Biography Gorsky

The country of Russia, he tried to add realism to ballet. Whether he was taken as a fabulous Middle Ages or for “choreographic Spain”, an ancient Egypt, East or Carthage - the audience had a feeling of complete reliability of a stage action. He was not afraid of tragic finals. And even his mistakes are mistakes of a non -knowledgeable measure in his enthusiasm for talent. Alexander Gorsky was born in Strelna, near St.

Petersburg, in a family of a trading employee. In the year, he entered the St. Petersburg ballet school. In the year, he graduated from school and began to dance in the corps de ballet. Only eleven years later he reached the position of the first dancer. Gorsky was an artist-universal: with the same success, he performed classics, folk dancing, and pantomime roles. At the same time, he read a lot, attended the evening courses of the Academy of Arts, was engaged in music - if necessary, he could conduct the orchestra, and often asked Glazunov about this during rehearsals of his ballets.

In the year, the Dancer of the Mariinsky Theater Vladimir Stepanov completed work on his dance recording system. Having studied it, Gorsky was carried away and became not only a follower, but also the closest assistant to Stepanov. And when he suddenly died - he issued a manual for students who want to master the recording of the dance - “A table of signs for recording the movements of the human body according to the system of the artist of the Imperial S.

in the year Gorsky was taken to the ballet school by the assistant by Gerdt and entrusted to conduct an independent subject“ Dance theory ”. There, the Stepanov system was very useful to him. The authorities became interested in Gorsky’s activities - after he independently recorded the entire ballet “Sleeping Beauty”, he was instructed to put this performance in Moscow.

This business trip was of great importance for both the choreographer himself and for the entire Moscow ballet. Gorsky arrived in Moscow on December 3. He immediately felt-here is the artistic life, unlike the official and faithful to the old canons of St. Petersburg. He was shocked by the performances of the newly open art theater, the private opera Mamontov, the scenery of famous artists - Polenov, Vrubel, Korovin, Vasnetsov, he met Chaliapin.

Putting the “sleeping beauty” in just three weeks, Gorsky returned to St. Petersburg, but soon arrived in Moscow again. The calculation of the theater authorities was justified, the fees in the theater grew up, and in order to consolidate success, it was decided to put Raymonda at the Bolshoi Theater. Gorsky coped with the task, Glazunov’s music aroused no less interest in Moscow than Tchaikovsky's music.

Gorsky was convinced of the possibilities of the Moscow troupe, and the troupe was in the talent of Gorsky. When the choreographer was offered to lead the Moscow ballet, he happily agreed. For his real debut, he chose the Don Quixote ballet - formally it was about the editors of Petip, and in fact it was a new performance. Gorsky attracted good artists from the opera of Mamontov and decided that the classic dance in the Spanish ballet did not interfere with enriching folk elements.

Almost like in the Art Theater, he distributed roles between all participants in the performance, including each artist of the corps de ballet and statist. In an effort to show a realistic and living folk crowd, Gorsky set various groups of corps de ballet involved in mass dance, various movements. He even refused the form of Pa-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-aisles, but he retained the best that Petip had.

Naturally, the youth were on his side, and the old people and balletomans were against it. The first performance of the Don Quixote ballet took place on December 6. The press doused the performance with mud, but the result was unforeseen: Muscovites who were not sophisticated in choreography, maybe for the first time in their life came to the Bolshoi Theater to personally see a scandalous ballet - and accepted it with enthusiasm.

Gorsky correctly felt that these viewers needed the content of the work and acting skills of performers. But he also saw weaknesses of the performance - the inability to significantly change the libretto and obsolete music of the Ministry of Combat. His next production was the Swan Lake. He retained all the best that was in the St. Petersburg performance - “Swan Acts” by Ivanov and part of the dance of Petipa, but he processed the first act.

From this, the ballet won significantly. Moscow critics were indignant, and the audience accepted the performance favorably. The same was with the "skate-humpk". In the same season, Gorsky put Glinka's Waltz-this was his first experience in the White Ballet genre. At the end of the year, Gorsky began the first fundamental work - the completely self -embodiment in the ballet of Hugo’s novel “Cathedral of the Paris Mother of God”.

He did not want to make the second “Esmeralda” with a joyful ending, refused Puni's music, and ordered it to composer Anton Simon. In order not to tease the critics-ballet spies, he called the play "Graduate with Dancing." He called his performance "Gudula's daughter." The premiere took place in November. Critics grumbled, and the bulk of the audience took the performance as a choreographic drama.But the choreographer, who deliberately went to Paris to study the “place of action”, was too carried away by everyday details.

