"The Bolshoi Theater, like all Russian ballet, is mourning. The legend with which the best pages of the history of the Bolshoi Theater are connected has gone. Until the last minute, Marina Timofeevna Semenova remained faithful to the Bolshoi Theater, where at first she shone as a prima ballerina, then she was the wisest and most necessary teacher. In fact, by her very existence, she set the highest bar for Russian ballet," he said.
Maria Semyonova danced at the Bolshoi Theater from 1930 to 1952. She performed roles in classical ballets such as Swan Lake, Giselle, La Bayadère, The Nutcracker. After that, Semenova taught at the Bolshoi Theater and the Moscow Choreographic School (now the Moscow State Academy of Choreography).
There are many celebrities among her students and students, including Maya Plisetskaya, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Rimma Karelskaya, Nina Timofeeva, Marina Kondratieva, Nina Ananiashvili, Natalia Bessmertnova, Nina Sorokina, Svetlana Adyrkhaeva, Lyudmila Semenyaka, Natalia Kasatkina, Galina Stepanenko, Nadezhda Pavlova.
short biography
Marina Semenova was born in St. Petersburg in 1908. From childhood, she attended a dance club, then entered the Leningrad Choreographic School, which she graduated in 1925. After graduating from college, she danced for five years in Leningrad on the stage of the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.
In 1930, the ballerina moved to Moscow, where she began her twenty-two-year career at the Bolshoi Theater. During this time, Semenova performed roles in classical ballets, including Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (Odette-Odile), Giselle (Adana), Glazunov's Raymonda (Raymonda), Minkus's La Bayadère (Nikia), " The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky (Masha).
In 1935-1936. Semenova performed at the Paris National Opera - in the ballet "Giselle" and in concert programs. She also starred in the films Concert Waltz (1941) and The Big Concert (1951). Since 1952, Semenova has been teaching.
The ballerina's personal life was not very successful. The first husband was her teacher and namesake Viktor Aleksandrovich Semenov. She broke up with him soon after. Then Semenova became the common-law wife of the famous revolutionary and diplomat Lev Karakhan. In 1937 he was arrested, sentenced to death and shot the same day. Semenova also has a daughter from actor Vsevolod Aksenov - Ekaterina Aksenova, a former ballet dancer at the Bolshoi Theater.
Semyonova Marina Timofeevna - ballet teacher of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of the USSR, People's Artist of the USSR, Moscow.
She was born on May 30 (June 12), 1908 in St. Petersburg to the family of an employee. Russian, nee Sheloumova. In 1925 she graduated from the class of A.Ya. Vaganova of the Leningrad Choreographic School and in the same year she was admitted to the Opera and Ballet Theater in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where she was the leading dancer. In 1930 she moved to the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of the USSR. Among the parties: Giselle ("Giselle" by A. Adam), Raymond ("Raymonda" by A.K. Glazunov), Nikiya ("La Bayadère" by L.F. Minkus), Odette - Odile ("Swan Lake" by P.I. Tchaikovsky ).
The art of M.T. Semenova was characterized by impeccable expressiveness of plasticity, energetic flight of the jump, special stability, extraordinary femininity. She gave classical dance simplicity and naturalness, introducing new social accents into the character of the heroines of old ballets.
One of the first Soviet ballerinas began touring abroad. In 1935-1936, at the invitation of S.M. Lifar, head of the ballet troupe of the Paris National Opera, she performed on the stage of this famous theater (S.M. Lifar himself was a partner) - three times in Giselle and three times in a program that included fragments of the ballets "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Chopiniana", and also participated in a charity concert in favor of ballet dancers - veterans of the Paris Opera.
On June 2, 1937, she was awarded the title of "Honored Artist of the RSFSR", in 1951 - the title of "People's Artist of the RSFSR", and on January 30, 1975 - the title of "People's Artist of the USSR".
In 1952 she ended her career as a dancer. The ballerina, distinguished by her technical virtuosity, regal manner, sculptural poses and independence of character on stage and backstage, had an incredible number of fans who managed to preserve and convey her “legend” to this day. Despite the fact that she was the "first among equals" ballerinas of her generation, she miraculously escaped repression (her husband did not escape them), almost did not receive premieres and was forced to leave the stage early. In 1937-1938 she was under house arrest.
In 1953-1960 he was a teacher at the Moscow Choreographic School. Since 1953, choreographer-repetiteur of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR. In 1960, she became one of the first teachers who began training future tutors at the A.V. Lunacharsky State Institute of Theater Arts (now the Russian Academy of Theater Arts, RATI).
