DRD 2004

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Recorded in the Byelorussian Radio Committee Studio, Minsk, October 1994Engineer: Eduard Martens

Mastering: Tatiana VinnitskayaCover Painting: A Sailor and his Sweetheart by Boris Kustodiev, 1920

BALLET SUITE NO. 2 (1951)

15. Waltz (2:07)

16. Adagio (7:49)

17. Polka (2:12)

18. Sentimental Romance (3:22)

19. Spring Waltz (1:53)

20. Finale (Galop) (3:14)

THE LADY AND THE HOOLIGAN (BALLET IN ONE ACT) (1962)

1. Introduction (6:33)

2. Street (1:47)

3. The Hooligan (2:21)

4. The Lady (3:33)

5. School (2:41)

6. Prayer (3:00)

7. Tavern (5:06)

8. Visions (3:39)

9. Scene (2:25)

10. Promenade in Park (1:45)

11. (Allegro) (1:24)

12. (Adagio) (7:52)

13. Fight (2:04)

14. Finale (7:20)

THE HOOLIGANThe Lady

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

AND

TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 72:10

Minsk Symphony Orchestra • Walter Mnatsakanov, conductor

Shostakovich created three works in the ballet genre:The Golden Age, The Bolt and The Limpid Stream. Thecomposer never returned to this genre again. But the

expressiveness and vividness of Shostakovich’s music hasnever ceased to attract the attention of choreographersfrom different countries. This is how the choreographicnovel The Lady and the Hooligan, in seven episodes, tomusic by Shostakovich emerged, created by theLeningrad playwright A. Belinsky and choreographer K.Boyarsky in 1962. The libretto is based on a screenplaywritten by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The 13 excerpts fromvarious of Shostakovich’s works included in the scoreprovide a concrete and precise setting to each episode.

Episode 1The outskirts of a large Russian city in 1923. The Hooli-gan appears in the night street. He is the terror of thelocal townfolks. His every gesture demonstrates hisdevil-may-care attitude and brutal force. He strolls, freeand easy, over the empty street and suddenly catchessight of the Lady walking by herself. He follows theLady and pushes her. She falls; the Hooligan is about tostrike her, but is completely disarmed by the sincerityand vulnerability of her appearance. In confusion, TheHooligan steps back and the frightened Lady runs away.

Episode 2At school. In the classroom, the young boys and girls areterrorized by the Hooligan. A teacher enters the class-

room, who happens to be the young, nice lady whom hesaw in the street. She stops the Hooligan, and to every-one’s surprise he obediently takes his seat.

Episode 3A city park. The Hooligan catches sight of the Lady inone of the alleys and moves towards her. He wants todeclare his love to her. But the guy does not know theproper words and instead of a declaration of love he canonly brag. Scared, the Lady runs away. The Hooliganmakes for the nearest restaurant to drown his misfortunein wine.

Episode 4Restaurant at the time of the NEP (New Economic Policy— 1921-27). Bandits with their Chief are having the timeof their lives. There are glimpses of girls in a frenziedCharleston, with the Chief’s girlfriend leading a wildcan-can dance. The Hooligan is among them, butthoughts of the Lady force him to break from the com-pany of his friends and he gets away.

Episode 5The Hooligan at the Lady’s house. He is drunk and de-spondent. He spends the whole night at her windows.

Episode 6The city park. The people in the park, the Lady amongthem, are attacked by a gang. The Hooligan drives his

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

former friends away. The Chief realizes that the Hooliganhas become a new man and decides to deal with him.

Episode 7Having defended the Lady, the Hooligan can now openhis heart to her. His declaration fills the Lady with greatsympathy. She departs. Left alone, the Hooligan is encir-cled by his former friends who brutally beat up the “trai-tor,” while the Chief strikes him a death blow.Summoning all his strength, the Hooligan cries out forthe Lady. Hearing his cry she returns. He dies in thearms of his beloved Lady, with a smile on his lips. Thebandits are shocked by the low-down action of theirChief. They understand that he instigated the fight tosettle accounts. All their bravado disappears and theyturn away from their Chief; distressed, they gatheraround the Hooligan’s body.

