THE BOLSHOI BALLET IN A TENT - iN LONDON - A WEEK TO REMEMBER...
Hi to everyone who so kindly read my blogs. I have posted this article previously, indeed I wrote this back in December 2013, but as the Bolshoi Ballet is back in London this year (2019) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - I felt it a good time to remember the time we presented the Bolshoi Ballet in a Tent. It was a wonderful occasion and the result was extraordinary. Thanks for reading....
The Bolshoi Ballet performing in a Tent ! Impossible everyone shouted...
"The Bolshoi Ballet is the grandest and finest ballet company in the world, they will not perform in a tent - forget about it - it will never happen" - well my friends it did happen - and here is the story...
On the 26th August 1986 the Bolshoi Ballet opened their season of 7 performances in a massive tent in Battersea Park, London, with a stunning Divertissement programme. The BBC cancelled their Saturday night programming to present a live broadcast on BBC1, the main channel and the DVD of this broadcast "The Bolshoi in the Park" is still a big seller according to Warner Music some 32 years later. It was a magical, memorable and never to be forgotten happening.
It had been 30 years since the Bolshoi Ballet had first appeared in London and indeed (as far as I recall) to the West. When the Bolshoi Ballet first performed in the UK (in 1959) and USA, their tours were a triumph. Two ballerinas whose names become legends in the ballet world and beyond - Galina Ulanova and Raisa Struchkova became world famous. At that time, their performances had "received standing ovations with bouquets and rose petals strewn on the path from the theatre to the hotel" (wrote ballet critic, Margaret Willis, who toured with the Bolshoi Ballet at that time ) - During the summer of 1986 these two legends again appeared on the stage of the Royal Opera House - this time taking their bows for their roles as ballet coaches alongside their protegées.
As written in a previous blog Part 1 of "Our time with the Bolshoi Ballet" Victoria Charlton and I, began working with the Soviet Ministry of Culture and the State Concert Agency, Gosconcert in 1981 - we had taken the first British artists to perform at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, under the Directorship of Marina Antonova and the artistic director of the December Nights programme, the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter. This was the very first time we had met Sviatoslav Richter and his wife/partner, Nina Dorliark, which was an incredible start to our years of working with the cream of Soviet artists. We contracted Philip Pickett and the New London Consort, Tenor David Rendell, Cellist Elisabeth Wilson and others to perform at this festival - you can imagine how we felt, being in this wonderful museum - our first Christmas in Russia - surrounded by heavily falling snow, ice and the finest music anywhere - wow - we were on the road - the political barriers were beginning to fall!
The next big event for us was to bring the Moscow Classical Ballet with the Bolshoi Ballet Star ballerina Ekaterina Maximova to the UK - and this experience deserves its own blog - it was a riveting time and broke many cultural, and as mentioned above, political barriers - the world was changing and so were we! These performances were a huge success.
However, back to the Bolshoi Ballet - by that time we had gained the confidence of the Soviet authorities - Victor and Lilian Hochhauser has originally brought the Bolshoi Ballet to London in 1959, but had stopped working with the Soviet Cultural Organisations when they began working with Mstislav Rostropovich the great cellist - at that time if you worked with an artist such as Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rostropovich who had either defected or expressed opposition to the Soviet Powers - you didn't get to work with the main Soviet Artists and companies - as mentioned in my earlier blog, no-one had worked with the Soviets in the UK for more than 20 years and in the USA for 25 years so you can imagine what a journey of discovery we were making.
People have asked me whether we were worried about working with the Soviet Union at that time - the answer to that was "no". Both Vicki and I felt very strongly that the arts, dance, music etc had to be placed above politics (although of course there were geo-political issues) - Indeed we felt deeply, that if we could bring the greatest artists from Russia and the Soviet Republics to the UK and Ireland (and the US/Canada and other countries) plus touring the finest British and American companies to Moscow, Leningrad (which changed to St.Petersburg) and other major cities, we would be doing more to help a greater understanding between the West and the USSR. I still feel this today and I am enormously proud of what we achieved.
We were told that the Bolshoi Ballet would only tour the UK, if they opened their season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London - I remember Vicki and I meeting Sir John Tooley, the Director of the Royal Opera House and having a hell of a fight to get the ROH to allow us to bring the Bolshoi Ballet and present them on their stage. Vicki was pulling as much political influence (very successfully) as she could, and I was building a great relationship with Paul Findlay the Assistant Director of the ROH - after some tortuous twisting and turning we eventually negotiated the contract for a three week season commencing July 22nd 1986 with a Royal Gala Performance of Grigorovich's "Ivan the Terrible" music by Sergei Prokofiev attended by HRH Diana, The Princess of Wales in aid of the British Deaf Association. Diana was radiant that night and she was a wonderful supporter of our shows.
