The author looks at the development of duets from the very beginning of classical ballet till the present time; without going into technical details of execution, explains an appearance of new elements in partnering, shows examples of ballet heritage by witch we can judge the level of partnering in every era; remembers extraordinary duets he saw on the stage all over the world.

The article is devoted to the features of the librettos of M. Petipa’s ballets created in the 1860s. The author analyzes the signs and gestures present in them. Signs (explanatory inscriptions, «speaking» names) appear in two librettos created by professional librettist H. V. de Saint-Georges. Gestures are more numerous. These are gestures, both physical (kneeling, hugging, pointing movements, etc.), and emotional, descriptions of the characters’ feelings (love, affection, dignity, fear, horror, arrogance, etc.). In addition, the libretto of the 1860s also contains references to dancing, not only in the form of a traditional list of dance numbers, but also in the form of a description of the character’s actions, sometimes with an emotional coloring of the dance. The librettos of ballets from the mid-19th century can create a visual impression of ballet that has disappeared from theatrical practice and, when read thoughtfully, can help to better understand it. In the final part of the article, the author concludes that the librettos of ballets from the mid-19th century are capable of creating a visual impression of ballet that has disappeared from theatrical practice and, when read thoughtfully, can help to better understand it.

The article is devoted to the history of the creation of the ballet Solveig to the music of E. Grieg, staged by L.V. Yakobson (1952) on the stage of the Leningrad Maly Opera theater (now Mikhailovsky). Using the materials of the archival fund of B.I. Zagursky (16 storage units), the main problems encountered by the choreographer and the entire production team in the process of creating the ballet Solveig were identified, and the reasons for the repeated postponement of the premiere of the performance were found.

The article analyzes the concept of liminal space, which became a distinctive feature of theatrical/choreographic performances in the second half of the 20th century. The directors, performers, and viewers enter the created threshold art space and are mentally transformed, gaining a unique artistic experience in the process of participating in the performance. Liminality is considered as a meta-concept. The article examines the ways of expressing liminality in American postmodern dance of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, or rather, in the productions of Judson Dance Theater’s and Grand Union’s members. For this purpose, the concept of liminality is interpreted, and its development in ethnographic, sociological, cultural, and art history discourse is briefly described.

The article discusses the images of Spanish dance in general and flamenco dance in particular in the theatrical performance The Three-Cornered Hat (El sombrero de tres picos, 1919) by L. Massine and Manuel de Falla, as well as The Madman (El loco, 2022) by Paco Lopez and Javier Latorre to the music of de Falla, M. Sotelo and Cañizares. At the beginning of the last century, elements of flamenco dance were added by Leonid Massine to the choreographic material of the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, responding to the request of the time, namely the interest in national traditions and orientalism, and at the beginning of the 21^st century, classical Spanish dance was introduced into the flamenco performance of the National Ballet of Spain The Madman, where entire scenes of the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat were parts of the plot.

The purpose of this article is to study the influence of character dance on flamenco and the other way round at the premiere of the ballets The Three-Cornered Hat by L.F. Massine to the music of de Falla (1919) and The Madman (2022) by Javier Latorre to the music of de Falla, M. Sotelo and Cañizares by analyzing the dance movements in both performances: the characteristic flamenco movements of the arms, legs and body, the musical material as an illustration of images and the introduction of national color into the musical performance.

L. Massine enriched the character dance of the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat with elements of flamenco dance, which made it possible to take it to a new level, allowing the authentic folklore heritage of the South of Spain to enter the theater stage and gain a foothold there. And classical Spanish dance was brought into the flamenco performance of the National Ballet of Spain The Madman, where entire scenes of the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat were part of the plot, as an appeal to the legend. The named components can be considered as parts of the whole.

The name of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova is known throughout the ballet world and even beyond. Today A.Ya. Vaganova is famous not only for her unique methods of teaching classical dance (which she herself created), but also for her alma mater — the Academy of Russian ballet. This is the leading ballet educational institution in Russia. Despite the legendary status of Vaganova’s teaching, the limited information surrounding her beginnings, is a collection of confusing and contradictory information. This article presents the circumstances and chronology of the start of her path to becoming a great teacher, established during the study of archival documents.

The article is devoted to a comparative ethical and aesthetic analysis of the art of dance and calligraphy. Considering ancient artistic practices through the prism of the phenomenon of movement, as well as the aesthetic categories of beauty and purity, their ontological and anthropological similarities were revealed. The features of internal plasticity and expressiveness were also revealed, the phenomenology of corporeality and its importance in creating a semantic image were analyzed. The prospect of research in this direction is represented by the analytics of new ethical and aesthetic categories in art criticism associated with the theory of time, in contrast to the visual picture of the world dedicated to the observed space.

