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234th Season

Main Stage

8 November
19:30
2019 | Friday
Stars of the Stars
Evening of one-act ballets: "Push Comes to Shove", "Le Jeune Homme et la Mort"
Ballet
Artists Credits
Dancer
Ballet company
Cast to be announced



PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

one-act ballet

Credits

Choreography by Twyla Tharp
Staged by Elaine Kudo
Music by Joseph Lamb, Franz Joseph Haydn
Costume designer: Santo Loquasto
Lighting Design by Jennifer Tipton
Recreated by Steve Shelley

World premiere: 9 January 1976, American Ballet Theatre, Uris Theater, New-York
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre: 21 March 2019, St Petersburg

Running time 22 minutes

Production Sponsor: Toshihiko Takahashi

Age category: 6+


LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT

one-act ballet in two scenes

Credits

To music by Johann Sebastian Bach
(Passacaglia in С Minor, BWV 582, arranged for full orchestra by Alexander Goedicke)
Libretto by Jean Cocteau
Choreography by Roland Petit

Production Choreographer: Luigi Bonino
Lighting Designer: Jean-Michel Désiré
Set Designer: Georges Wakhevitch
Costume Designer: Karinska

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

The ballet Le Jeune homme et la mort, staged in 1946 in Paris, reflected the spirit of the post-war era and became one of the most well-known works of choreographer Roland Petit and one of the most sought-after ballets by dancers of different generations. Roland Petit initially created the dancing routines for a mini-production to a popular jazz song, but just before the premiere Jean Cocteau, mastermind and source of inspiration for the ballet, suggested changing the music to Bach’s Passacaglia. There was no talk of matching the movements to musical focal points; during the first performance, the creators were afraid that the Passacaglia would not be long enough for the choreography. However, thanks to Bach’s music, the theme of an artist’s conversation with death, which is raised in the ballet, has acquired dimension and scope. Drama about the meeting of a restless artist with a fatal beauty was protected from melodrama. Bach’s Passacaglia helped the performers to get away from realism: from the specifics of the things scattered in the artist's room to the state of chaos required by Cocteau, from the youth's single-valued glance at the clock to the sense of timelessness. The nerve of the meeting shown at the scene was familiar to post-war Europe, then almost everyone in the auditorium could subscribe to Jean Cocteau's words: "I have experienced such painful periods that death seemed a temptation. I'm used to not being afraid of her and looking straight into her face".
Olga Makarova

World premiere: 25 June 1946, Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre: 25 March 1998
Premiere of the revival: 22 March 2012

Running time 16 minutes

Age category 16+

Mariinsky Theatre:
1 Theatre Square
St. Petersburg
Mariinsky-2 (New Theatre):
34 Dekabristov Street
St. Petersburg
Mariinsky Concert Hall:
20 Pisareva street
St. Petersburg

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