Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 154 h Firuza Melville Double identity of Scheherazade of Monte Carlo The two more recent productions, in Latvia and Monaco, present some sort of fusion or confusion between Zobeide and Shahrazad. In the Riga version Zobeide turns into Shahrazad and, protected by the ghost of the Golden Slave, survives and saves womankind. She abandons Shahriyar and becomes a pro- fessional storyteller. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo , as the direct successor of Diaghilev’s Seasons , gave the story the most elaborate retelling in 2009. The production by choreog- rapher Jean-Christophe Maillot and designer Jérôme Kaplan has some obvious reminiscences with Bakst’s original stage and costume designs and Fokine’s staging. It is in fact meant to be a tribute to Michel Fokine. However, the libretto is much more complicated. Both male and female protagonists, Zobei- de and Golden Slave, have their ghostly second identity, Zobeide-Shahrazad is represented by European and Asian dancers, her beloved Golden Slave is also performed by two ethnically different dancers: black and ‘golden’. Dressed in white, Zobeide reunites with her beloved, while Shahriyar—in black from anger and grief—is left on his own. Western stereotype forever: sex, violence, ballet and Mother Russia, or Scheherazade at home In conclusion it should be said that the case of Shahrazad is a typical exam- ple how a famous story has been heavily used to express the most important processes in society related to the ancient perception of the dichotomy of East- West, black-gold (brown)-white, and more than anything else the fluidity of this phenomenon. It was not only Diaghilev and Fokine who exploited Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade to produce their masterpiece. Its main theme was used in vari- ous media, like several Russian films, such as Кavkazskaya plennitsa (‘Kid- napping, Caucasian Style’, Leonid Gaidai, 1966), Мaster and Margarita (‘Master and Margarita’, Vladimir Bortko, 2005), or the Turkish serial drama Binbir gece (‘One Thousand and One Nights’, Kudret Sabancı, 2006–2009). In England the most famous rock-style interpretations were made by Deep Purple in 1968 as John Lord’s ‘Prelude: Happiness/I’m So Glad’ which, however, had more in common with the Georgian dance lezginka . In 1975, another English instrumental group Renassaince produced an album Sche­ herazade and other stories . Paradoxically, this was the only album where, despite the allusions to the story reflected in Rimsky-Korsakov’s music, there was no direct reference to it, although the group was famous for quoting