7 replies to this topic

[rg]

these scans show a little (2 by 3 inch) fold-out folio of photos of Vakhtang Chabukiani from 1940.
in order the scans show, left to right: the cover; Kerim? in PARTISAN DAYS? & the Slave in LE CORSAIRE; Vatslav in THE FOUNTAIN OF BAKHCHISARAI & the Djardji? in HEART OF THE HILLS; Koloman in RAYMONDA & Frondoso in LAURENCIA; portrait as Honored Artist of the USSR & Vladimir in KATERINA

Attached Files

•  VMCcovrWM.jpg   50.75K   45 downloads
•  VMC1wm.jpg   44.57K   67 downloads
•  VMC2wm.jpg   43.54K   75 downloads
•  VMC3wm.jpg   46.16K   73 downloads
•  VMC4wm.jpg   51.51K   53 downloads

[Mel Johnson]

rg, on 05 October 2010 - 10:25 AM, said:

...Koloman in RAYMONDA...

Waitaminnit!  Who?  He looks like Jean de Brienne.

[rg]

a revised staging of RAIMONDA with a reworked libretto by Y. I. Slonimsky and V. I. Vainonen and choreography by Vainonen "after Petipa" hit the boards in March 22, 1938 w/ G. S. Ulanova as Raimonda, (later by Dudninskaya) K. M. Sergeyev (later Chabukiani) a Koloman and M. A. Dudko (later Shavrov) as  Abderakhamn. (Why only Jean's name was changed I cannot say.) I believe I posted a portrait card of Ulanova with braids as this Raimonda a while back, I'm not, however, sure I could find it now.

[Mel Johnson]

Must be politics of some sort, although I can't imagine why an Irish peripatetic saint who was murdered (not even martyred, really, he was killed by robbers when they found that he had no money and didn't speak the local language) in Austria in the early 11th century was a better name than a Crusader King of Jerusalem.

[bart]

Coloman (Koloman) was a King of Hungary and a rough contemporary of Jean de Brienne.  

The shift in the story from Western Europe to Eastern Europe may have had political significance in the late 30s.

[Mel Johnson]

Must be pretty rough as contemporaries go.  Andrew II was the Hungarian king who went to the Crusades, and it actually was GOOD for him.  His nobles encouraged him to go, expecting that he would be taken out by either sickness or battle, and the old boy returned healthier than ever, to make their lives miserable for years!

[leonid]

bart, on 06 October 2010 - 11:54 AM, said:

Coloman (Koloman) was a King of Hungary and a rough contemporary of Jean de Brienne.  

The shift in the story from Western Europe to Eastern Europe may have had political significance in the late 30s.

I am sure you are correct regarding the politics and there is an overtone of Soviet Russian racial delineation at work.

How odd of the authorities to change the name of Jean de Brienne to that of Koloman?

It would make more sense that the King of Hungary’s name was changed from Petipa’s King Andrew thus losing the obvious saints name in a Russia with a policy of state atheism without stating to the oblivious public that Koloman the First as a Christian king supported the First Crusade against the Saracens, which is the national/racial designation of Abderachman in Petipa’s ballet.

I have seen several sources Russian and otherwise, that say that Sergeyev and Chabukiani performed the role of Koloman in Raymonda.

[Mel Johnson]

Right, Kalman Thurocy (to give him his Magyar name) was even a bishop!  He was a real bookworm, and his only contact with Crusaders was to chase them out of his country before they ate the Hungarians out of houses and homes.

That First Crusade was rougher on the Christians than on the Saracens!