Two new “Nutcrackers” appeared in Minsk. This is a performance with music of P.I. Chaikovsky in the ballet theatre and a work with the similar name in the capital Theatre of a young viewer. Until this moment only the “Nutcracker” of the Theatre of a cinema actor existed without competition. A German writer, composer, artist, public figure of the XIXth century Ernst Teodor Amadey Hoffmann, probably, didn’t even suspect such popularity, especially on a foreign territory. He was proud with his other works, but the time gave different orders.There is nothing good and happy for the gnawing beasts in the history, which was told by Hoffmann. The King had enough of the rats. He gave an order to destroy them. They started to take revenge. The nephew of the toy master became a victim of rat cruelty. He was turned into the Nutcracker, a toy for cracking nuts. The master presented the Nutcracker to a girl Masha, and, as it was Christmas, everything began.
For some reason it is considered, that this fairy tale should be obligatory performed as a Christmas New Year’s performance, a dream on the eve of a new life coil. A stage-director of the Theatre of a young viewer Natalya Basheva had a serious approach to the work, and her performance is not like a pink Christmas tree performance. Though there appeared a fairy show with happy staginess, a nature of the game, splendid decoration, rich costumes, however, it brought coming-of-age of the children to the first plan. The moment of shift from carefree games with toys to acknowledge valuation of the good and the evil turned out to be important.
A “mixed audience”, which consists of the children and the adults, watches the fairy tale willingly. Somebody recollects his childhood. Somebody opens new truth. A performance maintains a sad Hoffmann course of events, but a literary source was successfully staged and adjusted to the psychology of our children. You can also say, that the experts of the classical ballet “Nutcracker” with music of Petr Chaikovsky will come across new turns of the plot and new details.
Natalya Basheva, while making a staging, in a certain way ignored the views and theoretic orientations of Hoffmann. And she made it right. This mystic is sure of the fact, that people are doomed only to loneliness and suffering, stood against splendid decorations and rich costumes. He couldn’t even suppose that all the following interpretations of his work will be filled with bright staginess.
The generation of German children grows on the works of Hoffmann. Probably, they don’t think over the fact, that this fairy tale is not kind enough and even cheerless. In the rat history Hoffmann encoded horror because of irrationality of the surrounding world and his mystical ideas. This is hardly interesting for our children. At what should they pay attention?
A stage-director with a painter Alesia Sorokina deepened into a fantastic world, built by a German romanticist, and recollected, that Hoffmann was not only a writer, but also a composer and a painter, and this means outrage of colours and sounds. A huge sparkling world, where the fabulous and the real is being blended, — time of transition of the 18th century to the 19th century. Whirl of the spirit and the hopes for the better. At that time people made and presented fanciful hand-made toys, more mysterious, than contemporary ones. Then a toy for nut cracking turned into a handsome prince. Today in art a robot easily becomes a man. Here is a peculiar continuation of the tradition. This is a new fairy tale. Hominization of the toy and realization of the dream.
This is how the theatre found a right passage of the famous fairy tale. Without cyborgs and iron knights. Without disco dances. Without aggression of the technogenic world. The theatre decided: let’s a little viewer be longer among soft beautiful toys, elegant costumes, rich and graceful interiors and in the retro dreams of his grandmothers. The knowledge of life will come later.
You can achieve entertainment without copying show of pop stars. It turned out to be, that one can do without rattly sounds of electronic music and tough break-rhythm. Slight archaic of decoration is dissolved in the music of stage space. The theatre as if searches for the lost charm through naпve faith of childhood.
In the last premiere of the Theatre of a young viewer, in the “Nutcracker”, commitment of the artistic will of its participants gives a hope for the fact, that everything will be good in the theatre for the children. A theatre for the young viewers is a world model. Let them watch beautiful, kind fairy tales and dream, come of age, and bring their children to the theatre.
Irina Trifonova
