Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet from the Rule of the Tsars to Today
Written by Simon Morrison
Narrated by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart
3/5
()
Unavailable in your country
Unavailable in your country
About this audiobook
On a freezing night in January 2013, an assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Sergei Filin. The crime, organized by a lead soloist, dragged one of Russia’s most illustrious institutions into scandal.
Under Vladimir Putin, the Bolshoi Theatre has been called on to preserve Russia’s lengthy artistic legacy and to mirror its neo-imperial ambitions. As renowned musicologist Simon Morrison shows in his tour-de-force account, the attack, and its torrid aftermath, underscored the importance of the Bolshoi to the art of ballet, to Russia, and to the world.
With exclusive access to state archives and private sources, Morrison sweeps us through the history of the ballet, tracing the political ties that bind the institution to the varying Russian regimes, and detailing the birth of some of the best-loved ballets in the repertoire. From its disreputable beginnings in 1776, the Bolshoi became a point of pride for the tsarist empire after the defeat of Napoleon in 1812.
After the revolution, Moscow was transformed into a global capital; meetings of the Communist Party were hosted at the Bolshoi, and the Soviet Union was signed into existence on its stage. Recently, a £450 million restoration has returned the Bolshoi to its former glory, even as prized talent has departed.
The Theatre has been bombed, rigged with explosives and reinforced with cement. Its dancers have suffered unimaginable physical torment to climb the ranks. But, as Morrison reveals, the Bolshoi has transcended its own fraught history, surviving 250 years of artistic and political upheaval to define not only Russian culture but also ballet itself.
Simon Morrison
Simon Morrison is a professor of music at Princeton University, a contributor to the New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and the author of, most recently, The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
More audiobooks from Simon Morrison
Mirror in the Sky: The Life and Music of Stevie Nicks Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet--From the Rule of the Tsars to Today Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Bolshoi Confidential
Related audiobooks
Wuthering Heights (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCamille: The Lady of the Camellias Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Renaissance – In a Nutshell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Florence: The Fascinating History of Tuscany’s Greatest City Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Life with Picasso Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of Western Art Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fall of the House of Borgia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaphael, Painter in Rome: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saint-Germain-des-Pres: Paris's Rebel Quarter Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tess of the d'Urbervilles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lives of the Artists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sargent's Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being a Ballerina: The Power and Perfection of a Dancing Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApollo's Angels: A History of Ballet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Story of the Musee du Louvre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unfinished Palazzo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Griselda Pollock's "Vision and Difference": A Macat Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making Oscar Wilde Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Michelangelo, God's Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Londoners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Balanchine Variations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWagner: The Ring of the Nibelung Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Performing Arts For You
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swingtime for Hitler: Goebbels’s Jazzmen, Tokyo Rose, and Propaganda That Carries a Tune Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Grapes of Wrath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is this Anything? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Birth of The Endless Summer: A Surf Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Here We Go Again: My Life In Television Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet: Fully Dramatized Audio Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Midsummer Night's Dream: Fully Dramatized Audio Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Racing in the Rain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth: Fully Dramatized Audio Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Save the Cat! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Julius Caesar: A Fully-Dramatized Audio Production From Folger Theatre Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Science of Storytelling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way I Heard It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Othello: Fully Dramatized Audio Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death of a Salesman Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dracula (dramatic reading) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet: The Fully Dramatized Audio Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jim Gaffigan: Quality Time Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice From a Professional Clown Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein (dramatic reading) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Bolshoi Confidential
12 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bit too long and hard work keeping track of all those names - like a Russian novel! But a fair amount of well-researched stories that takes it above the gossip level. What remains? The story of Plisetskaya's elbowing her way to the top, playing the Soviet system note-perfect. And why the modernising, worker-orientated Communists kept those aristo-bourgeois shows in the repertoire but made so few about tractors and Stakhanovites. Seems they could never agree on the correct marxist message: new ideas died in the committee rooms. And of course there was hard currency potential in Swan Lake and the like. Nonetheless the ballet discipline remains, and the vicious competition behind the scenes.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was one of those books that was so nearly very good, but somehow the author just kept missing open goals, snatching a work of mediocrity from the cusp of success. The basic premise was certainly enticing. In January 2013, Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet was attacked in a Moscow street. This prompted considerable interest throughout Russia, dominating the press for several weeks, before it emerged that the attack had been organised by a former dancer in the Bolshoi, driven by years of resentment and jealousies seething within the company.Simon Morrison uses this incident as the launching point for a history of the Bolshoi Ballet since its foundation in 1776, as if to demonstrate that this was merely the latest in a long series of such scandals. I found this rather contrived, however, and felt that he was struggling to spin a story out of rather weak material. A simple history of the ballet company without the search for recurrent scandal would have been far more interesting.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mostly about how the politics of Russian interfered with the art.