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 13, 1988 for great services in the development of Soviet choreographic art Semyonova Marina Timofeevna He was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
Since 1997, professor of RATI. Under her leadership, the leading theater artists of many generations improved their skills, including People's Artists of the USSR and Russia - M.M. Plisetskaya, N.V. Timofeeva, M.V. Kondratiev, N.I. Bessmertnova, S.D. Adyrkhaeva, L.I.Semenyaka, N.V.Pavlova, G.O.Stepanenko, N.M.Tsiskaridze and many others.
Her 100th birthday was celebrated by the Bolshoi Theater in 2008.
She lived in the hero city of Moscow. She died on June 9, 2010, at the age of 102. She was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
She was awarded the Soviet Order of Lenin (06/13/1988), three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (06/2/1937, 05/27/1951, 05/29/1978), the Russian Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" 3rd degree (05/22/1998), medals, signs "175 years of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR" (1951), "200 years of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR" (1976), "225 years of the Bolshoi Theater of Russia" (2001), "Bolshoi Theater" (1981).
Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree (1941), State Prize of the Russian Federation (2003), Prize of the President of the Russian Federation (2004), Prize "Soul of Dance" of the magazine "Ballet" in the nomination "Maitre of Dance" (1997), Prize "Benoit de la dance" "in the nomination" For Life in Art "(2003), the award of the Galina Ulanova Foundation" For Selfless Service to the Art of Dance "(2004), the National Theater Award" Golden Mask "in the nomination" Honor and Dignity "(2007).
She starred in the films Concert Waltz (1941) and The Big Concert (1951). The book of Svetlana Ivanova "Marina Semyonova" (1965, Moscow) is dedicated to the creativity of the ballerina.
In her first marriage (since the 1920s) she was married to the soloist of the Mariinsky Theater Viktor Alexandrovich Semyonov (1892-1944), later a teacher of the Red Army Song and Dance Ensemble of the USSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1939). In her second marriage (civil, since 1930) she was married to diplomat Lev Mikhailovich Karakhan (1889-1937), USSR ambassador to Turkey (1934-1937); in 1937 he was arrested and sentenced to death (rehabilitated posthumously in 1956). In her third marriage (civilian), she was married to the dramatic artist and master of the artistic word Vsevolod Nikolayevich Aksyonov (1902-1960), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1947), laureate of the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (1948). Daughter of M.T. Semenova - Ekaterina Vsevolodovna Aksyonova, former ballet dancer of the Bolshoi Theater, Honored Artist of Russia, now - teacher-repetiteur.
Ekaterina Maksimova is a legend of Russian ballet, the prima of the Bolshoi Theater, who shone on its stage for 30 years. An academic artist, heir to the principles of the imperial ballet, she became famous for her virtuosity and airy grace. Ekaterina Maksimova was called "Madame No". She had a strong character, perseverance and confidence, but if the question was about creativity, the ballerina answered unchanged: “No, I can’t.” But there were those who believed in her more than she herself.
Childhood and youth
The future ballet star was born in the capital in 1939 in a family of Moscow intellectuals. Her grandfather Gustav Shpet is a Russian psychologist and philosopher, art theorist, in whose veins mixed Austro-Hungarian blood from his father and Polish from his mother. Catherine was born two years after the death of the famous grandfather. Grandmother - Natalya Konstantinovna - the daughter of the Moscow businessman Konstantin Guchkov. Mom is a journalist.
Little Katya did not dream of either the stage or art. The mobile and naughty girl wanted to become a conductor or a fireman. The mother was the first to “recognize” Katya as a ballerina. She took the mobile girl to her neighbor, the ballerina Ekaterina Geltser. But she did not like the noisy namesake and refused to look. Then Katya's grandmother took over. The woman showed her granddaughter to the ballet "luminary" Vasily Tikhomirov. He, having looked at little Maksimova, issued a consoling verdict.
Ekaterina entered the choreographic school at the age of 10, overcoming the competition of 80 people. Six months later, the girl went on stage. The first episodic roles in the performances "Cinderella" (a bird in the retinue of the fairy of Spring) and "The Nutcracker" (parts of snowflakes, dolls, Masha the Girl) showed that Katya Maximova has a great future. The role of Masha in The Nutcracker brought the young ballerina her first award - the prize of the All-Union Ballet Competition.
The Muscovite studied in the class of Elizaveta Gerdt, becoming her favorite student. But in "Masika", as Elizaveta Pavlovna called the eccentric girl, the teacher more than once launched objects in her hands. In 1958, Maksimova graduated from college. Her weight with a height of 157 cm was 47 kg, but soon, after being enrolled in the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater, Katya weighed 40 kilograms. She became a teacher-tutor of a young ballerina.
