“Roxane” and “Cyrano De Bergerac” by Valeriy Yakovl'evich Levental'
I had stumbled upon two seminal pieces of art, that were at the fulcrum of story-telling for the Bolshoi Theatre, in Moscow. My journey started with dis-ease. It was a Sunday, a day I should be resting, taking it easy. I had made an effort to rest easy but anxiety to make space for myself in one day was taking over, and I had already had a thorough bowel disturbance, or maybe that was a sign of relief from a week of pent up issues. As I'm waiting for the bus, I'm dismayed that I get a phonecall from a work colleague. It cannot be good to do business before the week's start. The phonecall is abruptly cut-off because of the noisy bus journey. I'm immediately drowned in my phone again checking in on an auction, which failed to sell one of my own designs. As I arrived to view a private collection, a Russian Santa Claus came out to greet me, and all my frustrations were forgotten. As I stooped into his dark and crazy submarine of a lockup, I saw old photographs of famous ballerinas pinned to spaces here and there. He was not stopping, he squeezed me between these great high battened stacks, and here and there would draw my attention to a serigraph in a workstation, paintings set on easels in a corner, framed within frames. Frames hanging empty, paintings cached in cardboard, paintings on solid wood hung infront of more cached boxes of paintings. I was in the artist’s collection and personal horde of art. The music was playing a Chinese opera in the background. Oh my God! How was this even possible? Down on the floor outside of one corner of light, there were leaning two huge paintings. He casually drew them upright for me, they were cached in cardboard and thick laminate folders. I became sucked into them, he offered me to handle them which I did, and started telling me about them. But I did not know the names he spoke of. I couldn't see the whole painting unless I stepped back a few feet. I struggled to draw the paintings into a pool of light to compare them. Huge, they couldn't even stand upright on their own weight in the cardboard. My wingspan to hold the paintings delicately forced me to only see parts of the paintings at a time, nose-distance. After toiling them onto their sides into the light, I respectfully stepped back to gaze at them. I had totally forgotten my ills of the day, and then when Leo, the Russian Santa Claus said to me, those paintings I handled were worth the order of six figures each, it nearly brought my bowel attack back.
The first painting, was a regal woman, a huge frock of finery that dominates symmetrically the width of the portrait. This was what I spied in the dim light, the huge costume, for I have built many costumes for performers, and structures of seventeenth century I cannot fail to notice. Leg-of-ham sleeves dominate her tiny waist. The French dress panniered out from under her tight bodice like an incompressible pillow upon which her frame is pinned on-top. Her hair pushes out in thick swirls like batting that was untamed when her garment was upholstered on. Underneath, she is a doll, of pale porcelain skin, her costume nailed to her like the cushion of a violin backed maple chair, upon which her gently clasped porcelain hands are resting. Hundreds of thousands of brush points like pin headed gems pointillate her garment, giving me an impression of some finely embellished fabric, heavy and woven from Italy. There also sit two fine peacock birds on her dress. Symbolic, as though every regal bird is attracted to her beauty and wishes to sit upon her throne. Indeed, this was her role and perspective in the story of the play to which she belonged.
The lady is like a bust form upon which all regalia is imposed to record her character. Looking closer at her skin, I see the artist's pencil lines as he swooped blindly chasing her beauty from his mind. The texture is gesso'd like plaster, upon which it has sucked a veil of watercolor in translucent layers. The broad watery brush strokes fights with the texture resulting in a ghostly soft out-of-focus porcelain skin despite her stoney texture. Some of the water appears to escape the fighting brush and cries down her face. She has the serene look of a raphaelite beauty, disguising something else within. Her eyes are the only clear windows, picked out with ink and flecked with titanium white, her eyes are perfectly in focus, and knowing. There is something in the knowing eyes that gives this impression of sadness, invisibly crying down her face, from her story of tragedy where she is now frozen in time.
I was told it was an esteemed friend of Leo’s, an individual of the Russian Theatre Arts called Valeriy Leventhal that lovingly produced this painting in 1982. At the time of painting this impression of her, he was the chief artist at the Bolshoi Theatre. The lady in the portrait is the character Roxane from the Bolshoi theatre's play of Cyrano de Bergerac, and she was played by a famous and loved ballerina Lyudmila Semenyaka. As the stage play goes, every man wants Roxane, but she holds herself with high dignity of virtue, and will not easily be wooed. She waits for proof of love to comes to her as a series of poetic letters before she will let believe that her heart’s desire is reciprocated with true love. Roxane is actually quite shallow to become infatuated with a young man, then wait for him to prove his love. Finally the story ends sadly when she realizes too late who really wrote the love letters. Modern day reinterpretations have been done of her story, with the ending changed to a happy one, and there is a striking similarity of appearance with the cast roles from the movie “Roxanne” (1988), where Daryl Hannah plays the role in an eerily similar form of appearance, those thick swirls of hair, and long doll-like face. It is only the costume that is not carried over into the modern film, which looks like a blueprint for any costume maker to follow. It’s structural quality, has to be engineered with basket weaving to produce that panniered silhouette. The impressionistic style of the painting gives abstract qualities that a costume designer will strive to achieve in real life, without over-prescribing their creativity for them. The depth of emotion in this painting allows the concerto of artists building her role, from the choreography, to the actors, and the setting, to portray a unified approach to her character, creating the lady Roxane as a somewhat deceived bird in a gilded cage.
