The Mozart Tradition in Mintay Tleubayev’s Ballet Productions for Children

Abstract

The study of the phenomenon of the Mozart tradition is stipulated by the need for cognition of the
artist’s aesthetic notions. The article makes an attempt of indicating the tendencies of bringing in the
Mozart tradition into the legacy of the Kazakh theater and ballet producer Mintay Tleybayev (1947–
2009), whose activities have not yet received its due comprehension in the field of art criticism. The
methodological basis of the work is formed by musicological works devoted to the Mozart tradition
and the contiguous concepts, including works by Anatoly M. Tsuker, Arkady I. Klimovitsky and
Alexander Ya. Selitsky. The basis for the research of Mintay Zh. Tleubayev’s legacy for children
turned out to be the empirical and analytical methods, as well as methods of reconstruction, analysis
and descriptions of a performance developed by the Leningrad “Gvozdyov” school of theatrical
studies which present the possibility to reveal Tleubayev’s Mozartian world perception. The author
of the work emphasizes that the theme of childhood became basic in the works of the producer and
choreographer. It became for him an inexhaustible spring, which allowed him to permeate the fabric
of the performance with play elements, which reveal the nature of naïveté intrinsic to the ballet
producer’s world. In these artistic intentions it is possible to view Tleubayev’s Mozartian world
perception examined for the first time in the context of the present world perception.

Keywords: Kazakh ballet, ballet production, producer-choreographer, Mintay Tleubayev,
the Mozart tradition, the theme of childhood.