Three “Arkaim” Ballets: The Legendary Past of the Southern Urals in Contemporary Musical Culture
The article presents an analysis of three musical ballets the composers of which have turned to historical monuments and iconic artifacts which has made it possible to create impressive images of the historical past of the region. For the Southern Urals, the Arkaim settlement presents such a significant landmark site. Its remoteness in time grants composers the freedom of creativity in determining their artistic decisions. At the same time, the general trend was the utilization of musical materials from the relatively recent traditional layers of culture in musical compositions. On the one hand, they are comprehensible to the public, and on the other hand, they relate to the historical past, figuratively denoting the existent connection with archaic times. A common motive in these works is also the composers' desire to compare modern culture with the spiritual traits of archaic antiquity. As a result, there emerge musical and plastic images which refer to the origins of regional culture, while simultaneously revealing contemporary issues of cultural memory as an important component of regional identity. Such a difficult task is solved by composers through the variable use of the principle of musical polystylistics.