3.5. Find and read out the paragraph that gives the answer to the question: What kind of dance company did M. Petipa find in Russia in 1847?

When he arrived in St. Petersburg, Petipa found a well-trained and eager company. The dancers were actually employees of the Imperial household, just as were the footmen and other servants. Many had been selected from families of serfs. Some were still serfs. But most had learnt ballet techniques from early childhood. They had the talent and training of some of the best Western European dancers without their difficult temperaments. Since they were regarded as servants of the Tzar, they were not spoilt by the attention and glamour. They worked hard, did what they were told and were able to accomplish technical feats that had rarely been seen on the stages of Paris, London or Vienna. What’s more, Petipa found that the male dancer had an important role in the Russian company.

a well-trained and eager company	a footman	glamour
the Imperial household	a serf	to accomplish, to perform
ballet techniques	a servant	technical feats
difficult temperaments	attention	stage
the talent	the male dancer	an important role

3.6. A considerable part of the text is justly devoted to the great choreographer M. Petipa. Read this part again and copy out the verbal-noun phrases which will enable you to tell the group about his creative activities in Russia:

The position of principal dancer; a chief choreographer; to create ballets; to arrange dances; to recast ballet productions; to teach dozens of young men and women; to perform choreographies; incredible complexity and difficulty; to bring along a promising dancer; to refine and formulate the steps/turns/movements/jumps; to came to the realization; to persuade smb. to do something; to insist on keeping control; to give very strict instructions; to manage to collaborate.

3.13. Substitute the underlined words in the following phrases with their synonyms from the text:

A lot of money	A great deal of money	A dance group	A dance company
An eager and generous patron	An enthusiastic and generous patron	The chief performer	The principal (male) performer
A great festival	A gigantic festival	Costly costumes	Luxurious costumes
Complicated scenery	Elaborate scenery	Unbelievable complexity	Incredible complexity
Gifted dancers	Talented dancers	To dance solos	To perform solos
Duets or in groups of three or four	To perform solos, duets or dance in groups of three or four – this phrase has no real synonyms in the text. It can be only Parts of divertissements	Had been chosen from families of serfs	Had been selected from families of serfs
To be proper for the ballet story	To fit the ballet’s story	Usually members of the troupes	Usually members of the corps
Under his guidance	Under his leadership	One of the best performers	One of the greatest performers (composers)
To come to St. Petersburg	To arrive in St. Petersburg

A greedy	Generous	A lack of money	A great deal of money
A secondary performer	A principal performer	Poverty and misery	Luxury and pomp
An under-rehearsed company	A well-trained company	Fancy	Pale
Overblown sets	Elaborate scenery	Shabby costumes	Luxurious costumes
A short ballet	A full-length ballet	In minor roles	In starring roles
Refined material	Raw material	To lessen the effect	To intensify the effect
Indifferent	Eager

Балетная труппа	A dance company	На сцене	On the stage
Невообразимая сложность	Incredible complexity	Сюжет балета	The ballet’s story
Один из ведущих исполнителей	One of the top performers	Многообещающий исполнитель	A promising performer (dancer)
В заглавной роли	In a starring role	Партитура	Score
Понять, что	To come to the realization that …	Танцевать под музыку	To dance to music
Сотрудничать	To collaborate (with)	Воссоздавать балет	To recreate the ballet
Возобновить балетную постановку	To revive ballet productions	Щедрый покровитель	A generous patron
Совершить подвиг	To accomplish a feat	Исполнить соло	To perform a solo
Неразрывное целое	An integrated whole	Жалкое подобие	A pale imitation
Усилить эффект	To intensify the effect	Получить предложение	To receive an offer
Относительно поздно	Relatively late	Сквозь временные барьеры	Through the barriers of time
При дворе Екатерины II	At the court of Catherine the Great	Изысканные декорации	Refined, exquisite scenery

The assets

The flaws

1. An interesting idea

2. Evelyne Desutter (as Odette) has an attractive presence and a beautiful flowing line

3. The costumes are very beautiful

1. Such lack of production sense is surprising

2. There is merely a string of dances, no clear reason for anything happening

3. The company looked under-rehearsed

4. The dancing wasn’t inspired

5. Evelyne Desutter’s technique was unsure, nor she always appeared to be hearing the music

6. There was a lack of emotional accord between Evelyne Desutter and Jay Jolley’s Prince

7. All the character dances lack any sense and style

8. The scenery is too lavish.

9. The dancing space is limited

10. There is no romantic atmosphere at all

The flaws are more numerous; this fact testifies to the failure of the ballet. From the author’s point of view there is a great deal of rethinking about style and form.

Part 6

6.1. After you have read the text through answer the questions that follow:

Craig found himself in Boston under unfriendly circumstances. The show left much to be desired.

That night there was Jack Lawton’s show on in Boston. But the show went badly and Craig had to meet his friend and a director of this show Jack Lawton and express his opinion of the play.

After the show, Craig met the producer of the show, the author, the composer, the scene designer and his friend Jack Lawton in the hotel suite. Lawton had asked Craig to come and tell them what he really thought about the show.

