Arts & Events

In the Muslim world, the tale of the inspired but tragic love of Layla and Majnun holds a place in the popular imagination similar to that held in western culture by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, the tale of Layla and Majnun, which originates way back in oral tradition in the Arabian peninsula, predates Shakespeare’s play by more than a thousand years. The ill-fated lovers Layla and Majnun have been celebrated by Turks, Arabs, Persians, Indians, Pakistanis and Afghans; but perhaps the most influential version of this story was a Persian one by Nezami Ganjawi (1140-1209 BCE). Another influential setting of this story was by Azerbaijani poet and philosopher Muhammad Fuzuli (1483-1556), whose work was later set to music by Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli (1885-1948) in an opera, Leyli and Majnun, which premiered in Baku in 1908. Since then, this opera has opened every season at the Azerbaijani State Opera and Ballet Theatre; and it is a source of immense pride to all Azerbaijanis.  

In 2007, Silk Road Ensemble, a group founded by Yo-Yo Ma to foster cross-cultural musical relations, created a chamber arrangement of Hajibeyli’s opera, and Silk Road performed this suite in many concerts around the globe. Dance choreographer Mark Morris loved the music and decided to create a new work for his dance company, paring down the music of Hajibeyli’s opera from three and-a-half hours to one hour, with singers performing Fuzuli’s mughams or modal songs in the Azerbaijani language. As sung by noted Azerbaijani vocalists Alim Qasimov as Majnun and his daughter, Fargana Qasimova, as Layla, Mark Morris’s Layla and Majnun received its world premiere under the aegis of Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall on Friday, September 30. 

In Middle Eastern musical tradition, the mugham is a branch of the large form of music known as maqam or modal structure. Historically, mugham is performed by a trio consisting of a singer playing gaval (frame drum) and two instrumentalists playing tar (lute) and kamencheh (spiked fiddle). In this Silk Road performance of Layla and Majnun, the tar and kamencheh were featured, played exquisitely by Zaki Valiyev and Rauf Islamov respectively. However, Silk Road performed an arrangement of Hajibeyli’s music by Alim Qasimov Johnny Gandelsman, and Colin Jacobsen that offered scope to western instruments, perhaps especially the cello, which opened the work and closed it with poignant solos played by Karen Ouzounian. The singing of Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova was achingly beautiful and passionately gripping throughout; and it formed the backbone of the musical score. Their songs have some affinities with the “Aman” laments in the Greek Rembetika tradition from Smyrna and Istanbul. 

Perhaps the nearest cousin, so to speak, of this Layla and Majnun would be Sergei Prokoviev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, which I once saw danced by Rudolf Nureyev in his own choreography. However, the presence of two singers portraying Layla and Majnun takes the audience deep inside the subjective suffering of these two lovers separated, like Romeo and Juliet, by their families. The result is a work of searing emotional intensity. Layla and Majnun tugs at your heartstrings. 

The plot, a tale of young love, is simple. Boy meets girl and they fall head over heels in love. The boy, barely in his teens, declares his love publically, proclaiming it aloud in verses extolling Layla’s beauty and grace. Her parents find his behavior scandalous, and people give the boy the epithet majnun, which means “one possessed” or “mad.” Layla’s parents forbid her to see Majnun. Separation only makes the boy and girl love each other more. Mark Morris develops the story in six episodes. In the first, boy meets girl and they fall in love. Next, her parents disapprove of this love and forbid Layla to see Majnun. In the third episode, entitled “Sorrow and Despair,” the lovers individually express their sadness. Next comes “Layla’s Unwanted Wedding,” a marriage forced upon her by her parents. Majnun comes to the wedding and initially rebukes Layla, thinking she has consented to this marriage. She assures him it is against her will and she will always remain faithful to him and him only. Her husband will never touch her, she declares. This episode featured exciting dancing by the love triangle consisting of Layla, Majnun, and the unnamed bridegroom. The dancing here was agitated, with strenuous lifts, as the two men vied with each other over the recalcitrant Layla. In the next episode, some years later, Layla, still a virgin, dies heartbroken yet steadfast in her love for Majnun. In the sixth and final episode, entitled “Majnun’s Madness,” Majnun weeps upon Layla’s grave, vowing to love her eternally.  

