On September 25, the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre will hold a One-act Ballets Night. The first to be performed will be the premiere of The Black Man - a ballet based on the eponymous poem by Sergei Yesenin to the music of the Krasnoyarsk composer Oleg Prostitov. Soloists and a choire will take part in it.

For the first time in its almost century-old history, the text of Sergei Yesenin is put on stage thanks to the work of Oleg Prostitov and the production team that includes Vladimir Lande (music director), Natalia Bobrova (choreographer), directors Sergei Bobrov and Viktor Vysotsky, Tatyana Korolyova (artist and designer), Dmitri Khodosh (choirmaster).

The composer conceived his composition as a mono-opera with dances. A baritone singer, a female dancer, a mixed choir, a chamber ballet, and a large symphony orchestra are involved in it. The Black Man was written in Krasnoyarsk for the 100th anniversary of the great Russian poet in 1996, but was not staged until 2022.

Yesenin finished the poem in 1925, shortly before his death. Prolonged depression, a mental crisis, his split from Isadora Duncan - all this left its impress on the poem and added some eloquent expressiveness and a mystical tinge to it. Its basic theme - disappointment in oneself, in love, in creativity - is revealed in the poet's dialogue with his alter ego, the Black Man.

“Not only the singing characters – the Poet and the Black Man – are personified in the performance, but also their ballet counterparts who multiply in mirror images. The choir adds a special flavour by setting off the monologues of the characters from time to time, but it mostly creates the mystical atmosphere of the intruder’s invasion. One of the main characters is the dancer Isadora: seductive and enchanting, she tempts both the Poet and the Black Man with her beauty. Inspired and more poetic duet scenes are extraordinarily expressive. But the Poet loses the battle for Isadora: "... There is no one with me ... I am alone ...", “ the author of the idea of ​​​​the production and consultant, musicologist Lyudmila Gavrilova spoke about the stage embodiment of the Yesenin's poem.

Let us add that the programme of the night also includes the one-act ballet Nijinsky to the music by Sergei Rachmaninov. The Krasnoyarsk audience first got acquainted with this performance on November 17, 2021, at a concert dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the legendary dancer and choreographer, People's Artist of the USSR Mikhail Lavrovsky.