Ballet
Ekaterina Maksimova worked in the BT ballet troupe from 1958 to 1988. The talented ballerina was immediately entrusted with solo parts, while her peers went through the corps de ballet stage. Plastic, with filigree honed technique - Ekaterina Maksimova seemed to be a born ballerina of classical performances. But having entrusted the modern roles to the dancer, the directors saw that Maksimova is universal, and her possibilities are endless.
The following year, after entering BT, Maksimova went on tour to America and Canada. The delighted audience called the Russian dancer a "little elf" for her incredible airiness. In the same year, the ballerina was awarded a gold medal at the Vienna World Youth Festival. Tours to China followed, then to Denmark, Norway and Finland.
But Ekaterina Maksimova rose to a new level of skill when a young choreographer Yuri Grigorovich was invited from Leningrad to Moscow. He staged the ballet "Stone Flower", entrusting Maximova with the main role - Catherine. Grigorovich demanded from the dancers both skill and animated acting. Maksimova coped with the role: in her dance, Ekaterina transforms from a lyrical Russian girl into a strong woman who fights for love.
The following year, the creative biography of Ekaterina Maksimova was enriched by a role in the 11th waltz "Chopiniana". In 1961, the actress starred in the film for European and American audiences "The USSR with an Open Heart", where she played the role of Giselle. The premiere took place in Paris. The ballerina received the part of Mary in the ballet The Fountain of Bakhchisaray "inherited" from Ulanova, who previously performed this role. Maria Ekaterina Maksimova is different, not "Ulan", but no less bright.
A creative alliance with Vladimir Vasilyev, a confident and talented ballet dancer, played a big role in Maximova's career. Together they made a harmonious couple that complemented each other without competing in skill.
In 1965, the dancer performed the role of Kitri in Don Quixote. The premiere in BT became the sensation of the year in the cultural life of the capital. The part of Kitri demanded from the ballerina incredible speed, swiftness. High jumps "jete" were replaced by small steps "pa" and vigorous rotations, as the choreographer Marius Petipa intended. The hall froze in admiration and burst into applause.
Kitri Maximova differed from the parties of ballet stars and Sulamith Messerer: in the performance of Ekaterina, the heroine of Don Quixote is not a temperamental Spaniard, but a reckless Russian. Moscow ballet fans did not miss the performances of the star, buying tickets for several performances at once.
In 1968, Yuri Grigorovich staged the ballet "Spartacus" on the BT stage, in which he entrusted the part of Phrygia to the prima of the theater - Ekaterina Maximova. The choreographer created the dramatic part especially for Maximova. The dancer performed the most complicated choreographic drawing, acrobatic elements and lifts skillfully, endowing the heroine with character, breathing in her soul.
Maksimova and Vasiliev became symbols of the Bolshoi Theater in the 1970s and 80s. To visit the capital and not see the ballet with Ekaterina Maximova was considered bad manners. It seemed that there would be no end to the triumphs, but in the mid-1970s, at the rehearsal of "", the ballerina unsuccessfully left the top support and injured her spine.
Soon, Ekaterina Maksimova resumed her performances, although her back pain did not stop. The star was in a hurry, the shooting of the film "Spartacus" was being prepared, where she had the part of Phrygia. Due to haste, the ballerina injured her spine again. This time, the consequences were tragic: after months of immobility, doctors called it a miracle if the dancer got back on her feet. But a year later, Ekaterina Maksimova entered the stage.
In March 1976, the prima entered the BT stage with a solo part in Giselle. The suffering experienced filled the image of the heroine Maximova with tragedy and sensuality. The former "frivolity" of Giselle was replaced by wisdom and strength. In the same year, the ballerina appeared on the stage with the part of Eola in Icarus (the debut of choreographer Vladimir Vasiliev), then in the play Chapliniada.
In order to convey the art of ballet to the people, to popularize it, Maksimova and Vasilyev resorted to the help of television. The role of the Girl in the film-ballet "Trapeze" brought Ekaterina Maximova a wave of success. This was followed by roles in the films "Galatea", "My Fair Lady", "Old Tango" and "Hussar Ballad". In 1983, the audience saw a star on the screens: the Russian ballerina starred in the film La Traviata directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
The last premiere of Ekaterina Maximova on the stage of BT took place in 1986. The ballet "Anyuta" was staged by the ballerina's husband. In a month - an extremely short time for preparing a performance - the choreographer prepared the artists. The premiere ended in triumph. Admired by the skill of Maximova, she handed the star a bouquet of roses from her garden.
But in 1988, Yuri Grigorovich sent 49-year-old Ekaterina Maksimova to retire. She, Vladimir Vasiliev, Maya Plisetskaya and Nina Timofeeva left BT. The order for dismissal indicated that they did not pass through the creative competition.