The dance vocabulary in Laya and Majnun is eclectic. Aside from the angular shapes of modern dance, there are elements of folk dance with giddy, jumping movements. There is also one stunning moment straight out of classical ballet, when Majnun slowly takes leave of Layla while extending a leg behind him in high arabesque while Layla mirrors his gesture but extends her leg inward, thus offering an inverted image of his move. 

At this world premiere, I was accompanied by noted dance writer, choreographer, and filmmaker Kathryn Roszak.. After the performance I asked Kathryn how, from her dance background, she responded to this Mark Morris production. Did she like it, I asked, and did it open new ground in the career of Mark Morris? 

Kathryn Roszak:  

Mark Morris is known for his intense choreographic relationship to music. In fact, he is recognized for his operatic works such as Dido and Aeneas. Although he has occasionally used recorded music, he has expressed a strong preference for working with live musicians. It is no surprise then that the impetus for Layla and Majnun is the music, and Morris makes a strong statement by embedding the musicians in the center of the stage with all the choreography seeming to flow around this central musical source. The singing evokes for me the blues, jazz, or even flamenco. 

The choreography was challenging, for the dancers had to negotiate a multi-tiered stage set. Happily, the dancers made these multi-level transitions seamless. The work aims for a kind of operatic integration with a large painting by Howard Hodgkin illuminating the backdrop and costumes also by Hodgkin echoing the clothing found in Persian miniature paintings. The Hodgkin painting was beautifully lit to underscore the emotional tones of the story. However, the painting is very abstract and not quite in the same world as the music and costumes. The black jazz shoes worn by the dancers also pulled us out of this created world, and bare feet would have been more effective.  

Given that Morris’s Layla and Majnun seeks to create its own world through dance, music, and visual design, I wonder if the proscenium presentation is the right one for it? There is something distancing about watching all the dance and music from afar. There were rapturous moments in both the music and the dance, and one wished to be closer. The proscenium had the effect of making the work theatrically self-conscious. Layla and Majnun might be even more wonderful if presented in a more intimate space including comfortable cushions and carpets, with the audience surrounding the dancers and musicians. Layla and Majnun was yearning to tear itself out of the proscenium and become even more of an integrated feast. 

The choreography in places echoed whirling dervishes and quoted communal folk dance elements, which is a Morris strong suit. The hard, geometric, modern dance lines in the choreography were sometimes at odds with the intimate sensuality of the music. There were gorgeous moments for the ensemble, which at times resembled a Greek chorus, with waves of undulating movement blending with the imploring vocalizations in the music. The text was surprising and wonderful: “I need this sorrow because this sorrow needs me.” The final dance sequence embodies the sacrifices of love, and the dancers had a moment to throw themselves with abandon into the choreography. The second to last male dancer was outstanding and gave himself to the moment entirely. That moment of complete abandon, on its own, was worth the price of admission. 

James Roy MacBean 

Your remark, Kathryn, about whirling dervishes is insightful. I’ve read that there is a Sufi interpretation of the Layla and Majnun story that sees it as an allegory for the Sufi mystic’s deep communion with God in the ecstatic whirling of the dervish. Surely, there is a yearning here for the transcendental. The lovers long not only or necessarily for consummation but also, and at a deeper level, for transcendence. I thought Mark Morris did a good job of suggesting some kind of transpersonal element, firstly, by having different dancers portray the lead characters in each of the six episodes. Secondly, although Layla and Majnun are initially differentiated from the chorus by their long scarves (hers red, his white); at a certain point all the dancers wear long scarves, thus multiplying the Laylas and Majnuns, as if the two lovers projected their love onto all humanity, and perhaps even to God who has fated them to love one another. 

Layla and Majnun was preceded on the program by Bayati Shiraz, a brief medley of Azerbaijani folk songs sung by Kamila Nabiyeva and Miralam Miralamov, accompanied by Rauf Islamov on Kamencheh and Zaki Valiyev on tar.