Mariinsky Ballet’s «Sleeping Beauty»

Text 1.

Theatre superstitions.

You shouldn’t mention the name of the play «Macbeth» in theatre buildings. If it happened, you should leave the theatre, turn around three times, spit, knock on the door and ask permission to reenter.

If you performe in a brand new theatre make sure someone throws piece of coal from the stage into the gallery before the first production is staged in order to guaranty the building success.

Flowers should be fake. Short life of real flowers may be reflected in the run of the play. The eyes on peacock’s feathers may attract the attention of the evil eye to the show. A yellow set or green costume were the colors used to represent the devil.

If you use the whistle in the theater, you run the risk of having a piece of scenery land on your head.

Never say «good luck» but always «break a leg». It is the worst thing that could happen to an actor. Actor John Booth broke his leg jumping on to the stage after shooting Abraham Lincoln. After that Booth wasn’t successful in his career.

 

Text 2.

Chichester festival theatre.

After founding a theatre in Stratford Ontario Leslie Evershed Martin suggested to his wife do the same.

First the theatre’s director was Laurence Olivier. The theatre’s design was radical. Evershed Martin and his architects opted for a thrust stage where the audience could make full use of their imaginations, where the actors could make full use of their vocal skills. Oliver replied: «I found it immensely touching in this day that the people of Chichister want this theatre so badly».

The Oliver’s first season gave us a lot of famous theatre’s directors such as Fay Compton, Keith Mitchel.

From the start, Chichister was primarily an actor’s theatre long before the current invasion of the West End by American film starts. Chichister was Hollywood’s favourite English port of call and hosted perfomances from the likes of Leslie Caron and Omar Shariff.

Text 3.

The Bolshoi opera.

An Russian operas are surely best perfomed by Russians.

One can whether the title of the opera should have been titled as Tatyana? Surely the plot is more about Tanya’s progression from idealistic young girl to a loyal and mature woman. Onegin's outsider status must have prompted the title for Pushkin’s verse novel.

Discrepancies between libretto and staging were numerous. Monsieur Trique’s song to Lensky rendered by Alexei Dolgov made dramatic sense.

The singers, as well as chorus, were excellent. Tatyana Monogarova looked, sang and acted the part of Tatyana as if she was a real Tatyana of the plot.

The set design was attractive: the lighting was varied and almost magical. The costumes were tasteful, beautiful and meaningful. The approach of conductor Dmitri Jurowski and the Bolshoi orchestra was earthy but sensitive.

 

Text 4.

My favourite actor.

My favourite actor is Leonardo Dicaprio. He is an American actor, producer, and environmentalis. Dicaprio was born on eleventh of  November in 1974.
In the early 90s (найнтис), he played recurring (рекёринг) roles in various television series, such as the sitcom Parenthood. He had his first major film role in «This boy’s Life». Dicaprio achieved international fame as a star in the epic romance «Titanic» (тайтэник), which became the highest-grossing film at that point.
Dicaprio received the Oskars for best actor for the roles of Howard Hughes in «The Aviator» and a mercenary in the «Blood Diamond».
As of 2020, Leonardo Dicaprio has placed eight times in annual rankings of the world’s highest-paid actors. His awards include three Golden Globe.

 

Text 5.

Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.

Shakespeare’s Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. It is located on the south bank of the river Thames.

Globe theatre was built in 1599, destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and than demolished in 1644.

Shakespeare’s Globe was founded by the actor and director Sam Wanamaker, built about 230 metres from the site of the Globe theatre and opened to the public in 1997. Now theatre accommodates only 1400 spectators compared to the original theatre’s 3000.

Shakespeare’s globe also includes the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, an indoor theatre which opened in January 2014. This is a smaller space based on the indoor playhouses of Jacobean London.

Michelle Terry currently is an Artistic director of the theatre. She is the second actor-manager following Mark Rylance, the founding artistic director.

 

Text 6.

Konstantin Stanislavski.

Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavski was born on the seventeenth of January in 1863. He is the first People’s artist of  USSR (юсса), founder of the Mosсow art theatre. Also he is a theatre practicioner, theatre reformer, founder of the «system»; of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique (техник).
In 1897 the legendary eighteen-hour discussion of Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko take place. Following that the Mosсow art theatre was opened on forteenth of october in 1898. The debut play was the play «Tsar (заа) Fedor Ioannovich».
Successful performances were «The Seagull», «The Blue Bird», «The Lower Depths», «Dni Turbinykh» and other.
Vsevolod Meyerhold, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Alexander Tairov created their own acting systems after studying the Stanislavski’s system.
Stanislavski is author of the books «My Life in Art» (his autobiography), «The actor’s work on himself», «Ethiks». Students of all theatrical universities currently study these books. Konstantin Stanislavski died on the seventh of August in 1938.

 

Text 7.

Oskar.

The Academy Awards, more popularly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical (текникал) merit in the film industry.
The awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette of Oskar.
The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live worldwide.
The Oscars are awarded in twenty four major categories. Walt Disney, an american animator, holds the record for most Academy Awards (авордс). He won twenty six Oscars. Most of all - forteen nominations for the Oscars - received the films «All about Eve» (ив), «Titanic» (тайтэник) and «La la land».

Text 8.

Mariinsky Ballet’s «Sleeping Beauty».

The «Sleeping Beauty» is considered сlassic production of the Mariinsky ballet. This choreography has the advantage of being a fairy-tale. The company from Saint Petersburg still use Tchaikovsky’s music and Petipa’s choreography, updated by Konstantine Sergeyev and Fedor Lopukhov.

Charles Perrault’s hard-hitting fairy tale was re-imagined by Ivan Vsevolozhsky and Petipa. Third act devoted only to the wedding of Princess Aurora and Prince Désiré (дезиэрай). The dancing was beautiful to watch, especially from the women of the corps de ballet, which looked very unified and rigorously rehearsed. All of the big group numbers had an pleasing evenness of movement and gesture.

Prima ballerina Diana Vishneva was amazing in the role of Aurora. Always smiling, demure (дэмьё) she was graceful. Vladimir Shklyarov made a handsome, assured, Prince Désiré (дезиэрай).

Conductor Alexey Repnikov led the Opera House Orchestra in a convincing performance. The demanding violin solos were handled by concertmaster Oleg Rylatko. Simon Virsaladze made а beautiful costumes. Аll this will not leave you indifferent.

 

Text 9.