Aram Khachaturian - Jiří Bubeníček SPARTACUS 140 min

Aram Khachaturian - Jiři Bubeniček

SPARTACUS
Co-production of the CNT in Zagreb with the CNT Ivan noble Zajc Rijeka

Ballet Spartacus is one of the most outstanding works of Aram Khachaturian, the famous composer of the first half of the 20th century, who often, in his works, evoked Armenian folk music. The work follows the endeavours of Spartacus, the leader of the slave revolt against Rome also known as the Third Servile War or the Gladiator War or, after Plutarch, the Spartacus Revolt that was the last in a series of unconnected and unsuccessful slave revolts against the Roman Republic. This last revolt led by Spartacus was the only one that truly threatened the heart of the Republic, but the ballet story presents the historical records in a less literal manner. Khachaturian composed Spartacus in 1954 and was granted the Lenin award that same year. The work premiered at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad (today the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg) in 1956, in an unconventional choreography of Leonid Jakobson that overstepped all the canons of classical ballet and remained on the repertoire for many years. The work was then staged twice at the Bolshoi theatre: in 1958 in the choreography of Igor Moiseyev and in 1968 in the choreography of Yuri Grigorovich. The latter production brought the greatest fame to this ballet. Spartacus was never performed by the Zagreb Ballet in its integral form, so this choreography by Jiři Bubeniček, whose work Metropolis we still recall from 2018, will be the first integral production of this ballet title on our stage.