8 September 2010

Oleg Vinogradov (b. 1937) choreographed The Prince of the Pagodas for the 1972–3 season of the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad.

[Interview conducted by telephone and translated from the Russian]

What would you say about the music and scenario of The Prince of the Pagodas, particularly in the light of their relationship to Russian ballet?

I am absolutely delighted with the ballet's music. I loved it then and I still love it today. It is simply beautiful. But the dramatic basis of the work, its scenario, did not correspond to the norms and forms of Classical ballet. The script is overburdened with plot lines, situations and characters. This is especially relevant in Act I. But we could not shorten Britten's work. In choreography, however, there are specific rules. For example, variations can last between one and three minutes, but by no means five. The same is true about corps de ballet parts. None of these rules is followed in the work. I do not know if Britten wrote the ballet together with a choreographer, but if he had, the choreographer would have advised him. If we take Tchaikovsky, for instance, the musical plans which he received from Marius Petipa contained detailed chronometric study of every number, specified by seconds, minutes and musical examples. The performances which they created together stand out by their absolute harmony.

As for Stravinsky, he composed short ballets, there's nothing to shorten there. Britten's is a huge ballet and the audience in England was not ready for such a massive stage work. In Russia, however, there exists a tradition of long ballets in three to four acts. But the tendency is to reduce the length. It started quite a while ago and continues today. Prokofiev was well aware of this tendency; he tended to take into account the peculiarities of the ballet genre. He would work with a choreographer and pay attention to time requirements. But today even Prokofiev's ballets, as well as those by Tchaikovsky and Glazunov, are reduced. Three acts is a long time today, the time in which one can fly to London.