Premiere: 23 March 1961, Kirov Theatre of Opera and Ballet (Mariinsky)
Running time: 3 hours
The performance has two intervals
The Legend of Love was the second ballet by the young Leningrad choreographer Yuri Grigorovich staged at the Kirov – now Mariinsky – Theatre, and it was a ballet that was to change both his life and the destiny of Soviet ballet. As with The Stone Flower – his first production at the Kirov Theatre – Grigorovich created The Legend of Love together with Simon Virsaladze. The designer executed the sets in the form of an old book, the pages of which are adorned with Arabic script. The characters in The Legend as if come down to us from the pages of this book – the proud, cruel and deeply passionate Queen Mekhmeneh Bahnu, who pays the price of her own unparalleled beauty to cure her dying sister Shyrin and the artist Ferkhad, who is captivated by the young and gracious Shyrin and who spurns Mekhmeneh Bahnu’s love...
The crowd scenes of processions and dances of courtiers are mixed with a truly tender duet between Ferkhad and Shyrin which in turn resounds as a provocative contrast to the pitifully frenzied choreographic monologue of Mekhmeneh Bahnu. The scene of Mekhmeneh Bahnu’s pursuit of Ferkhad and Shyrin who have fled the palace to save their love is rhythmic and drama-filled. But the inner lives of the protagonists and the tortuous trials of the spirit that their love must endure are exposed in the trios of the entire three acts with Mekhmeneh Bahnu, Ferkhad and Shyrin: the action literally freezes and only the protagonists remain in the limelight.
The choreographic text of the ballet is based on classical productions. But the classical pas are as if seen through the prism of some oriental plot – the typical poses of the arms, the carrying dance motifs of Persian miniatures and the capricious ornamental script in the lace-like tracery of the Arabic alphabet. In 1961 this ballet restored symphonic dance to the Mariinsky Theatre, linking Grigorovich with the great master of the previous century – Marius Petipa, who created such grand dance and symphonic tableaux.
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