8 years before her dismissal, the artist graduated from a theater university, becoming a certified ballet master teacher. Since 1982, prima BT has taught choreography at GITIS. In 1990, Maksimova was called as a tutor at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. In 1998, Vladimir Vasiliev, who took the place of Grigorovich, invited his wife to BT, where she became a choreographer-repetiteur.
Personal life
Maximova's tandem and in creativity grew into a personal one. The couple met at the school, but after joining the BT, each life went its own way. Forgotten feelings returned in the mid-1960s and in June 1966 the artists got married.
The couple had no children. Maximova's pregnancies ended in miscarriages, the ballerina suffered losses tragically. Having learned about the minimal chances of giving birth to a healthy child, Catherine refused motherhood.
Maksimova's daughter was a student, Japanese ballet dancer Yukari Saito. Ekaterina Sergeevna became her godmother when Yukari converted to Orthodoxy. The star considered all her students to be children.
Death
Ekaterina Maksimova died at the age of 71 in April 2009. The cause of death was heart failure. The deceased daughter was discovered by a 94-year-old mother in the morning: the star died in her sleep.
The celebrity was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. The grave of a prima without a hint of pomposity: a small rough red granite with the name of the prima, dates of birth and death.
parties
- 1958 - "Giselle"
- 1958 - "Swan Lake"
- 1959 - "Stone Flower"
- 1960 - The Bronze Horseman
- 1960 - "Humpbacked Horse"
- 1961 - Flames of Paris
- 1962 - The Nutcracker
- 1963 - Sleeping Beauty
- 1964 - "Cinderella"
- 1965 - Don Quixote
- 1971 - "Icarus"
- 1979 - "Romeo and Julia"
- 1980 - "Hussar ballad"
- 1981 - "The Tale of Romeo and Juliet"
- 1989 - "Onegin"
- 1991 - "Cinderella"
- 1994 - "The Creation of the World"
Some comrades believe that a short poem is much easier and simpler to perform than a prose work. This point of view seems to me wrong, if only because to captivate your listeners and create in their creative imagination an impression that would excite them, of course, is many times more difficult by performing a single poem than by a work with a consistently developing plot, not complicated by the same conventions. poetic form. Often young readers take up verses without sufficient preparation, tempted by their euphony and the imaginary "lightness" of their performance.
True, readers are attracted to poetry not only by these correctly or incorrectly understood properties. Any significant event that we are witnessing is immeasurably faster and more concisely reflected in our poetry than in artistic prose. The very next day, dozens of poems were devoted to the creation and launch of a space rocket to the Moon, while a story or even more so a novel on the same topic should be created for a considerable time. The theme of peace and friendship between peoples is also immeasurably wider - in terms of the number of printed works - is displayed in poetry than in prose. In a word, the efficiency of poetic works, of course, is one of the decisive incentives for attracting the attention of our readers. But this only confirms the urgent need for serious work to ensure the success of the performer.
Many times - both in the book "The Art of the Artistic Word" and in various articles - I had to remind young people of the decisive importance of choosing a work. It is very important to choose the right literary material for work. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account not only the artistic value and usefulness of the work, but also its performance capabilities. Often capable young readers who neglect this condition do not succeed at all because the material is unsuccessful or because they failed to understand it, but solely because this material does not correspond to their artistic data. It must be understood that the reader reads from his own perspective, and none of the characterization that is so organically characteristic of a dramatic actor will help to successfully identify the work he performs if his artistic qualities do not correspond to the nature of this work.
Often a young novice reader, who hastily selected material for work, quickly loses interest in him - the chosen work ceases to excite him, evokes creative energy in him, annoys him and becomes boring, uninteresting. This happens almost always and with everyone, when the performer liked the work too quickly and unconsciously and he did not want (or could not) understand it in detail.
When we take literary material for work, we are not always aware of what thoughts, what idea excites a given work. It often happens that we are fascinated by some particular, detail: an image, a monologue, a scene, a description of an ongoing event, moreover, not always the main one, decisive for the theme of the work. And although such a passion is quite natural, this should not be done because in each work the performer must feel and understand the main driving idea proposed by the author, and also clearly set a certain active goal for himself: what do I want to convey to my listeners? What thought and experience do I want to put into their hearts and minds? What emotions and thoughts do I want to evoke in them as a result of reading? Without such clear goals, the meaning and educational value of art are inevitably erased, and the creative work of the reader ceases to be fruitful, useful, justified. Therefore, in order for this creative work not to go to waste, it is necessary to choose such material for work that would really excite the performer himself, and not only “like” some particular, would be able to mobilize all feelings and thoughts, would become would be necessary for him at the moment for work and, in addition, would correspond to his inner essence and artistic data.
