A Magnolia, Blossoming in Winter
In a recent article, Rudy Galindo said that Polina had put him on the map as a choreographer. “When they see my work, she unveils it.”
It was gracious of him to say this, but also a very perceptive. More so than does a composer, a choreographer depends on the skater to give expression to the work. Only when it becomes the skater’s does it really begin to live.
That will be especially true this evening, when Polina skates to Galindo’s choreography for “Gone With the Wind” in the free skate.
I confess that I felt some trepidation when her programs for this season were first announced. I had no qualms about a short program to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” It promised something dreamy and dance-like, and thus very suitable for her. Indeed, it has proven to be at least a minor masterpiece, both in conception and execution. Her performance of it this past Thursday was nothing less than spectacular.
But “Gone With the Wind” for the long program? This promised to be something very different then what she’d been skating to during her beak-out seasons.
The “Romeo and Juliet” program with which she won the U.S. Junior Championship, from Nino Rota’s score for the Franco Zefferelli film, the arrangement from Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” suites, which she skated to when she won the silver medal in her very first senior competition, at the U.S. National Championships, and the “Peter Pan” program from last season, when she won the Four Continents Championship, were all in the nature of mood pieces. They were lyrical and flowing, all of them allowing her to display that unique style of hers, which is as much dance as skating. In particular, the Grieg program touched many with its poignancy as they had never been before by a figure skating program. Certainly that was true for me.
A “Gone With the Wind” program, however, would be more in the nature of a story piece inspired by the plot of the 1939 film. There would be an opening section representing Scarlett O’Hara as a young girl, to a version of composer Max Steiner’s famous “Tara” theme, a waltz played at a social gathering, a section suggesting the turbulence of war, and, finally, a closing reprise of the “Tara” theme.
One challenge posed by such a program was obvious: Vivien Leigh’s performance as Scarlett O’Hara has become almost as iconic as the film itself. Willful, flirtatious, seductive, and manipulative, she makes an often unpleasant character never less than fascinating and even sympathetic. When her Scarlett draws upon reserves of strength as deep and abiding as those of the land she has come to love, she brings great humanity to what would otherwise have been no more than melodrama.
Whatever Polina did on the ice would certainly be compared to that, and probably to her disadvantage.
The other was, if anything, more serious for being less obvious. When we think of the score of “Gone With the Wind,” it is usually the “Tara” theme that we have in mind. It is grand and sweeping, lush and melodic, and with more than a hint of nostalgia. It is the work of a master and justly celebrated. A program set to that, perhaps using the overture version that was prepared for road show exhibitions of the film when it was first released, would have been in the nature of another mood piece and as effective.
A program presenting a story taken from the film, however, would have to draw upon other themes. The rub is that film scores are not intended, for the most part, to be heard apart from the film. Large sections are in the nature of incidental music, the validity of which depends to a degree on what is taking place on the screen. In case of “Gone With the Wind,” this difference in quality is heightened by the way its score was composed, the immensely prolific Max Steiner writing the main theme but often only sketches for other sections, letting staff composers complete and orchestrate them. Steiner would oversee the process, but there is a reason why the work of a master is valued more highly than something from his studio or by his students.
That may account for the misgivings I had when I saw the long program as it was presented at Skate Canada and then the Cup of Russia. There was much good about it, of course. The technical content was easily as strong as that for other elite skaters, it presented its story in a cohesive way, and it was never without the lyric sense which is special to Polina’s skating. Somehow, though, it was never as moving as the mood pieces she had performed or as dramatic or involving as it was intended to be. The score seemed to complement something that wasn’t quite there. As a program, it was more like a drawing than a painting, suggesting some large or arresting work in the making, but still waiting for the broad, deep lines to be filled in or shadows or color added. Or perhaps this was only to say that Polina had not yet made it her own.
The criticism from some fans of figure skating suggested as much, that a young woman such as Polina could no more be Scarlett O’Hara than a magnolia could blossom in winter. After watching a video of an exuberant exhibition piece she had performed after the Cup of Russia competition, I even found myself wondering whether it could serve as a short program, with the “Moonlight Sonata” short program expanded into a new long program to replace the present one.
Upon reflection, though, I realized how wrong I’d been. There was something Galindo had said in the same article, "The concept of Scarlett becoming a young woman and being strong, fearless, and yeah, sassy and spicy, I thought that was the perfect fit for Polina. She is Scarlett."
For her own part, Polina said in an interview that her desire was to do justice to Galindo’s choreography.
I’d had a sense all along, these past years, of the excellence of the people around Polina—her mother and David Glynn, Marina Klimova and now Rudy Galindo, and the consultants they’d engaged, such as Frank Carroll and Alexandre Fadeev—and how sensitive they had been to Polina’s personality and special talents. If they believed that a program of this nature was suitable for her, knowing her so much better than could any outside observer, there must be an essential validity to it.
There was something else, a growing sense that what Polina was doing in her skating career was more and more of her own making. The young girl who decided, after a disappointing national competition that she would train seriously for a championship, had become a young woman who found in skating a way of serving others and giving expression to the beauty of music, which she loved. No one who has listened to her in interviews or witnessed the determination with which she addressed the problems of growing into womanhood this past season—no one who has seen her helping young skaters or providing a role model for them--could be unaware of her thoughtfulness or generosity, or of her strength of character.
Polina is making her career more and more her own because she is coming more and more into her own.
The ease and grace of her “Moonlight Sonata” performance suggests that something extraordinary is happening in St. Paul, something which may find in the free skate an expression just as remarkable. If so, then a new Scarlett O’Hara will be unveiled, one reflecting the romantic sensibility of strong and fearless young woman, even a sassy one, who has made the character her own. No one will forget Vivian Leigh, but if afterwards Polina Edmunds is remembered, it will be enough.
Sometimes you just gotta live up to responsibility!!!!
the program needs to be ramped up at the very least. Maybe even dress her in black and change the music to the ending "I don't give a damn!" scene music?
