DVD: Medea / Georgiy Aleksidze, Marina Goderdzishvili | Marina Goderdzishvili, Vladimir Julukhadze ...

DVD: Medea / Georgiy Aleksidze, Marina Goderdzishvili | Marina Goderdzishvili, Vladimir Julukhadze ...

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	• Medea / Georgiy Aleksidze, Marina Goderdzishvili Marina Goderdzishvili, Vladimir Julukhadze KULTUR VIDEO, 2008 average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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Competent, but rather irrelevant

This is a typical product of Soviet ballet films of the late 60'd and early 70's. The language is wholly conservative, no modern tricks or twists here. What bothers me is that the dramaturgy - the way the story is told - is very conventional. Steps and movements are what we would expect from any traditionally-minded choreographer. Don't take me wrong. I'm not implying that this ballet is junk. It simply isn't a very original piece. But it's quite interesting. Cast and producers are not Russians, but Georgians. The music is commonplace. Sets and costumes are... well, adequate. And the main dancers perform with restrained brio. The ballerina doing Medea seemed rather cold. Stone-faced Jason was not much better. They both lacked deep, convulsive emotions. After all this lady (Medea) kills her two infant children! One just has to compare her "Dance of Vengeance" - during which she plans the double murders - to a similar passage in Martha Graham's "Cave of the Heart" to see the immense gulf that separates Martha's exasperated choreography from the Apollonian aloofness of her Soviet counterpart. Still, it's an interesting piece, if you want to have a balletic version of the drama.

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Filmed in the Soviet Union and never seen before by western audiences, this extraordinary one-act ballet, Medea, freely interprets the classic drama of Euripides. Through music and dance it reveals the ancient story of a powerful woman s revenge upon her faithless husband and the younger rival who has stolen him away from her.

The sorceress Medea (M. Goderdzishivili) has learned that her husband Jason (V. Julukhadze) no longer loves her, and wishes to marry Creusa (V. Laperashvili), the beautiful daughter of the king of Corinth. In a series of dance tableaux Jason enjoys his new-found love and violently spurns his wife. Mid-way in the ballet, Medea recalls her first meeting with Jason, their idyllic love affair, and the way she helped Jason capture the fabled Golden Fleece. There follows an extended pas de deux between Jason and Medea in which she vainly pleads with him to come back to her. Just as he orders her away, he too recalls the joy of their lovemaking years before. At the betrothal celebration, Jason and Creusa dance sensually together only to be interrupted by the somber Medea clad in black. Later Medea conceives of a plan for revenge: she will make Creusa a wedding gift of a scarlet cloak dipped in poison. She asks to see her two young boys Jason s sons whom he loves beyond measure and conceives of a second, more horrible form of revenge. While Jason dances in exultation over his approaching wedding, Medea begs one final time that he return to her, but her plea is rejected even more violently than before. Their two sons arrive, offering the fatal cloak to Creusa. She puts it on and briefly dances with it only to die in agony as Medea gloats above her. When the sorceress subsequently murders her two sons, she dances one last time, torn between grief and ghastly triumph. In the final episode, the masked chorus watches as Jason beats his breast in despair tormented by visions of his murdered boys.

Medea is an important discovery that should be in every DVD dance library.

Cast:
Marina Goderdzishvili: MEDEA
Vladimir Julukhadze: JASON
Vika Laperashvili: CREUSA
N. Magalashvili: APSIRT
Music: REVAZ GABICHVADZE Camera: FELIX VYSOTSKY
Written and Directed by GEORGIY ALEKSIDZE and ELGUJA JGENTI
Choreographed by GEORGIY ALEKSIDZE

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