If the idea of a work is far from the interests that modern society lives by, then this, of course, contributes to the fact that the material relatively quickly gets bored and ceases to be the "blood and flesh" of the reader. And, on the contrary, when the ideas revealed in a given work coincide with those ideas that the people and the performer himself live by, such a work causes inspiration, an invariable desire to work on it and cannot become "boring", boring and obsolete.
All this applies equally to the choice of a classical work, because it is also important to find and love a positive idea in it, capable of answering the exciting questions of modern society in various areas of our life - spiritual, social, industrial and family ... In other words - read and convey to the audience a classic work from the point of view of a modern person. Of course, this applies not only to civil lyrics, reflecting the social life of the people, but also to lyrics, the so-called love, in which the poet expresses deep and courageous experiences of the human person. Such a disclosure of a classical work makes its performance not only possible and permissible, but also certainly desirable. Working on a poem of a classical work is also useful as material for the correct and direct mastery of meter and meter, because classical verse - with very few exceptions - always revealed the form of verse in its purest form, did not, as a rule, violate the meter with all sorts of changes that it brought to poetry is the further development of versification.
We agreed on the principle of choosing a literary work and now we have the right to proceed to analysis, that is, to a detailed analysis of this work, in order to trace the correctness of our choice and identify the main idea, the main idea. This requires a conscientious and, if possible, fuller acquaintance with the author himself, with the era and the society surrounding the author, the aspirations and ideas that characterize his work, the main themes and his main works, critical reviews of them, the author’s statements about art in notes, diaries, letters - in a word, with everything that helps a clear idea of the essence, worldview, temperament and thought system of the author. For example, if a reader takes one of Nekrasov's poems or individual poems of the poet for work, then how much the following lines of Nekrasov's letter can suggest: "... we are inspired by the Russian people, Russian fields, our forests; without them, really, we have nothing good not to write ... And most importantly, Russian writers have a duty to the best of their ability and ability to reveal to readers shameful pictures of the slavery of the Russian people.
(A.Ya. Panaeva. Memoirs, Goslitizdat, 1948, p. 221)
This time-consuming and unhurried process of cognition of the author helps not only to find and outline the main idea of the work, but also "brings" the performer to the author, makes him fall in love. And in order to responsibly begin to evaluate (and then to interpret) his work, it is not enough to know the author, you must certainly feel and love him as a close friend. Only then will your work be penetrating.
This happened to me when I first started preparing Pushkin's programs. Carefully studying Pushkin's biography, the statements of his friends and enemies, and, of course, his works, I sincerely fell in love with this wonderful person - I fell in love with his soul, his indomitable thirst for creativity, his passionate attitude to life. He became my brother, my closest friend, opening before me his huge, burning heart. He became my teacher, helping me to work. Over the years, I re-read his poems more than once, overestimating them, treating them differently. But this closeness, this happiness of getting close to him, has been preserved for a lifetime, strengthening every year, every month, every day spent working on his ever-opening poems in a new way. The same feeling of incredible closeness was established in me in relation to the works of Lermontov, Griboedov, Gogol and many other poets and prose writers, on which I worked during my many years of creative life. I fell in love with Lermontov since childhood. But the real deep feeling for him took shape much later. All the new research about him forced us to re-read his poems and poems in a new way, in which, perhaps, his personality, his lonely and offended fate, his hidden and indomitable will, are guessed much more strongly than is usually the case with lyricists. My understanding of his poems was greatly helped by a trip to Tarkhany, the estate of his grandmother, where the poet spent his childhood.
And my “rapprochement” with Mayakovsky took place in a completely different way. For quite a long time I read Mayakovsky's poetry (while still a young actor at the Moscow Maly Theatre), but I fell deeply and consciously in love with him only after I got to know him relatively closely in life. At first it seemed to me that the verses that we were fond of then, sharp, sometimes deliberately rude, defiant, with their harsh and irreconcilable content characterize not only poetry, but its whole appearance, attitude towards people around us, towards literature, artists - poets and readers and etc. For a long time I could not come to terms with this, as it seemed to me, deliberate straightforwardness, rudeness, categorical rejection in art and literature of everything that was not organically connected with his personal views. And, probably, because of this feeling, I did not always succeed in reproducing his poems on the stage.
But as soon as I got to know Mayakovsky in real life (and I was lucky enough to spend a whole summer with him on the Black Sea shortly before his death), to really understand his humanity, I fell in love with him and clearly felt the need for his irreconcilable creativity. And that "straightforward rudeness" that confused me at first acquired opposite qualities in my perception. And these qualities attracted every year, with each reading of his literary legacy, more and more clearly and deeply to the correct understanding of the remarkable thinker and poet. And for many years now it has brought me real, deep joy when, after my performance with the poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky, I have to hear from people who have always been aloof from his poetry: “You know, today we finally realized that Mayakovsky is a great poet, and now we are completely different to treat him." I must admit that when I read Mayakovsky for the first time at the dawn of my life as a reader, I did not escape that "mass" disease (many performers of Mayakovsky's poetry are still infected with this) when his poems are not read in a normal voice with human intonation, but "yell in bass clef...
