“Case Carmen” by Maxim Shalygin: heroine’s characteristic Features in a retrospective ballet composition

Abstract

Topicality of research. In contemporary culture artists take a remarkable interest in remakes due to the desire to actualize the classical subjects and show new semantic layers familiar to the person of the 21st century. Dance performance “Case Carmen” (2017, The Hague) by the Dutch choreographer Lonneke van Leth opens up a new modern look at one of the brightest heroines in the history of world literature and art.Scientific novelty. The musical series of ballet, written by the Ukrainian-Dutch composer of the new generation Maxim Shalygin, for the first time serve as an object of scientific consideration which is a new step in the process of studying the composer’s multifaceted creativity.The main objective of the study is to consider the features of Carmen’s figurative characteristic in retrospective composition of “Case Carmen” dance performance.Methodology. The article uses methods of historical and theoretical musicology. Ballet electro acoustic score has determined the peculiarity of the analytical method which combines genre-intonation and auditory descriptive analysis. A comparative method is used to reveal similar and distinctive features of the modern ballet version and primary sources (P. Merime’s novels, J. Bizet’s opera); 2) in Carmen’s image interpretation in the ballets of the 20–21 centuries. An appeal to the retrospective category led to the use of a linguistic approach.Relevance of the study. “Case Carmen” (Dance Performance About the Murder Case) is a «dance thriller» whose characters (Carmen, Jose, Mikaela) are borrowed from J. Bizet’s opera but are inscribed in the picture of modern life with its oppressive routine and routine relationships. M. Shalygin’s music as well as L. van Leet’s choreography emphasizes the acute-modern orientation of the play (this is evidenced by the performer composition itself – the combination of instrumental ensemble, female choir and electronics). There were found connections of the ballet with P. Merimee’s novella, which are traced at the level of constructing the whole (retrospective composition stemming from the specific organization of artistic time) as well as the level of Carmen’s characteristics (formation of the heroine’s image from individual memories and representations about her). The value of the Detective’s image (dramatic role) is revealed, it is a new character that lives through Carmen’s case in retrospective reflection. Being obsessed with the fatal beauty, he reconstructs the history of her relationship with Jose, speaking as a guide between past and present. The importance of a wide range of noise in the musical fabric of the ballet was emphasized, which “cemented” the whole structure, while enhancing the feeling of nonlinear time, the habitat of events in partially erased, blurry or distorted by the consciousness memories. On the basis of the dance performance musical series analysis the complexity and ambiguity of the image of Carmen with the inherent unpredictability, mystery, demonism, aspiration of mortal danger, a combination of incompatible features such as purity and promiscuity are described. Accordingly, the musical characterization of the heroine is colorful and contradictory, based on a variety of genre-tone sources (elevated chorale and club dubstep, inspired flexible cantilena and soulless mechanistic motility).Results and conclusions. The dance performance “Case Carmen” is marked by the discontinuity, multidimensionality and artistic time reversal. In this complex fluctuation of the present and past images of the main characters appear among which the most complex and ambiguous is Carmen’s characteristic. An exceptionally original and multi-valued interpretation of the eternal story in the modern format of the “dance thriller” presented by the choreographer L. van Leet and composer M. Shalygin contains numerous directions for new research. First of all, this relates to the ballet musical number which is one of the most important components of the performance that gives the key to solving the mystery of the fatal beauty.