The Ballets performed during that visit: The performances of Ivan the Terrible, Raymonda, The Golden Age and Spartacus - were stunningly successful - tickets flew out the door - young dancers were introduced to us - Natalia Bessmertnova, Boris Akimov, Sergei Radchenko, Nina Semizorova, Alla Mikhaichenko, Nina Ananiashvili and Irek Mukhamedov who amazed audiences with this breathtaking role in "Spartacus".
We had many sponsors Goldman Sachs, UBS, Nomura, Laing & Cruishank, Jaeger, Phillips & Drew - the great and the good attended, but what about the general public who couldn't get a ticket if they tried?
The idea of a tent or some form of temporary structure had come to us when we persuaded the Bolshoi Ballet to perform in Dublin, Ireland during the opening the tour. We had transformed the atmosphere of the huge livestock market arena - The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) into a 'magical kingdom' of a large opera house, which we built from scratch.
I remember our Dublin based architect Gar Hololan, working with us to dig the orchestra pit for 90 musicians and build the stage large enough to take the Bolshoi Ballet (there were no theatres at that time, big enough to present the Bolshoi Ballet anywhere in Ireland) - as the local press wrote - "the RDS was transformed into a magical kingdom of ethereal nymphs ("Les Sylphides"), powerful warriors ("Spartacus"), and a dazzling array of make believe characters from the great classical ballets".
The RDS - the scene of a farming fair the week before, was turned, almost overnight into a 4,000 seat world class theatre, with a stage comparable to the Bolshoi in Moscow and the Royal Opera House in London. It was a monumental feat and one that we all feel great pride in even today.
The performances were an incredible success with the Irish audiences and the Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) and President attending. On the opening night - the national anthems were played on tape because the Bolshoi Orchestra in the pit didn't have the music for the Irish national anthem. The Irish national anthem was played everyone stood and waited for the Soviet national anthem - I don't know what went wrong, but they played the Irish national anthem three times, before they got the right one - everyone was laughing - so a diplomatic incident was averted!
It was this programme (Les Sylphides, Spartacus Act 2 and a stunning divertissement 3rd act), that we proposed to Yuri Grigorovich and the Cultural Tsars in Moscow. To be produced in a Tent in Battersea Park, to an audience that would never normally have the opportunity to see the Bolshoi Ballet.
Rather amusingly, the Bolshoi management team were very suspicious of taking the mighty Bolshoi into a tent - not that I blamed them, because we had never done that before either! - but then we had never converted a huge agricultural cow and sheep barn into an opera house! "The Bolshoi Ballet in a tent - are you people mad"? When I pointed out that this will let the ordinary people of London, as opposed to the great and good, see the Bolshoi and not just the VIP's, they weren't sure about that at all!
After much wrangling backwards and forwards, we got agreement - contracts signed and we were off and running. My dear friend Michael Gelardi and share holder in the Entertainment Corporation, had introduced me to Robert Peel, who owned Thistle Hotels and they sponsored this season. Robert and his MD Norbert, ended up cooking and selling burgers outside the tent - everyone was having fun.
The weather was appalling - but despite the rain, damp and cold - and one of the worst summers remembered in England, the Bolshoi Ballet stole the hearts of London and the British public. In a three hour live television broadcast, the commentator spoke for all of us when she said - "We have watched a stage full of extraordinary talent and a great company putting its best foot forward - what a thrill"
Battersea Park is the largest park in South London and well known throughout the world. Created in 1857 by Disraeli's government to fulfil the needs of Londoner's for open space - the park was an ideal location for this Bolshoi Ballet season. The site of the tent was on the ground of the former "British Genius Site" but there were many obstacles - the tent had to be massive and sight lines carefully worked out because of tent poles. Orchestra pits had to be dug to allow for a 6'2'' tall conductor and an 80 piece orchestra; an enormous stage built and all the hanging facilities to take the 13m high Bolshoi Scenery - waterproofing the staging areas and orchestra pit - creating backstage dressing rooms, wardrobe areas, wigs, shoe rooms you name it!
The seating capacity was approximately 4,000 per show (I recall there were seven performances), with ticket prices kept as low as we could to allow just about anyone to come who could get a ticket. The demand was huge - we could have sold out weeks and weeks of shows in that park. All of you can see these performances on the wonderful DVD of the BBC broadcast (I believe it is still available). I am enormously grateful to Alan Yentob of the BBC who turned the filming/broadcast agreements around so quickly.
It was an incredible time and one that all of us involved are deeply proud of - yes, the Bolshoi Ballet did perform in tent and the Bolshoi dancers and the ecstatic audience had a ball
A season to remember
Thanks for reading
Peter
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