Of course, it is far from always possible to find extensive materials for studying the author's work. But we must remember that the main and finally decisive condition for the work remains a detailed and repeated study of the work itself. Only after the main ideas and creative desires of the author become clear to the end, the tasks and thoughts of the work become clear.
The reader's choice of this or that work for work is determined primarily by the idea that it carries in itself. And, in essence, work with the text begins from the moment when the reader answered the following two questions:
1) What is the most important thing in this work?
2) why will I read it from the stage?
So, the first thing to start with is the definition of the main idea, the idea of the work.
When the first task is successfully solved, you can proceed to the next section of the work. It is necessary to answer the question already: what do I want to tell my listeners by reading this work, why will I perform it? With what thoughts and feelings I want to fill the minds and hearts of my listeners. Perhaps this period of preparatory work is the most interesting and creative.
In order to answer the second question, that is, to determine the performing task, it is necessary to establish your own creative attitude to the author's intention. A creative relationship cannot arise without a preliminary logical analysis of the work. (Below, on a specific example of reading the text of Pushkin's poem "The Desire for Glory", I will dwell on the logical analysis in detail.)
In order to seriously captivate the audience, "infect" it with your thought and emotion, you need to turn the author's text into your own words. It is only possible to act with one's own words and feelings, and literary reading is, first of all, an action, an active, purposeful action. The author in his work reveals the main provisions: the characters of people, their relationships and actions; events that these people witness and that influence their behavior; draws a certain historical, social background and prospects for the development of their lives; justifies some characters and condemns others; and, finally, creating various psychological conflicts, leads to certain conclusions that reveal the thought he conceived, the idea that arises on the basis of the gradual presentation of the entire text.
Each reader of the book perceives what they read in their own way, makes their own subjective conclusions, and makes a certain impression. The essential features of this impression depend not only on the extent to which and with what exactly the author was able to convince him, but also on his (the reader's) own attitude to everything he read. It is this personal attitude to what is read in the work of the reader that is the basis on which first subconsciously, then more and more clearly and substantiated - a creative interpretation, which is a necessary condition for the creative disclosure of the work and the listener.
Evaluations of individual particulars and characters gradually develop into a common unified attitude to the main author's provisions. This creative attitude should arise entirely from the author's premises, but this circumstance should in no way deprive the performer of the freedom of his subjective judgments. In proportion to the creative attitude - also at first subconsciously, and then according to the conscious will of the reader - internal ideas also mature.
"Without representation, one cannot express one's judgments," said Stanislavsky.
When we pronounce words in life, we always imagine the action or the object that they denote. And before we utter these words, we see before us their content. When we tell something to our interlocutors, we constantly see with the "inner eye" everything that we are talking about. When we listen to someone's story, the more talented the narrator, the brighter we imagine his images. The same thing happens on the literary stage. The brighter, clearer the performer imagines the “picture” of what he is reading about, the more convincing his words sound and the more vividly they are perceived by the audience.
If the reader himself does not see enough the images that he wants to convey to his audience, with which he seeks to captivate the imagination of his listeners, these images will not be able to "see" the listeners either, and the words themselves, not illuminated by an internal representation, will slip past their consciousness and imagination. They will remain only combinations of sounds denoting concepts, but the meaning of these concepts and their meaning will not be revealed.
Thus, on the basis of an active attitude, internal representations are born, without which the performance would be lifeless and boring.
These representations decisively influence the establishment of an effective subtext. (This subtext should not be confused with the inner aspiration that drives the author's creative fantasy at the moment of creating the work.) At the moment of performance, there is only one subtext for the reader - the subtext prompted by his reading of the work, his ideas.
The performer, having established his personal attitude to images and phenomena, sees all these images in that outline, in that movement, which is suggested by his fantasy, excited by his personal creative assessments and attitude. And since all ideas become "own" for the performer, then, naturally, the words generated by these ideas also gradually become not memorized, but "own", their own.
It is necessary to direct your will to ensure that the listeners see the inner image exactly as it appears to the performer in this case. The reader must actively intervene in the imagination of his listeners and actively impose his will, his decisions on them.
The art of a reader is the art of a poet and agitator, a tribune, a friend and comrade of his listeners, helping to understand the work being read and no less actively convincing them with his only true interpretation.
Having sufficiently mastered all of the above and thoughtfully checked all the proposals in practical training, we can go directly to the moment of working on a poetic work. But before starting work on a poetic work, it is necessary to clearly understand what poetry is and how they differ from prose works.