Lawton refused to close the show and Craig left Jack in the hotel suite to work on the script for the purpose of reforming everything in the show for the better

To dread	Dreaded – dreaded – dreading	To cost	Cost – cost – costing
To light	Lit – lit – lighting ( & lighted – lighted)	To fly	Flew – flown – flying
To lose	Lost – lost – losing	To leave	Left – left – leaving
To let	Let – let – letting	To bring	Brought – brought – bringing
To equip	Equipped – equipped – equipping	To bend	Bent – bent – bending
To avoid	Avoided – avoided – avoiding	To quit	Quit – quit – quitting (& quitted – quitted)

Success	Failure	The play failed	The play went well
Poor	Wealthy	Thunderous applause	Desultory applause
Polite	Rude	With joy	With pity
In a clear voice	In a hoarse voice	To walk out of the wings	To go backstage
As the curtain rose	As the curtain came down

6.12. Choose a word or a phrase from the text which means roughly the same as:

The leading actor	The star	To get	To receive
Minor actor	In this text it may be “dancer”, but I’m not sure Small parts	To stage a show	To stage a play (To bring it on the stage)
Public	Audience	To be afraid of	To dread
Gifted	Talented	To let smb down	To drive to despair; to betray
Scenery	Sets	To go behind the curtain	To go backstage
Rich	Wealthy	To be a success	To go well

Музыкальная комедия	A musical comedy	Редкие аплодисменты	Desultory applause
Ставить пьесу	To stage a play; to put on a play	Кланяться публике	To bow (to the audience)
Взаимные обвинения	Recriminations	Бурно приветствовать	To acclaim
Застывшие улыбки	Fixed smiles	Совершать чудеса	To perform (to work) a miracle
Художник-оформитель	Graphic (or scene, if we speak about the theatre) designer	Искусно выполненные декорации	Elaborate scenery Elaborate - уст. искусно сделанный; тонкой работы *Ingenious sets*
Музыкант	Musician	Хвалить пьесу	To praise a play

2) Yesterday the amateur troupe staged a play (put on a play) on the stage of this theatre.

3) The conversation started out as a calm discussion and ended in tears and recriminations.

7) The singer was in bad voice that night and was conferred only the desultory applause.

10) The talented dancers performed miracles of agility especially in the last part of the ballet.

8.11. Write out the favourable and critical commentaries Jimmie passed on Julia as an actress. Arrange them in these two columns:

What makings of an actress Julia had

What she lacked and needed to perfect

The right height

A good figure

An india-rubber beautiful face

Her timing is almost perfect

Her gestures are commonplace

She doesn’t know how to get an audience to look at her before she speaks

She makes-up too much (her sense of proportion leaves much to be desired)

She needs experience

2) He interferes in everything as if he had been living (had lived) here all his life.

5) I felt as if I hadn’t been sleeping for centuries. (I felt as if I hadn’t slept for centuries.)

9) He spoke about the places of interest in London so vividly as if he had been living there at least a year.

Write about the most memorable performance in your life commenting on the staging, acting, scenery, and costumes. Use the topical vocabulary from parts 3, 4, 6, 8.

I’m not an eager theatre-goer, but sometimes I go to the theatre to see most interesting performances and shows. I have seen many interesting productions with many talented actors. But I can say the Mariinsky Opera House’s staging of Sergey Prokofiev’s “War and Peace” is the most memorable performance in my life. I saw the opera in May 2000, when it opened the eighth “Stars of White Nights” festival. The production had had such a great billing before that it wouldn’t do to miss it.

It was the great project realized brilliantly by the director A. Konchalovsky and the Mariinsky Opera House’s celebrated company. Mariinsky Opera House ran up an expense on new elaborate scenery and costumes. For the first time in its 140-year history, the Mariinsky Opera House was equipped with a revolving stage. Up to then, everyone had always moved in straight lines of the stage: from the wings on the left to those on the right, from the backdrop to the footlights and, if necessary, from the stage-floor to the flies. And this world of straight lines was replaced by another world… a ring, which Konchalovsky, after honing in the cinema for many years, made superb use of – in the opera, time ran and flowed on, never stopping for a moment. The opera house turned to “War and Peace”.

The obvious success of the production was the role of Natasha Rostova. Anna Netrebko conveyed a complex image, but it was undoubtedly fetching. Anna Netrebko – lively, pretty, fragile and excitable, whose vocal abilities do not cease to amaze music-lovers, was the real star or the “Peace” section, which in this production (and, indeed, in the opera itself) occupied the whole of the first act.

When you see Konchalovsky’s production, this seems paradoxical: the first part – “Peace” – is complete and self-sufficient. We learn about it through the story of Natasha Rostova. It is a lyrical work having little in common with the epic of 1812, which unfolds on the following “pages”. Natasha appears only once on “War” – at Andrey’s deathbed. The intimacy of this scene is only reminder of the first act. The whole “War” section is treated extremely impersonally by the composer; its real hero is the choir. Indeed, to be perfectly honest, it is the orchestra. The composer loves Prokofiev’s music and has a wonderful feeling for it. And, judging by the opera, “War” is closer to the maestro’s sensibilities.

The project is ingenious. I was amazed how the stage manager could squeeze Tolstoy into one evening and abridge Prokofiev without any lost of a grand scale of the opera: it was a genuine epic, whose list of soloists didn’t fit on one page of the programme. There were masses of extras, choirs, cadets, scenery which took three days to dismantle, and more than a thousand costumes.

I think that it is possible to say with certainty that “War and Peace” was the great production of the Mariinsky Opera House for the last years and it was the highlight of the season of 2000.