Style Over Substance

“Modanse”
Svetlana Zakharova Evening
Bolshoi Theatre (Historic Stage)
Moscow, Russia
October 31, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

The title “Modanse” sounds like an à la mode ballet – classy, extravagant, and fashionable. It belongs to a double bill featuring the Bolshoi Ballet’s prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova. The external production includes dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet’s roster, and since 2019 has guested regularly on the Bolshoi Theatre’s stage and abroad.

As a seasoned artist, Zakharova must have an instinct about what suits her on stage. Hence I’m flabbergasted that she has kept Mauro Bigonzetti’s “Come un respiro” (“Like a Breath”) in the program. The 2009 creation, of which Zakharova acquired a reworked version, is ill-suited to make her and her co-dancers (among them Anastasia Stashkevich, Ana Turazashvili, Mikhail Lobukhin, Vyacheslav Lopatin, and Denis Savin) look good. Moreover, its succession of bland solos, pas de deux, and group dances fails to excite.

Bigonzetti contrasted Baroque piano music by George Frideric Handel with contorted modern choreography. Sometimes stiff, sometimes limp, the dancers kink their hips, flex their feet, and twist awkwardly. Casual walking and cocksure-looking poses are – perhaps – meant to demonstrate how unconventional they are. Often a couple lies on the floor, entangling their limbs as if exercising acrobatics. Both solos of Zakharova seemed to scream “Look at me! I’m the star!” Only Denis Savin countered her successfully in an energetic solo.
The tutus that Helena de Medeiros designed for the women are a mix of ruffled bird’s bottoms and puffy Renaissance pants. The men, wearing plain pants, chests bare, fared better.

The second piece – “Gabrielle Chanel” – was more interesting. The one-hour story ballet has choreography by Yuri Possokhov, and a cinematic score commissioned from his established collaborator Ilya Demutsky. Zakharova dances the title role, whose career as a couturière is spotlit by an array of tableaux.
Costumes by CHANEL ensure authentic style. Chanel’s iconic colors black and white also dominate Maria Tregubova’s set design, whose (partially cubistic) backdrops alter between urban architecture, a tailor’s workshop, a catwalk, or a turf. Often, the stage is exactly this – a stage for Chanel’s (or Zakharova’s?) self-fashioning. Vintage videos (along the way also highlighting the actual fashion trends) and childhood photos illustrate the scenes, which are mostly introduced by quotes from Chanel in French.
Possokhov omitted Chanel’s all but glamorous childhood in an orphanage and her wartime record, beginning with her stint as a cabaret singer. Her romance with the wealthy Étienne Balsan (Mikhail Lobukhin) introduces her to the life of the rich and beautiful.
Though Balsan’s grand jumps suggest that the nonchalant beau was a generous lover, Chanel swaps him for Arthur Edward – ‘Boy’ – Capel (Artemy Belyakov), hurling herself into an intense love affair. As emotions fly to almost exalted heights, Chanel seems to have reached a freedom that enables her to stand on her own feet.
In 1919, Capel was killed in a car accident, but at that time he had already married another woman. A second pas de deux shows Chanel, deeply hit by the parting, in a hopeless fight against the inevitable. It seemed as if she tried to escape her own skin. Capel provided support and stability, waiting out her desperation.
While her private life was in turmoil, her professional career was about to reach celebrity status. Chanel’s iconic chic replaced Edwardian fashion and was soon to conquer the stage of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. She designed the sportswear for the tennis players, golfers, and weightlifters of Nijinska’s “Le Train Bleu” (1924) and new costumes for Balanchine’s “Apollon musagète” (1928). Short interludes refer to both ballets.
Capel’s influence on the creation of Chanel No. 5 wasn’t addressed. Instead, Chanel and the perfumer Ernest Beaux (Denis Savin), helped by some assistants, compounded the famous fragrance, thus expanding the CHANEL brand. Zakharova’s Chanel personifies this brand, while revealing little of the person behind it.

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