Back in 1918, Mayakovsky was commissioned to write ascreenplay based on the novel The Workers’ Lady-Teacherby the Italian writer Edmondo De Amicis, and had him-self played the main role, that of the Hooligan, in it. Thefilm was poor; however the Mayakovsky screenplay, ru-ined as a film, did acquire a brilliant revival in the chore-ographic interpretation. The short and lucid libretto (thisis a one-act ballet) contained the entire novel and nar-rated it in a vivid and interesting choreographic lan-guage. In this fusion, the dance is dramatically andorganically merged with music borrowed from variousworks of Dmitri Shostakovich. It would be a waste oftime trying to find the ballet The Lady and the Hooliganamong the works created by the composer: neither

would one find such other ballets as The Flowers, TheLeningrad Symphony, The Meeting, The Directive Bow, TheNinth Symphony. All these ballets are based on and makeuse of music created by Shostakovich but not speciallyfor these ballets.The ingenious compilation of the score and arrange-ment of some pieces was carried out by the composerLevon Atovmyan; the original sources he borrowed themusic from were the Ballet Suites, the ballets The Bolt andThe Limpid Stream, the Romance from the film The Gadfly,and movements from the Sonata for Cello and Piano.The musical characteristics of the main characters arevery precise. The leading motive of the Lady, which isheard in the introduction and the fourth number, is re-lated to the Romance from the Ballet Suite No. 1. Themusic of this romance is familiar from the piano cycleDances of the Dolls. The musical portrait of the Hooliganbased on the Variations from the ballet The Bolt, is heardin the second, third and tenth numbers of the ballet.In the highly characteristic fifth number, the polka fromBallet Suite No. 1 is used, while in the middle sectionthere is a witty etching of the Russian Popular Print fromthe ballet The Limpid Stream, also known as the StreetOrgan from the cycle Dances of the Dolls. The sixth num-ber, the Prayer, is an orchestral variant of the third move-ment of the Cello Sonata. The seventh number is relatedto the fourth episode of the tango from the ballet The Bolt.Especially popular is the eighth number, Visions, which isthe orchestrated romance from the film The Gadfly. Theninth employs the auxiliary part of the first movement ofthe Cello Sonata, presented by the oboe. The tenth num-ber,Walk in the Park, is the waltz from the Ballet Suite No.

Walter Mnatsakanov’s career began in the mid-1960s when theyoung conductor, a graduate of the Moscow (1953-58 – choirmaster)and Leningrad (1961–66 – opera and symphonic conductor) Conser-vatories, began his professional activity at the Chelyabinsk Operaand Ballet Theater where he performed La Traviata, Rigoletto, DonCarlos, Tosca, Prince Igor, Eugene Onegin, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker,Peer Gynt, Giselle and others. He continued his conducting workwith symphony orchestras in Minsk, including the ByelorussianBolshoi Theater Orchestra and the Byelorussian ConservatoryOpera Studio and in Grozny, where he was chief conductor of theRepublican Symphony Orchestra. During these years, Mnatsakanovextended his repertoire which presently embraces symphonies byBeethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Brahms,

Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Kancheli, Szymanovsky and others.He has worked with many renowned Soviet performersincluding Pavel Serebriakov, Rudolf Kerer, OxanaYablonskaya, Boris Gutnikov, Ruben Aharonian, andIgor Oistrakh as well as soloists from France, Germany,Yugoslavia and other countries. He continues to be in-vited to conduct various orchestras in Russia.

Apart from his main work as a conductor, WalterMnatsakanov has been actively involved in teaching andwriting music reviews since 1980. In addition, undercommission from the State publishing houseMusika, hehas made a great number of symphonic transcriptionsfor piano and piano four/hands.

BIOGRAPHY

4, gradually transformed into variations from The Bolt.The eleventh number, which is the Adagio from the balletThe Limpid Stream, is very dramatic, while the music ofthe twelfth number, The Fight— the tragic denouementof the plot resulting in the death of the Hooligan — istaken from various ballet suites. In the closing number,music of the introduction is brought back again, but in anew dramatic setting. This is a requiem to love and anadequate full-stop closing the ballet score.In autumn 1962, the ballet saw the light of day on thestage of the Leningrad Maly Opera Theatre.

The Ballet Suite No. 2was written by Shostakovich in1951. The musical language of the suite is simple andeasily understood, with the score being pervaded withbuffoonery, musical hyperbole, parody and sincere lyri-

cism. The first movement,Waltz, is set in a lively scherzomood. This festive and merry tone is opposed by theAdagio, which is a profound lyrical confession. Thismusic was employed in The Lady and the Hooligan. Themischievous Polka is pervaded with sharp, unpreten-tious playful themes and unexpected modulations. Fol-lowing this is the elegant and laconic SentimentalRomance. The mild irony of the main theme imparts aspecial charm to this part. Unlike the first waltz, the fifthnumber, the Spring Waltz, from the music written byShostakovich for the filmMichurin, is plastic, its melodicline is smooth, and the orchestration refined and trans-parent. The captivatingly gay, impetuous, tonally fretfulmusic of the Galop brings the suite to a close.

© 1995Maya Pritsker

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