American Ballet Theatre Unveils a New Production of 'The Golden Cockerel'

American Ballet Theatre opened their new production of The Golden Cockerel, the opera by 19th century Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, at New York's Metropolitan Opera House on Monday. The week-long showing culminates in two performances of the work this Saturday, June 11.

The Golden Cockerel, completed by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1907 and debuted posthumously in Moscow in 1909, is based on Romantic novelist Alexander Pushkin's 1834 poem, The Fairy Tale of the Little Golden Cockerel, itself built from two chapters of Washington Irving's 1832 essay collection, Tales of the Alhambra. The opera's American premiere occurred in 1918.

The New York Times' review of the production praised the illustrative work of Russian avant-garde artist Natalia Goncharova, who originally designed the opera's sets and costumes for the 1914 London and Paris premieres of The Golden Cockerel:

"The most marvelous element of American Ballet Theater's new production of The Golden Cockerel was contributed by someone who died 54 years ago: the artist Natalia Goncharova. In a flood of blazing color, the Metropolitan Opera House stage erupts in a style at once storybook naïve and neoprimitivist-modernist. Emphatically two-dimensional with strong elements of cartoon, it says 'This is mere fantasy' at the same time as it fills your heart."

The Financial Times also spoke highly of Goncharova's designs, reimagined for the modern production by artist Richard Hudson, but the publication criticized what it felt was lacking in the storyline: 

"The ballet orchestration of the character-driven opera could not have helped. When gorgeously revealing arias (now melodies) are truncated and scattered across the ballet and infectious rhythmic passages have shrunk to make room for lulling transitions, characters inevitably flatten and the plot sputters and grows murky."

American Ballet Theatre's new version of the piece is heavily indebted to Russian choreographer and dancer Mikhail Fokine, who fashioned the movements of the ballet for the aforementioned early-20th-century Paris premiere. The current opera stars Skylar Brandt as one of four performers in the title role and Duncan Lyle as the story's ominous "Astrologer."

For more information on this week's showtimes and tickets visit www.abt.org. 

TagsAmerican Ballet Theatre, The Golden Cockerel