Ballet SNG Maribor | Edward Clug, Igor Stravinski | Les Noces & Le Sacre du printemps

Slovene National Theatre Maribor Ballet
Les Noces & Le Sacre du printemps

Les Noces | The Wedding

Russian choreographic scenes with singing and music

Music and libretto: Igor Stravinsky

Score publisher: Chester Music, London 2005 ©

World premiere: June 13, 1923, Théâtre de la Gaîté

Premiere: April 8, 2022, Grand Hall

Choreographer: Edward Clug
Costume designer: Leo Kulaš
Set designer: Marko Japelj
Lighting designer: Tomaž Premzl

Bride: Monja Obrul, Catarina De Meneses
Groom: Jan Trninič
Bride's Mother: Evgenija Koškina
Groom's Father: Ionut Dinita
Fake Bride: Sytze Jan Luske, Lucio Mautone

Tijuana Križman Hudernik, Beatrice Bartolomei, Ema Perić, Mirjana Šrot, Olesja Hartmann, Mina Radaković, Nuša Urnaut

Davide Buffone, Matteo Magalotti, Tomaž Viktor Abram Golub, Lucio Mautone, Christopher Thompson, Maro Vranaričič, Matteo Beeckman, Aleksandar Trenevski

--

Scenes from the ballet

I. La tresse – The Braid
II. Chez le marié – At the Bridegroom’s House
III. Le départ de la mariée – The Bride’s Departure
IV. Le repas de noces – The Wedding Feast

Le Sacre du printemps | The Rite of Spring

Scenes from Pagan Russia in Two Parts

THE RITE OF SPRING

Music: Igor Stravinsky

Score publisher: Boosey & Hawkes, London 1967 ©

World premiere: May 29, 1913, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Premiere: April 8, 2022, Grand Hall

Choreographer: Edward Clug
Costume designer: Leo Kulaš
Set designer: Marko Japelj
Lighting designer: Tomaž Premzl
Sound designers: Gregor Mendaš, Gorazd Vever

Selected: Evgenija Koškina

Tijuana Križman Hudernik
Mirjana Šrot
Beatrice Bartolomei
Monja Obrul
Mina Radaković
Ema Perič
Tetiana Svetlična

Christopher Thompson
Jan Trninič
Davide Buffone
Matteo Magalotti
Lucio Mauttone
Tomaž Viktor Abram Golub
Matteo Beeckman

--

THE CHOREOGRAPHER’S NOTE

The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) is an iconic musical work of the 20th century. It represents not only a turning point in Igor Stravinsky’s compositional poetics, but also a watershed moment in the history of dance. Through this work, we can follow the evolution of dance throughout the 20th century—from the first production by Vaslav Nijinsky in Paris in 1913 to the present day. Maurice Béjart created a magnificent ballet, while Pina Bausch created a magnificent life. I believe these two artistic “principles” became paradigms of the 20th century because they profoundly influenced later choreographic interpretations.

The starting point of my production is precisely Nijinsky’s original choreography, with its hermetic quality and its “disturbingly” advanced nature for its time. I therefore perceive my interpretation of The Rite of Spring as a homage to Nijinsky and to his famous “failure” at the Paris premiere, which became a dynamic foundation for the development of modern dance in the 20th century.

On the narrative level, my interpretation of The Rite of Spring remains faithful to the musical structure and the story derived from a legend rooted in pre-Christian, pagan Russia. The legend tells of the ritual sacrifice of a virgin who must dance herself to death in honor of the god of spring in order to ensure the fertility of the earth. Iconographically, the performance draws on ethnographic symbols of the ancient Russian legend—women with long braids and rosy cheeks, and men with beards—as gendered symbols of the masculine and feminine principles, isolated within a contemporary space and time in which I wish to “consecrate” today’s spring.

If this production of The Rite of Spring can be understood as an artistic homage to Vaslav Nijinsky, then Les Noces (The Wedding) is, in a way, the logical next step in exploring Stravinsky’s ballet music and its stage realization. This also corresponds to the chronology of the works, since the first performance of Les Noces took place ten years later (1923), choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, Vaslav’s sister.

