The Legend of Love

Performers

Conductor:

Mekhmeneh Bahnu: Maria Iliushkina
Ferkhad: Nikita Korneyev
Shyrin: Maria Shirinkina
Vizier: Roman Belyakov
Ferkhad’s friends: Yaroslav Pushkov, Kian Mangis, Rufat Mamedov, Yevgeny Konovalov
Gold: Shamala Guseinova
Jester: Vladislav Shumakov

Premiere: 23 March 1961, Kirov Theatre of Opera and Ballet (Mariinsky)

Running time: 3 hours
The performance has two intervals

Age category 6+

Credits

Music by Arif Melikov
Libretto by Nazim Khikmet
Choreography by Yuri Grigorovich (1961)
Set, costume and lighting design: Simon Virsaladze
Lighting Adaptation for the Mariinsky II: Anton Nikolaev & Yegor Kartashov

SYNOPSIS

Act I
Scene 1
A chamber in the palace of Queen Mekhmeneh Bahnu. Her younger sister, Princess Shyrin, is suffering from a deadly illness. The Queen’s heart is heavy with grief. Her attendants and the Vizier are in despair.
Warriors usher in a stranger, who claims he can cure the Princess. Mekhmeneh Bahnu throws gold at his feet, but the stranger refuses to accept it. The Queen offers her crown as a reward if he cures Shyrin. The stranger rejects this too. He demands that Mekhmeneh sacrifice her beauty to save her sister’s life. The Queen consents.
The stranger restores Shyrin to health. She rises from her death-bed; Mekhmeneh’s face, however, is so disfigured and ugly that Shyrin merely stares at her sister without recognising her.

Scene 2
The garden near Princess Shyrin’s palace. Some artists, including the young Ferkhad, are decorating an arch.
Mekhmeneh Bahnu and Shyrin enter the garden, accompanied by their attendants. They have come to see the new palace. The sisters are struck by Ferkhad’s handsome features and are unable to take their eyes off him.
The procession moves on. Ferkhad remains alone, engrossed in his work. Suddenly, Shyrin calls to him. The young people are irresistibly drawn to each other. Ferkhad, however, learns that the maiden to whom he has given his heart is Princess Shyrin. It is therefore hopeless for him, a humble painter, to dream of ever winning her.

Act II
Scene 1
The people are standing around a spring which has run dry. They will have to cut through a high mountain in order to open up a channel for the stream of water – a task way beyond any human effort. Water is brought from afar, but only for the inhabitants of the palace.

Scene 2
The Queen is tormented by her passion for Ferkhad. The jesters fail to divert her. She realises what a huge sacrifice she has made for the sake of her sister. Mekhmeneh Bahnu is young, she longs for passion, but now she is ugly and Ferkhad will not love her.

Scene 3
Ferkhad’s devotion has made Princess Shyrin supremely happy. The young man makes his way into her chamber. Their love culminates in a perfect union of their two fervent hearts. Shyrin cannot bear the thought of leaving Ferkhad. The Princess resolves to leave the palace and without hesitation follows her beloved.
The Vizier learns of Shyrin’s flight, and brings the unwelcome tidings to the Queen. In a fit of rage, Mekhmeneh gives an order that her ungrateful sister should be seized and brought back. Warriors overtake Ferkhad and Shyrin.
The Princess entreats her sister not to separate her from Ferkhad.
The Queen is beside herself with anger and mortified pride.
She challenges Ferkhad to complete an impossible task – he must cut a channel through the mountain to let the waters of the upland streams flow down into the valley. Only then may Shyrin be his wife.

Act III
Scene 1
It is night. Ferkhad is in the mountains, alone. He fancies that he has already cut through the rock and that a little stream of water is running slowly out of the opening. He imagines he sees his beloved in the flowing water.

Scene 2
Mekhmeneh Bahnu has lost her peace of mind. She loves Ferkhad to distraction. She thinks of him day and night. In her imagination, she has regained her beauty; Ferkhad loves her and she is happy at last! Shyrin runs into the chamber, shattering her dreams. The Princess cannot live without her beloved; she implores the Queen to go with her into the mountains to find Ferkhad.

Scene 3
Hope has brought the people to the mountains. If Ferkhad accomplishes his task, their suffering will end. Every blow of Ferkhad’s pickaxe resounds in the people’s hearts. Mekhmeneh Bahnu and Shyrin arrive. Ferkhad is overjoyed – Shyrin has come and will remain with him. Mekhmeneh, however, is cunning; she promises not to part the lovers only on the condition that Ferkhad gives up his work, throws down his pickaxe and leaves with Shyrin. Ferkhad knows that this is impossible, as he cannot betray the hopes of the people. Shyrin understands this too. They bid each other farewell, to part forever. Ferkhad stays with the thankful people whose happiness is dearer to him than Love itself.

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.