The article presents the experience of personal scientific reflection on the implemented project of resuming costumes for the ballet Romeo and Juliet staged by L. Lavrovsky on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater of Russia in the 2023/24 time window. The uniqueness of this discourse makes it possible to combine methodological approaches for artistic and scientific practices. Biographical, analytical, hermeneutic, comparative descriptive, iconographic, and modeling methods were used in the course of work on the restoration of costumes. The conclusion is made about the importance and necessity of descriptive and analytical procedures based on the results of participation in art projects in order to summarize the experience and apply the findings in research, pedagogical and applied fields of activity.

The article is devoted to the comprehension of the opera The Dawns are Quiet Here dramaturgy peculiarities based on the B. Vasiliev’s novel. The analysis of Kirill Molchanov’s and Tan Jianping’s editions reveals two cardinally different approaches to the idea of the musical and stage work construction. Molchanov’s compositional strategy derives from the genesis of the opera created on the basis of film music. The work displays a steady influence of cinematic aesthetics. In this case, the dramaturgical structure is subordinated to the logic of cinematic narrative considering its montage technique and principles of plot development. Tan Jianping turns to the traditional number dramaturgy of opera, thou. Each part forms the complete artistic piece without losing the whole system completeness. The appropriateness of dramaturgical features in the Russian and Chinese composers’ creations is dictated by their creative aberrations.

The article touches upon the history of world clowning and considers various clown roles. Particular attention is given to representing the artistic image of the clown in musical art, which until now has not yet become the object of attention of Russian scholars. The image of a clown is one of the most ambiguous symbols in culture. It is symptomatic that he invariably attracts representatives of different types of art (painting, literature, theater, cinema, pop). The study of the representation of the artistic image of a clown in the works of domestic composers seems to be an interesting analytical task, especially since this problem has not yet entered the orbit of scientific attention of specialists. The study is based on an integrated approach, including historical, descriptive, typological-system methods. When considering musical works, elements of the methodology of musicological analysis were also involved. This circumstance determines the relevance and scientific novelty of the proposed work. The authors have formed a list of works by Russian composers of the 20th ‒ early 21st centuries demonstrating musical receptions of the image of a circus artist favored by the audiences of all ages. Thanks to the methodology proposed by V.V. Medushevsky, E.V. Nazaikinsky and L.P. Kazantseva, the character’s specific features in various opuses are determined. As the study showed, most of the attributed compositions belong to the field of children's music, which serves the artistic and pedagogical tasks of revealing a child’s cultural potential, activating “humorous reflection” (the term by L.S. Vygotsky), and using art to develop understanding of the comic and form a harmonious personality. The material and conclusions of the article will be useful to teachers working with children. The stated problem also opens up prospects for a comprehensive study on the typology of the image of a clown in musical culture.

The article is dedicated to the study of ornamentation in the works of Russian singing teachers of the second half of the 19^th century. The singing ornaments, within the historical context of the era, have particular interest because they represent an important stage in the formation of theoretical and practical knowledge in Russia. The theme of ornamentation remained relevant in the heritage of European singing teachers throughout the nineteenth century, whereas in Russia, as a special analysis of the works of domestic teachers shows, it had its own features and its representation in the treatises did not always receive a level comparable to European. A gap of more than seventy years between treatises of Russian teachers: the first “Singing School” by Alexander Varlamov (“Full Singing School in Three Parts”, 1840) and the guide by Vasily Karelin (“New theory of voice performance”, 1912), was a period when along with the change of artistic practice and music material, the goals of decoration shifted towards its minimization in performance and pedagogy. In the Russian opera repertoire, the coloratura technique was not initially dominant. Accordingly, integration of the European knowledge about figurative singing into Russian practice in the second half of the 19^th ‒ early 20^th centuries, became a little topical task for domestic vocal teachers, as the European coloratura did not have a historically based solid foundation in Russia.

Three ballet premieres in theaters on the banks of the Volga are different in genre, but each is interesting in its own way. Sleeping Beauty in Astrakhan is unexpected with additions to the choreography and plot made by the theater’s chief choreographer Yuri Klevtsov. The Queen of Spades in Cheboksary, staged by the chief choreographer of the opera and ballet theater Danil Salimbaev to the music of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic works, is an unprecedentedly original interpretation of Pushkin’s story. The mystical ballet-epic Ilya Muromets and the Firebird’s Feather in the Tsaritsyn Opera in Volgograd is a rare appeal to the Russian epic with a patriotic sound. This is the first ballet score by the young composer Evgeny Prituzhalov and the first production by the theater’s new chief choreographer Artem Panichkin (with the participation of Sofia Raevskaya).