Actually, Muscovites first saw the performance last year, at the very end of the previous theatre season. Then it was visited by many grandees of Muscovite producing direction world who gave the new work of a famous Frenchman their highest appreciation; and now the house is sold out again. Not only the parterre, but also the balcony of the hall, that can seat more then a thousand, were packed; and I recollected that not long ago a musical that was sung in English had no success in Moscow. Muscovites proved to be not susceptible to a foreign tongue.
This time the situation was quite an opposite one. Why?
I think the explanation can be found if we pay more attention to the specific character of the staging. The point is that the performance, called a rock opera, was staged by a director, known as not just a choreographer, but as a really great master of modern ballet.
In the very beginning of the performance I felt some perplexity, for it seemed to me rather difficult to determine the very genre of the show. At first, everything was rather usual: the singers were singing, the chorus was joining, and the dancers were dancing. However, several minutes later I suddenly felt that it was not very interesting for me to watch the singers. The dancers arrested all my attention. It was really fascinating to watch their dance. It was so unusual and expressive. It was really nice. Only now and then I would shoot a glance to the vocalists. However, it did not last long, as the singers very soon joined the dancers, as if having understood, where the focus of the audience’s attention was, and took much more immediate participation in the chorographical spectacle that was becoming more and more enchanting. A ballet, singing an opera, a definition of the genre came to me. I really never heard of anything of the kind; and only at that moment I grasped the meaning of the words, said by the director, which were set near his photo in the booklet, sold in the foyer: “I like to ‘accept challenges’ and do things I’ve never done before.”
It can be argued that dancing vocalists is more a tradition then a novelty, both in musicals and in operettas. It would be foolish to deny that, but a singer, dancing in a musical, and a singer, dancing in a ballet, are quite different things. However, it is a novelty, though the modern ballet is not totally unknown to Russians, and even to those ones, who are not ardent balletomanes. For example, we remember fairly well tours of Maurice Bejart Company in our country and, particularly, a broadcasting from St Petersburg, when we saw a really impressing modern dance on the scene, specially erected on the bank of magnificent Neva-River; we saw also a video clip of Victoria Backham, which was, actually, an item of some perfect modern dance (it would be broadcasted every fifteen minutes), and serials, both French and Spanish ones, based on life of students of modern dance schools. All these inevitably had to prepare Russian audience well to accept the production by Regis Obadia. It goes without saying that such a staging can be called a pioneer of modern dance. It seems the ballet dancer could understand pretty well that vocalists, taking part in such a production, should devote a lot of their time to choreographic training…
After the show I try to overhear what other spectators say.
“I think”, says someone, “they should’ve invited a producer with more substantial dramatic background, for the plotline was not quite intelligible sometimes.”
Maybe they should, thought I to myself, as if arguing the point, but then it would be quite a different performance, and definitely a less-ballet-like one. I thought also, that a point of view may be crucial: if a spectator expects to see a ballet, then he/she sees a ballet, but if a spectator expects to see anything else, then he/she inevitably sees anything else. As for me, I saw a remarkable piece of modern choreography, a perfect ballet, staged to a wonderful piece of music, a stainless work of art, and an inseparable unity of music, singing and dance. I guess, the above-said grandees thought the same. Why, a ballet-master staged an opera as a ballet, so it was quite predictable!
Anyhow, to tell the truth, I think the company has not understood themselves fairly well what genre the thing Obadia staged belongs to. An illustration of that I saw at the end of the show when a magnificent bouquet, definitely intended for the main star of the show, was produced from the audience. The dancer, performing the main choreographic part of the Extraterrestrial, and Lisa Monde, who sang the main vocal part, could not understand for some time to which of them the bouquet was intended. “It is for you, exactly!” a rapturous spectatress shouted to the shy hero, who finally took it, rather reluctantly, and after a moment of hesitation passed to the abashed heroine. Lisa took it and curtseyed.
I think, the spectatress was sure that the show belongs to the genre of ballet, not opera, and if so, then the main bouquet should be given to the dancer, acting the main part. She just could not fully digest the fact that a vocalist can dance a ballet part together with other ballet dancers as their equal. In traditional ballet performances everything is much simpler: the main bouquet is to be given to the main dancer, and the first violin will get her flowers some other time, when she plays a concerto for a violin and an orchestra. But there… just try to imagine a first fiddle, dancing pas de deux and still continuing to play her instrument… Well, have you really managed to do that? Here you are! Some spectators even doubted that singers might sing ‘alive’. They just could not imagine that it was possible to dance and sing such difficult chorographical and vocal parts simultaneously.
As for the plotline... Take, for example Don Quixote, a famous ballet by Marius Petipa and Ludwig Minkus. I think, there is no plotline at all, but this masterpiece will live for ever for its miraculous dances and music. Of course, it does not reflect fully the plot of the great novel, written by Cervantes. However, it is not bad for the ballet.
I think people in Russia are getting more and more interested in modern ballet dancing. That is why they wish so much to see this one. They are also attracted by singing and rock music. It is also important that this ballet is a Russian one, for it is written by a Russian composer and librettist, preformed by Russian company and mainly for Russian audience. As for the fact that it was staged by a Frenchman, I can say that a French ballet-master is really a Russian tradition of old standing. Here it goes without saying that Russian ballets should be staged by the French, for who but a Frenchman was great Petipa, a father of Russian ballet? It was he who in the 19th century started a Great Balley Revolution that changed the genre and made the ballet dramatic, multidimensional, symphonic and full of deep emotions.
I think, anyhow, that Russian theatre-goes of the 19th century were attracted to ballet performances mostly by the very name of Petipa, all the same when music was written by P. Tchaikovsky himself, for even this great composer had failures sometimes, while the name of Petipa guaranteed a success.
Now these two great names are closely connected together, and no one remembers any more that the composer was 22 years younger than the choreographer.
Perhaps, we have become eye-witnesses of the birth of a work that will have a long life and may become classic one day. However, I think Regis Obadia even now can be called Marius Petipa of the 21th century, while Lisa Monde still has a chance to become Tchaikovsky of our time.

М. Pustohaylov