4 replies to this topic

[dirac]

The story varies according to production, but this is a general outline of the basics, from memory, so corrections are welcome:


The Firebird is indeed an old Russian folk tale.  Prince Ivan (is he also the tsarevich? can't recall), captures a bird with fiery red plumage during a hunt.  The Firebird talks Ivan out of putting her in a cage in the kitchen by giving Ivan a magic feather.  Later, Ivan chances upon a magical castle chock full of beautiful princesses. They tell Ivan of the wicked Kastchei in the castle who turns passing visitors into stone, for fun. Ivan, armed with his feather, confronts Kastchei. The magic feather shields him from harm, and the Firebird appears.  Kastchei and his bad guys are defeated, and the ballet ends with Ivan winning the hand of a beautiful princess.  So it's a pretty happy ending, and I think you can take your husband without fear.  I almost forgot -- the stone people are released from their spell, too.

[rg]

FIREBIRD is essentially a conflation of two russian folk tales. one as given here by dirac, of the 'firebird' who as balanchine liked to stress was more a bird of 'light' = radiant lightness, russian speakers here will know the word ZHAR, which isn't exactly translatable as 'fire' (balanchine emphasized this for one version of his staging when he had karinska make a golden costume for kyra nichols when she took on the role. the second tale interwoven here is that of kastchei the immortal, a skeletonlike figure who cannot be destroyed unless someone finds and destroys his soul, which it turns out is kept in a secret casket in the form of an egg (all of which was enacted in pantomime in fokine's version.) did PA Ballet annouce whose staging it was performing?
in any case no traditional staging i know of has an unhappy ending, most end w/ the wedding of the tsarevich and his princess, kastchei vanquished and the firebird flown.

[Tessa]

They are staging James Kudelka's version, which I think has been performed also by Houston Ballet.