Last Saturday, on the stage of the Chelyabinsk Opera and Ballet Theater named after Glinka, the performance “Bright Stream” to the music of Dmitry Shostakovich ended with a two-day tour of the Bolshoi ballet troupe.

On the evening of Friday, October 11, before the performance on the stage of our theater, the Governor Alexei Teksler and the director of the Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Urin went out to greet the audience and guests of the festival, which, in essence, gave the start to the tour.

“I greet with all my heart the Bolshoi Theater in Chelyabinsk, where theater art is so loved and respected! Thanks to the Bolshoi for the high art that you give us, ”said the head of the region.

In turn, Vladimir Urin noted that usually the Bolshoi Theater shows “Swan Lake”, “Giselle”, and today “you will see how we can joke.”

And soon, the audience themselves could be sure that the director of the Bolshoi did not deceive at all: the Soviet props and the French vaudeville harmoniously interwoven in the performance. And really, a place was even found in this explosive mixture!

It is worth noting that throughout the history of Chelyabinsk metropolitan ballet stars have come to us more than once. However, the biographers of the Chelyabinsk Opera and Ballet Theater assert with confidence that the whole ballet troupe of the Bolshoi Theater has never come to our city with tours. So October 11 can be considered a historic day for our city.

Let’s get back to the performance itself. The “Bright Stream” has an unusual and, in a sense, even tragic fate. At its premiere in 1935, the ballet to the music of young Dmitry Shostakovich, staged by avant-garde artist Fedor Lopukhov, was a triumphal success. However, after a devastating article on the pages of the most influential Soviet newspaper Pravda, behind which Stalin personally stood, the performance for many years disappeared from the poster of the Bolshoi Theater.

It is curious that the aroma of that era was absorbed even in the scenery of the performance. An attentive viewer could even make out among the agitation of those years the name of a famous article in the same “Truth” of January 28, 1936 – “Muddle instead of music”. Poor Shostakovich! That day, on the pages of the newspaper, his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk County was defeated …

“The confusion instead of music” must have been his music for the play “Bright Stream”, which was forgotten for almost seven decades.
And only in 2003, the famous choreographer Alexei Ratmansky revived the “Bright Stream”. The new generation of ballet dancers enthusiastically accepted both the fervent music of Shostakovich and the unpretentious story about collective farm life.

In recent years, the revived performance has been admired in many cities around the world, including New York and Paris. The performance also took place on the stage of the London Royal Theater “Covent Garden” with a full house. After the legendary performances held here in triumph by Yuri Grigorovich’s production of Spartak and Swan Lake, a new full house happened in the theater, but now with the performance of Bright Stream.

And with such a baggage of success, the Bolshoi Theater arrived in Chelyabinsk.

One could only imagine how worried our musicians were! After all, the famous metropolitan artists performed accompanied by an unfamiliar orchestra of the Chelyabinsk Opera and Ballet Theater. The instrumental collective was managed by the conductor of the Bolshoi, Alexei Bogorad. As far as one could judge by the mood of the lively maestro, he was pleased with the harmonious and clear play of the Chelyabinsk orchestra.

Say what you like, but the very fact of the arrival of the ballet troupe of the main theater of the country in Chelyabinsk can be considered unique. And it became possible thanks to the cooperation agreement between the Director General of the Bolshoi Theater and the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region.