The second painting seems at first quite the opposite of the former regal beauty I was looking at, except they share mystery in equal measure. I was bemused at a fellow with an audacious nose and pompous outfit. His gesture spreads across the scene in akimbo overshadowing someone behind, deep in the shadows. His outfit is quite eclectic and ridiculous, with rich motifs as though he were the joker from a pack of playing cards. His hat waves with gaiety of peacock feathers that remind me of a jester's foule-bordeau. His bold character seems in contrast to the subtle elegance of the first painting. His stance stem from the flourish of his ruffs, cuffs and bloomers, the extremity of his poise tightly masked with gloves and fitted boots. Not one part of his body exposed save for the head, set upon an executioner's starched platter. It is a first indication of the tragedy that awaits Roxane. Even though the man looks at us, his face averts to a profile which can’t help but exaggerate his Pinnochio nose. This man could be a story teller, and upon his clothes we feed ourselves with the feast of imagination. But there is the sad shadow in the distance underneath. What is this character hiding and masking? The great symbolism everywhere points to a meaningful subcontext of the story awaiting to be told.
Underneath this male character, and by no mistake of intention, there appears to be a mournful man in deep in the background. A sadness reminiscent in the first painting. His lowered face and drawn sigh are highlighted in a color-less pale light like the passing moon. He appears shrouded with a cape, and a musketeer's floppy hat without the regalia of the person dominating the frame. He appears ghostly, indeed the gesso work and dry texture give a softness like he is an apparition. He could be like the invisible voice that sits on one's shoulders and whispers a line of conscience or devil play. This man however, looks sad, or in pain. He is the soul in the background of the prancing exaggeration before us. It is the underlying sadness in both of these paintings that draws me to the core of an important story-telling arc of this theatre play.
The painting is a large backdrop piece from a recognized play, that was coveted by the Bolshoi Theatre. This painting is also acrylic on gessoed paper, of similar size 45” x 31” often considered lesser value than paint on canvas, but this specific choice has given a distinct and unique quality to the paintings that raise clarity to it's original purpose and intention. Leventhal was a well written about honored artist, graduating from the school of cinematography as a designer of film, he went on to spend 20 years working at the world famous Bolshoi in Moscow. It is in one Russian hardbound coffee table book, “ВАЛЕРИЙ ЛЕВЕНТАЛь” ( Е. Луцкая 1989) in which I discovered reference and images of the same painting. The book describes Leventhal’s paintings in the chronological order of his seminal career as the People’s Artist of the USSR. The book archive places the Cyrano de Bergerac of some level of great significance to his career, yet here I was breathing upon the painting. It's colors and depth are striking compared to the desaturated print of the book. And there is more, the stage play at the Bolshoi was derived from a fictional play surrounding the life of the real Cyrano de Bergerac, a real-life dramatist who suffered the untimely death from an occupational hazard of being a well-known duellist. In the stage play, Cyrano de Bergerac never overcomes his insecurities to requite with the object of his love Roxane, from the former painting. It is clear that Leventhal added much background to the painting to give the character real depth, making this impressionistic painting one of the canon in the archived book. The book is not only listing the painting, but making the play itself a noteable point of Leventhal’s career. Internationally recognized awards place Leventhal in a Canon of aspired art of Russia, it sets the bar-standard to protecting the art of stage production design, for which he has become the predicate for future contemporaries to sustain.
I first became attracted to both paintings because of the detailed yet impressionistic depictions of flamboyant costume design of the 17th Century, and their irresistible theatrical size. I had no idea at the time that my gut feeling was right on the money. When I first handled the paintings I became acutely aware at their delicate medium which made them all the more valuable, as though they were rescued, and indeed they are relics. Had they been intentionally produced on canvas, they would have been portraits. These are not portraits, these are artefacts of the Bolshoi Theatre and a channel of communication between a huge team of understudies and the art department. These are working designs, painted on backdrop paper, hand gessoed in a fervent quick slurry. This was done to stabilize huge amounts of backdrop paper for the immense task ahead. I have worked on film sets myself and can relate to the huge amount of work he had ahead of him when he chose to focus on the pivotal roles to develop the rest of the play design for the Bolshoi. I saw in these paintings the rich details that went into her costume, like a map telling someone like myself, the costume designer, how to construct her regal costume. Should other painters develop supporting roles, they would have a blueprint to follow from his meticulous detail. And for the actors, dancers and understudies, rehearsing and working under the gaze of those paintings, I could see them discuss their roles. Leventhal was pivotal and hugely collaborative with the play writer to portray these lead roles with all their insecurities. He brought these characters to life, as we all wear insecurities. We disguise insecurities with masks and behaviour, and out of this disguise comes deception and the constant battle of morality. If honesty is the cornerstone for integrity, then surely living in denial, deceiving the one you love by withholding truths is a doomed prospect. It goes against the overall philosophy of living by truth and not one I would recommend. As in doing so, lying, no matter how you disguise it, creates a very sad soul. The repercussions and rippling effects portrayed in these richly detailed and moralistic paintings are the upstanding will of the Bolshoi Plays.