The poetic form of communication is resorted to when the emerging thoughts and feelings require sublime, poetic words. Ordinary prose speech seems dull, casual, lacking in expression, and a brighter, more harmonious and more sublime form of speech is needed.
It is important for the reader to remember the main dimensions of the syllabotonic versification adopted in Russian poetry (fixing in the verse the number and exact alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables *) of the reader, to feel their rhythmic basis, which helps to master and convey the nature of the work. After all, each size has its own sound, and, consequently, its own distinctive means of expressing thought. And you need to remember not only the names of these sizes, but also signs that will help the reader independently understand the metrics of any poem. The main dimensions are as follows.
* The combination of stressed and unstressed syllables is called a foot. By the number of stops, a verse (verse line) can be two-syllable, three-syllable, four-syllable, etc. The foot is the main element of the verse.
Disyllabic
trochaic (v -) with stress on the first syllable of the foot,
iambic (-v) with stress on the second syllable.
Trisyllabic
dactyl (v - -) with stress on the first syllable of the foot,
amphibrach (-v-) with accent on the second syllable and
anapaest (- - v) with stress on the third syllable of the foot.
Examples:
Chorey - A storm covers the sky with darkness ...
Yamb - Cherry garden near the hut...
Dactyl - Coolness and bliss blows from the lake ...
Amphibrachius - I'm sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon...
Anapaest - How in rainy days they gathered ...
The main poetic meters that I have listed must be accurately mastered, firmly entered into memory, into a sense of rhythm, so that later, when working on poetry and dealing with the sound and rhythmic features of the poetic form, that is, the more complex components of the poetic stanza, one would not have to be distracted by the study basic elements of a verse.
The reader who performs poetry, just like the performer of prose works, must first of all express the idea inherent in this poem, convey a certain mood and "infect" the audience's imagination with the content itself. If verses, with all their merits, are transmitted by the reader without a fascinating thought, without a clear and active attitude of the performer himself to what he is reading about, without a clear and correct subtext, which was discussed above, such reading aloud will not be far from artistic, and it is unlikely that listeners will be able to endure such a recitation for a long time. Poems should be pronounced in such a way that, firstly, the purposeful thought of the content is clearly and convincingly revealed, and, secondly, so that the attention of the listeners is not distracted from this thought by an overly emphasized chant of the verse. And at the same time, we must not forget that the sound originality of the spoken verses should not disappear.
Work on a poetic text should begin after a logical analysis, that is, mastering the semantic basis of the work, and certainly after studying the peculiar norms of versification, familiarization with poetic sound writing, metrics and rhythmic patterns of verse.
I always advise my students, before they begin work on poetry, to master the complex process of logical analysis of prose material. All the preliminary work of the reader, such as: logical reading of the text; manifestation of a creative attitude based on the logic of thoughts; interpretation of the work arising from this relationship; the subtext generated by one's own ideas or "visions", and, finally, the verbal action, which completes all preliminary work and is actually artistic reading - all this is more expedient to first carry out on prose material, which is easier and more organically assimilated, since it does not require additional attention and distractions by poetic specificity.
A hasty and premature desire to perform poetic works without sufficient preliminary preparation very often deprives the young reader of the ability to understand the elementary rules of our art and just as often leads to empty - albeit melodic - recitation, by which we define reading without thought, without tasks, without action. .
Such masters of verse as V.I. Kachalov and V.N. Yakhontov, who perfectly mastered the poetic form, began their professional performances on the stage with prose works. I am sure that this, undoubtedly, helped them in the organic development of the sequence of creative preparation, and therefore their performance of poetic works constantly captivated those internal - semantic and emotional - disclosures that form the basis of the art of the artistic word.
Once, as a result of working on prose, a certain skill, a methodical "habit" of analyzing literary material appears, the same principles and practical techniques can be transferred to work on a poem.
And now it is necessary to return to the consistent and gradual process of the reader's work on a literary and, in particular, on a poetic work.
Poetic works are large ("length") and short. The big ones include novels in verse ("Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin), poems (byron's poems), ballads (Zhukovsky's ballads), epic narratives ("The Tale of Igor's Campaign") and plot poems ("Valerik" by Lermontov). Short poems differ in their themes: civil and love lyrics, songs, satirical pamphlets, fables, elegies, epigrams; and in its form - stanzas (a poem consisting of logically completed stanzas; for example, "Do I wander along the noisy streets ..." Pushkin); sonnets (a poem consisting of 14 lines: 2 stanzas of 4 lines and 2 stanzas of 3 lines with repeating rhymes; for example, Shakespeare's Sonnets); triplets (an octet, built on two rhymes: ab aa ab ab; for example, "Triplets of Love and Eternity" by Iv. Rukavishnikov); tercina (three lines, Dante's "Divine Comedy"); sextines (six-line, "Three Palms" by Lermontov); octaves (octave, "The House in Kolomna" by Pushkin), etc. Each of these poetic genres has its own distinctive character, its own distinctive manner, and the reader, working on poetry, should not neglect the specificity of the genre. It is hardly necessary in this article to linger on an analysis of the various forms of lyric poetry. But no matter what genre the poem is chosen by the performer, it is important to remember that this work is written in verse, not prose.
