Centenary of Konstantin Boyarsky’s birth
On 22 February, we marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Boyarsky, a distinguished choreographer whose name is etched forever in the history of ballet at the Maly Opera Theatre.
A graduate of the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute (now the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet) and one of Fyodor Lopukhov’s best pupils, Boyarsky danced at the Kirov Theatre (as the Mariinsky Theatre was then known) before World War II. He performed the roles of Ivan the Fool (The Little Humpbacked Horse), Andrei (Katerina), a Youth (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai), and Jean (The Flames of Paris), among others. He was a choreographer and dancer at the Leningrad Theatre of Musical Comedy before dedicating ten years of his life to the Maly Opera Theatre from 1956 to 1967. It was here that Boyarsky staged Francesca da Rimini to Tchaikovsky’s music, Eve by Schwartz, Classical Symphony to Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, and one-act ballets to music by Shostakovich, including The Meeting, The Director’s Tie-knot and The Young Lady and the Hooligan. Boyarsky was instrumental in bringing back many of Fokine’s ballets to the Russian stage, including Eros to Tchaikovsky’s music and Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Firebird.
In Konstantin Boyarsky’s time, the Maly Opera Theatre’s ballet company undertook bold projects, enlisted Leningrad’s finest composers, writers and designers, and used the most unexpected literary sources for libretti. During the 1950s and 1960s the ‘drambalet’ genre dominated ballet; this influenced the ballet theatre’s development, helping it progress to the performance of great literature — masterpieces by Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Boyarsky was also an important part of this progression, enriching and discovering a new choreographic language and directing methods for staging ballets. The result was a new and improved ballet theatre, in terms of both choreography and drama.
“Konstantin Boyarsky wrote quickly, easily and very musically”, recalled Nikolay Boyarchikov. “He didn’t just put dance and music together. He used the logic of the musical themes or the rhythmic pulse. He wanted to create something new. He had original ideas. Boyarsky was wonderfully skilled at duets, able to feel the subtle nuances of a relationship. His dancers faced the difficult task of mastering complex choreographic movements and making them their own.”
His ballet The Young Lady and the Hooligan, based on a script by Vladimir Mayakovsky, received universal acclaim. One of his best works, it premiered in 1962 and was popular throughout the country in the 1960s and 1970s. Shostakovich’s music, taken from The Golden Age and The Bolt, suggested to Boyarsky the precise psychological natures of the characters. These were convincingly embodied in the choreography through the brash movements of the Hooligan and the pretentious classical dance of the Lady.
Boyarsky was able to express the melodramatic plot without sentiment, while re-examining the characters’ everyday lives with parody and a humorous touch. The Hooligan — a sort of urban Romeo — was a real find for actors. Benjamin Zimin, Nikolay Boyarchikov and Valery Panov, dancers with different individual characteristics, interpreted this role in different ways, either relying on the desperately boisterous intonation of the music or portraying him through his brooding and hooliganism.
Konstantin Boyarsky was always in search of something, often acting in defiance of established customs and despite difficult circumstances. Many years later, it is now safe to say that Boyarsky’s experience was instrumental in the creation of a whole series of outstanding ballets staged by subsequent generations of choreographers.
