along with 14 accompanists.

Important Info
Type: Ballet
City: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Starts at: 19:00
Duration: 35min
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