Its musical legacy and choreography arise from traditional Russian culture and create a theatrical framework for the dance narrative of an arranged marriage. I deliberately followed the original libretto and score, whose vivid musical language dictates the flow of the action and leaves little room for “digressions.”

Despite the demanding musical material, which presents a major challenge for all performers—musicians, singers, and dancers alike—the music itself became my principal source of inspiration. The force that drives the protagonists of both Les Noces and The Rite of Spring is a kind of primal energy that propels society toward rituality: the marriage ritual in Les Noces and the sacrificial ritual in The Rite of Spring. In both cases, the final act is inevitable, yet fatefully compelling. I therefore invite the audience to join us on a journey through the archaic yet simultaneously avant-garde landscapes of two musical masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky.

— Edward Clug

The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) is an iconic musical work of the 20th century that represents not only a turning point in Stravinsky’s compositional poetics, but also a landmark in the history of music. Through this work, we can trace the evolution of dance throughout the 20th century, from Nijinsky’s first Paris production in 1913 to the present day.

Clug’s initial inspiration was Nijinsky’s original choreography itself, because of its hermetic nature and its “disturbingly” advanced quality for the time. Edward Clug conceived his interpretation of The Rite of Spring as a homage to Nijinsky and his famous “failure” at the Paris premiere, which later became the foundation of modern dance development in the 20th century.

On the narrative level, Clug’s interpretation remains faithful to the musical structure and the original libretto derived from the legend of pre-Christian pagan Russia. The legend centers on the ritual sacrifice of a virgin who must dance herself to death in honor of the spring deity in order to ensure the fertility of the earth. Iconographically, the production relies on ethnographic symbols from the ancient Russian legend: women with long braids and rosy cheeks, and men with beards—two gendered symbols of the masculine and feminine principles—isolated within a contemporary space and time in which the “consecration” of the coming spring will take place.

At approximately the same time that The Rite of Spring was created (1913), Igor Stravinsky was preparing sketches for another ballet work dedicated to the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev and his company, the Ballets Russes. However, the musical form of the composition—which Stravinsky titled Les Noces (The Wedding) before its premiere in choreography by Bronislava Nijinska, with the descriptive subtitle “choreographed scenes with music and singing”—required years of development. After completing the first sketches and a piano reduction in October 1917, Stravinsky turned to writing the libretto, drawing on traditional wedding folk texts he found in a 1911 collection of folk songs by Pyotr Kireyevsky. Most of the songs originated from southern and western Russia, and the authenticity of local traditions was preserved: village singers during festivities did not perform texts to fixed melodies, but freely combined short textual and melodic fragments. Likewise, in Les Noces, fragments of wedding songs, exclamations, jokes, and teasing are freely interwoven, so that the libretto resembles folk speech revealing the deep and archaic layers of Russian folkloric tradition.

After a lengthy orchestration process, Stravinsky ultimately chose four vocal soloists, mixed choir, two percussion ensembles (with both definite and indefinite pitch), and four pianos, which in contemporary performances are often replaced by orchestra. The ballet’s structure, sonically rooted in emphatic rhythmicity and the mechanistic severity of percussion, is divided into two parts framed by four scenes—The Braid, At the Bridegroom’s House, The Bride’s Departure, and The Wedding Feast.

As the title suggests, the work concerns a wedding ritual—an arranged marriage decided in advance by the families of the bride and groom according to tradition. The rural isolation of the village community is depicted in Stravinsky’s music through rhythmic strictness and ascetic rigidity, contrasted with the uncertain emotions of the young couple before marriage. Through dance, the various phases of the ritual unfold, during which the bride and groom initially feel like victims before the community of their families (an intriguing parallel with the theme of The Rite of Spring). Yet as the intensity grows, passion begins to emerge, and with it the barrier between man and woman disappears. Once all fears have dissolved, the newlyweds step forward into a new life.

— Benjamin Virc

--