Features of the interpretation of female images of W. Shakespeare's late play "The Winter's Tale" in Christopher Wheeldon's ballet of the same name

Abstract

The subject of this article is K. Wheeldon's interpretation of the female images of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" in the context of its ideological and figurative identity to the literary source. The research is carried out in order to determine the expressive means and elements of choreographic vocabulary used by the choreographer in the production of female roles, as well as their contextual comparison with the text of the original source. In the course of the research, the author of the article, due to the versatility of the problem of interpreting W. Shakespeare's play on the ballet stage, used an integrated approach. The theoretical basis of the work was the principles of critical and semantic analysis of choreographic vocabulary developed by historians and theorists of ballet art (Dobrovolskaya, Krasovskaya, Slonimsky, Lopukhov, Surits). In the process of source analysis, English-language reviews of the world premiere of the ballet were reviewed (quotes from the articles are translated by the author), as well as video materials from the archives of the London Royal Opera House and the Moscow Bolshoi Theater. In addition, the included observation method was used (based on personal experience of working with Wheeldon as a performer of the Loss part in a Bolshoi Theater performance), accompanied by an analysis of rehearsal recordings for March – April 2019, which are in the author's archive. So, the detailed semantic analysis of the composition and choreographic vocabulary of female images of Shakespeare's late play "The Winter's Tale", interpreted by Wheeldon in the ballet of the same name, carried out in this article, was the main tool in the development of the scientific problem posed. The new results of the study include a significant groundwork in the aspect of identifying classical and innovative artistic elements of the dance language developed and used by Wheeldon, which allowed us to draw the following conclusions. Conceptually starting from Shakespeare's text, the choreographer adapts the interpretation of female images to a certain extent, guided by the expressive potential of conventional ballet art. At the same time, in the production of female roles, individualized plastic interpretations of the heroines become the main means of expression.