The performance of poetic works obliges the reader to a special creative mode. His whole organism, his nerves, his creative attention must always be in an extremely mobilized state, and the slightest distraction by extraneous care catastrophically breaks his live contact with the audience, and it is extremely difficult after such a failure to regain the necessary attention of the listeners and concentrate himself. Such "entry into the circle of creative attention" subsequently becomes a reflex, but this property must be cultivated in oneself from the very first steps. Many believe that when performing certain verses, it is enough for the reader to convey the poetry of the work, to convey in the sounding lines the skill or lyrical genius of the poet. I have already said that this is not true. First of all, what is needed is the thought expressed by these verses, and the attitude of the performer himself to this thought.
June 12, 1908 - June 09, 2010
Russian ballerina, choreographer, People's Artist of the USSR
Biography
She was born on May 30 (June 12), 1908 in St. Petersburg in the family of an employee who died early, leaving six children. After some time, a stepfather appeared - Nikolai Aleksandrovich Sheloumov, a worker at a Petrograd plant. The girl's life was changed by her mother's friend, Ekaterina Georgievna Karina, who led a dance club, where young Marina began to go; there she first appeared on stage in one of the children's performances. On the advice of the same Ekaterina Georgievna, they decided to send the girl to a choreographic school.
At the age of thirteen, Marina Semyonova made her debut at the Leningrad Choreographic School in her first role in Lev Ivanov's one-act ballet The Magic Flute. Also at the school, she danced the Queen of the Dryads in the ballet "Sylvia" directed by Samuil Andrianov. Semyonova graduated from the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1925 in the class of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova, for whom she was one of the first and most beloved students. The debut on the professional stage for the graduate was the part of the fairy Naila in the ballet "The Stream", which Vaganova resumed especially for her.
In 1925-1929 she danced in the troupe of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theatre. In 1929-1930 she toured the USSR with her first husband V. A. Semyonov. In 1930, the ballerina was admitted to the Bolshoi Theater, where she performed until 1952. In 1935-1936 she performed at the Paris National Opera - in the ballet "Giselle" by A. Adam and in concert programs that included fragments of the ballets "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Chopiniana". Marina Semenova's partner was Serge Lifar, at whose invitation she arrived. She also participated in a benefit concert for veteran ballet dancers of the Paris Opera.
Since 1953, Semyonova has been a teacher-repetiteur of the Bolshoi Theater. Among her students are Maya Plisetskaya, Rimma Karelskaya, Nina Timofeeva, Marina Kondratieva, Nina Sorokina, Svetlana Adyrkhaeva, Natalia Bessmertnova, Tatyana Golikova, Lyudmila Semenyaka, Nadezhda Pavlova, Nina Semizorova, Nina Ananiashvili, Inna Petrova, Galina Stepanenko, Elena Andrienko, Nikolai Tsiskaridze.
In 1954-1960, Marina Semyonova taught at the Moscow Choreographic School. In 1960, she became one of the first teachers who began training future tutors at GITIS. Since 1997 - professor.
June 9, 2010 Marina Semyonova died at her home in Moscow. She was buried on June 17 at the Novodevichy Cemetery (plot No. 10).
Family
The first husband is the namesake of the ballerina Viktor Semyonov, soloist of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater and teacher of the Leningrad Choreographic School. The marriage was short-lived.
In 1930, having moved to Moscow, Semyonova became the common-law wife of a prominent Soviet statesman, Lev Karakhan. A few years later, in 1937, he was arrested, and on September 20, 1937, by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, he was sentenced to death. Shot on the same day in the building of the VKVS (cremated in the Donskoy crematorium; posthumously rehabilitated in 1956). The arrest of her husband could not but affect the fate of the ballerina.
A common daughter with Vsevolod Aksyonov - Ekaterina Aksyonova, a former ballet dancer of the Bolshoi Theater, Honored Artist of Russia, later switched to teaching.
Repertoire at the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater
- 1925 - “The Stream” by L. Minkus, choreography by M. Petipa, resumed by V. Ponomarev and A. Vaganova - Naila - first performer
- 1925 - Don Quixote by L. Minkus, choreography by A. Gorsky - Queen of the Dryads
- 1925 - Sleeping Beauty
