The Lost Ballet
Page 52
Chapter 52 – The Bidding Begins
The meeting of the Mariinsky dancers followed by a half day the meeting of the Russian lawyers and politicos. The meeting of the dancers was held in the costume shop in the basement of the Mariinsky Theater. The meeting of the politicos was held in the grandiose conference room of the Saint Petersburg Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The three lawyers, the three Ministry ministers, Gergiev, Stirg, and Nev sat around a huge, ornate table made from maple, elm, and hornbeam trees that had been harvested around 1705. The table had resided in the same room since 1715.
Gergiev badly had wanted to exclude the lawyers and ministers from the production, but he knew if he tried that he might end up managing one of Saint Petersburg’s new McDonalds rather than his beloved Mariinsky. Being all about the dance, he hated bureaucrats with a passion. He wasn’t bad at dealing with bureaucracy, however, and after two hours the lawyers and ministers gave him their blessing to proceed. Of course, the three cashier’s checks on the maple, elm, and hornbeam table had something to do with their acquiescence. Yes, Stirg had had to dip into the envelope for one more. When the bureaucrats left the meeting, the lawyers took one check, the ministers took another, and they left the third on the table, with stern looks directed at Gergiev. Stirg recognized the cost of doing business when he saw it. The lawyers would deal with the fallout from cancelling part of the season’s schedule, and the ministers would keep their noses out of the production.
As soon as the meeting was over, Gergiev sent out text messages to the entire Mariinsky staff, ordering them to the theater at 6pm that evening. The message said those who didn’t attend should hop the next train to Moscow and apply for jobs with the Bolshoi. Everyone attended: the principle dancers, the corps dancers, the musicians, the lighting crew, the costumers, the admin people, everyone. That evening he told them of the new program that would start tomorrow morning at 7am. Half of their existing schedule was canceled; the other half would go forward as planned. The newly created void in the schedule was to be filled with a major new production: the world premiere of a lost ballet by Stravinsky.
When Gergiev said half the schedule was being cancelled, the staff couldn’t believe their ears. What? Crazy. Can’t happen. How. All those performances. All those commitments. All those tickets already sold. Crazy.
When he said the new program was a world premiere; a lost ballet by Stravinsky; in four months; the staff really lost it. What? Crazy. How? A lost ballet? By Igor? Who would do the choreography?
Yes, that was the central question for Gergiev. Who would do the choreography? The music was not a problem, because, of course, the production would be traditional, not modernistic, like the Charleston production. The Mariinsky orchestra would play it. And the dancers would dance it, principles and corps (which of the principle dancers would get the choice roles was another story, another battle to be fought, but not really a problem for Gergiev). But the choreography was key. It had to be the best. Wonderful. A work of genius. It would be the factor that would tip the competitive scale in favor of Russia, and against the upstart, thieving, scurrilous, American hacks. Who would do the choreography?
After Gergiev laid out the basics of the new production, which weren’t very many and which had few details, the dancers retreated downstairs to the costume shop. By no means is the dance corps of a major company one big happy family, motivated by the ideals and nobility of their art form. They are like any other big family or company group, a milieu of emotions, ambitions, agendas, infatuations, and competitions. But they all sensed something very special in Gergiev’s announcement of the new production. It was, after all, the world premiere of a lost work by an acknowledged giant. And what made the situation all the more intriguing and confusing was Gergiev’s statement about the concurrent production in America; in some place called Charleston, which is not New York or San Francisco or Washington, DC. It is….someplace else. So with this information the dancers felt a shared interest, and sat crammed into the costume shop, principle dancers and corps dancers alike.
Questions flew around the room like flies in a greenhouse, ricocheting off the glass walls. Where did the score come from? Who found it, when, and why do the ballet now, right in the middle of preparing for a schedule set long ago? What’s behind this production, and how can this be the premiere if the Americans also are doing a version? Will we get a bonus? Somebody will be paying a lot of money to make it happen. Will we get some of that?
It was only a few minutes before memories were jogged about a news story a couple of months earlier that a few of the dancers had seen in the Internet version of Le Monde. They now remembered the story about a production in the States, but because it wasn’t being done by one of the major American companies, they had relegated it to provincial status and ignored it. Out came the smart phones, up came the Junes website, and there was the story of the discovery of the lost Stravinsky score and the announcement of the production. The website listed the dates of the performances, and they were one week later than the dates Gergiev had said would be the dates for their performances. The website says the Charleston performance is the world premiere. What is going on? Uncertainty now mingled with excitement.
One of the prima ballerinas stood up and clapped her hands. She said, “Look, we just got our orders. We’re doing this new show. But so are the Americans, and at the same time. Something weird is going on, and I have the feeling we can’t ignore them just because the show is not in New York. They have the music, and the website says it’s a modernist production with Pete Townshend of The Who doing the music on synthesizer. I love that man’s songs. He’s an old geezer with a big nose, but he sings like an angel. Gergiev is going to tell us more about our show tomorrow. But, we need to learn all we can about the American’s show. I have a feeling about this. The intuitions of the other dancers kicked it, and they nodded assent. Was this a bona fide international competition, or was it going to be something else?