In the next production, Gorsky decided to pay less attention to them, but to the forefront to make an idea. For some reason, he liked the idea of ​​money-grubbing ... He chose the Pushkin’s “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish”, again invited Simon, and the ballet shown in October of the year was not too successful-here Gorsky repeated the failure of Saint-Leon. He returned to the classics and in the year he put a “bayater” in Moscow - having converted many scenes and dances, but leaving one of the greatest achievements of Petip, the last picture “Shadows”.

Then he successfully set the “Magic Mirror” and took up the old ballet of Petip's “Daughter of Pharaoh”. Then he experimented with choreography - he introduced into dancing and the "ancient Egyptian" poses borrowed from Egyptian bas -reliefs. The new birth of the “daughter of the pharaoh” interested St. Petersburg dancers - Anna Pavlova came to Moscow to participate in the production of her teacher.

For five years, the choreographer, sent to Moscow to make the ballet more cash register, completely transformed him. The Petersburg "court" ballet experienced the time of stagnation, and Moskovsky was on the rise. Petipa was indignant at the Moscow “innovator and decadent” who dared to block his works. Then Gorsky was carried away by fashion trends - impressionism and symbolism. At the very end of the year, he set the Nur and Anitra ballet, in which there were all the signs of these directions - the struggle of the spirits of good and evil, the idea of ​​the destructiveness of art, and the erotic dance.

At the end of the year, he even created the impressionistic edition of Raymonda, which he later called a mistake. And at the same time, he continued to work on the dance recording system, but already with the involvement of new means - he was one of the first to appreciate the meaning of the camera for ballet art and, moreover, photographed himself. Gorsky used photographic and as a teacher: he wrote a dance methodological manual, illustrated by copyright photographs and, alas, not preserved.

But he in the years created the album “Choreographic Photo -Studies”, whose value is not only as a document of the era, but also a unique art work, is indisputable today. In the year, Gorsky began work on one of his best productions - the Salambo ballet on the topic of Flaubert’s novel of the same name. It was real luck - for the entire time of its existence, the performance did not know a single incomplete gathering.

The innovations of Gorsky led to a split inside the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater. Young people warmly supported the choreographer. Leading artists avoided participation in Gorsky's productions. Telyakovsky, at that time, the director of the imperial theaters, sided with Gorsky, but the resistance to the innovations of the choreographer continued further. One of the most famous productions of Gorsky was Corsair.

The performance, as far as possible, delivered from the conventions of the “old ballet”, was of exceptional success with the public and passed after the premiere on January 15, 16 times in a row in full fees. The scenery and costumes of Korovin were enthusiastically met. Like the “daughter of Gudula”, these are large -scale historical dramas. But the “historical direction” gave way to another - in the year Gorsky staged three parts of the fifth symphony of Glazunov.

In essence, this was the first experience of using symphonic music in ballet. The ballet was a dance pastoral in ancient taste. The last performance of Gorsky before the revolution is a new version of the Bayader. Gorsky reduced the ballet to 4 paintings before there were 7 of them. Then the stylized oriental dances came into fashion, and he happily changed the choreography of the first paintings, but did not want to abandon the masterpiece of Petip-the Big Pa of the "shadow".

The exit was found unsuccessful - the dances remained the same, the costumes of the dancers were given the eastern ones. The whole effect was destroyed. The meaning of the existence of the “shadows” of the pet in their generalization, and with the advent of national clothes, poetry disappeared. On the eve of the Revolution, Gorsky turned 46 years old. He has already celebrated the fly in creative activity.

In the year, Gorsky was awarded the honorary title of Honored Artist. After the revolution, he remained the head of the Moscow ballet. But people of different tastes and interests joined the troupe control, and there was a struggle for power between them. Gorsky became even more difficult to draw his line. For some, he was too “left”: the destroyer of the canons, introducing “illegal” plasticity into ballet performances.

For others, he was too “right”: after all, he represented an art that was obtained by the current system from the past, and the youth strove for a new, unprecedented. When discussing the repertoire, his proposals were increasingly rejected, his own work, especially the original one -act ballets, gradually disappeared from the posters. G. Gorsky gradually began to move away from the control of the troupe, he put less and less on the main stage, worked with students in the new theater, in the studio, in private groups.

The season in the Aquarium in the summer of the year is one of the first attempts to create something new outside the walls of the Bolshoi Theater.From the works of that time, the most interesting ballet “En Blanc”, created to the music of the third suite of Tchaikovsky. This was another step forward on the path of creating “dancers”, a genre that will eventually become one of the most common.

In honor of the anniversary of the revolution in November, Gorsky put the ballet Stenka Razin. This performance, like his work at the Aquarium Garden Theater, was criticized by simultaneously supporters of new contemporary art and defenders of the academic ballet. The next premiere of the Bolshoi Theater, and also unsuccessful, was the Nutcracker ballet. In the year Gorsky, together with Nemirovich-Danchenko, developed a plan for a new setting of Swan Lake.