Libretto by Olga Kuznetsova

Ballet «Genesis»

Choreographer – Dmitry Pimonov
Composer – Baruch Berliner
Costume designers – Tatyana Astakhova and Dmitry Pimonov
Project Manager – Evgeniy Atsapkin
Producer – Nachum Slutzker

Images:

• Earth and Water
• Light and Darkness
• Garden of Eden and Rainbow
• Cain’s Sinful Thoughts – Darkness
• Depraved human race – Earth
• The Flood – Water

Part I

The Creation of the World

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.

In the initial chaos, two ancient primary elements were fighting among themselves: the Earth, crumbling into the smallest particles of dust, and then sticking together into one mass, and the flowing, onand indivisible Water. The Earth was an empty, formless mass, an ugly substance. The Water was an unformed element, a featureless substance. The Water sought to dominate the world: It spread over the Earth and rose up to the heavens in the form of a thick steam, turning into clouds.

By separating the Heaven from the Earth, and the land from the sea, God created a space for human habitation, then the fertile soil began to be irrigated with rainwater, and the Earth became suitable for life.

“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and God divided the light from the darkness”.

God commanded Light to shine out of Darkness, and two incompatible and inseparable world principles were separated by His power, establishing the change of day and night. So time arose in the alternation of light and dark periods of the day.

By dividing Light and Darkness, God created the basic law of the spiritual life of man, which consisted in a constant choice between Good and Evil.

Interlude I

And the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man…
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man…
And the Lord God created from a rib … a wife, and brought her to the man
And the man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh…”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall be one flesh.

Part II

The Creation of Adam and Eve.
Life in the Garden of Eden

God created man from dark inanimate matter, as a vessel made of clay, and with His breath awakened him to life. Adam got his name from the name of the red earth from which his body was made. Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and created a wife from his rib, and the two became as one flesh.
Having conceived man in His own image and likeness, the Creator gave him the gift to see the beauty, and also gave him free will. Equal to God, man could now not only taste the bliss and enjoy the beauty but also control his own destiny.

God settled Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which delighted and caressed the eyes with the sparkle of all the colors of the rainbow! Here they could savor serenely the fruits of the trees, which were good for food. In order for the bliss to last forever, God decided to protect the naive man from the dangerous choice between the two forces that rule the world. He forbade man to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, which grows in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Meanwhile, Adam and Eve did not even suspect that, living in this beautiful Garden, they were infinitely happy and immortal.
The stay in the realm of Light becomes obvious only to those who have entered the realm of Darkness.

Interlude II

And the woman said to the serpent: …
God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, lest you die.”

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the tree was … a delight to the eyes and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband, and he ate.

Part III

The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise

“Then God said to Adam, “… cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it … till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken”.

After eating the fruit of the tree of theknowledge, both Adam and Everealized that they were naked; they hastened to sew fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.At that moment, the voice of God searching for them was heard in the Garden of Eden, and those who violated the prohibition hurried to hide among the trees. Now Adam and Eve had to dissembleand be cunning to hide their true knowledge. Thus, along with the state of ignorance, the state of bliss was lost.

When God called Adam and Eve to account, they had to make hast yexcuses. Adam shifted the blame to the wife given to him by God, while Eve complained about the Serpent.Be that as it may, Adam and Eve lost eternal lifeand pleasure, Paradise was lost to them forever.

God drove the self-willed human beings out of the beautiful Garden of Eden and placed in it Cherubim with a flaming sword. From now on, physical suffering, illness, fear, grief and guilt fell to their sinful lot. In order to find food, Adam had to work the Land. But the curse, brought on by him, fell on Her too: working the Land became bitter and hard. Now the wife had an attraction to her husband, and he began to rule over her.
However, the worst punishment was death. So the dust, from which man was created, will have to return to the dust of the ground at the end of earthly existence.

Part IV

Cain and Abel: the first fratricide

“Andthe Lord said to Cain, “If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

The firstborn child of Adam and Evewas Cain.By birthright, everything around him belonged to him, and it seemed that the whole world revolved around him.The sense of euphoria and his own exclusivity was so strong that the birth of his younger brother Abel, with whom he had to share everything, infuriated him.

Adam and Eve gave everyone their own work: Cain worked the soil, and Abel herded the sheep. When the time came for the sacrifice, Cain brought the fruits of the Earth, and Abel chose firstborn lambs for the sacrifice. God appreciated the efforts of Abel, but left without attention the sacrifice of Cain.

Then Cain, accustomed to being the first in everything, was at the mercy ofsinful thoughts. God warned and convinced him, saying that if a man did not reach for the Good, Darkness would take possession of his soul, and he would lose power over sin.But envy, resentment and anger clouded Cain’s mind and completely took possession of his soul.Now he wanted to be like God and dispose of someone else’s human life at his own discretion.

That was the first terrible fratricide: blood stained the Earth, and the voice of blood cried out from the Earth. God punished the first murderer with expulsion, so that from now on, having left his home, he was forced to wander the Earth.

Part V

Righteous Noah and the Depraved Earth

“Lamech… begat a son, аnd he called his name Noah, saying, “This one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands arising from the ground that the Lord has cursed.”

When the son of one of Adam’s descendants was born, he decided to name him Noah, in the hope that he would finally bring peace and tranquility with him.He was destined to be born in the last times, when the sins of the human race multiplied exponentially.The Earth was corrupted and filled with evil deeds, and therefore every flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.Having matured, Noah did not succumb to the general depravity, temptation and Evil that reigned not only around him, but also in all thoughts and in hearts.Alone in his aspirations, he always led a righteous life as if he walked before the Lord.

God revealed his plans to him and gave him the opportunity to look into the future for this.Noah learned of God’s intention to destroy all flesh and clear the Earth by bringing a flood of water upon it.God pointed out to him the possibility to avoid a disaster: “Make yourself an ark, and you will save yourself, your family and all life on earth.”

Part VI

The Flood

“And the Lord said to Noah, “I will send rain on the earth … and I will wipe out from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

The wrath of God fell upon the Earth, mired in sins, the floodgates of the heavens were opened, and the Waters of the flood gushed. Again, as in the first days of creation, the struggle between the two elements began. The Water covered the Earth, returning it to its primeval state of chaos, when the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

The water kept coming up, increased and multiplied, rising above the tops of the mountains, and only Noah’s ark, as a symbol of future salvation, glided safely along the water surface. At that moment, when the Earth finally disappeared under the Water and all living things were wiped out from Her face, the curse imposed by God for the sins of the human race was finally washed away from Her.

God stopped the Water with gusts of wind, and it subsided. When the Water completely dried up, God called on Noah and all the inhabitants of the ark to come to Earth, and they dispersed to populate the uninhabited desert.

Part VII

The Token of Covenant

“And the Lord said in His heart, “…I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.”

To save His creation from destruction, God established the Covenant.He returned the previously rejected and cursed Earth to His bosom and created the cycle of the seasons, favorable for the growth of all life on It. Remembering Cain’s murder of Abel, He instituted a prohibition on the shedding of blood.

God sealed His Covenant with a sign visible to human- the Rainbow. It always appears in the sky after the rain in memory of the fact that the abysses of heaven were closed, and the streams of Water, which destroyed all life, dried up. The shape of the Rainbow resembles a bow, a weapon of destruction, which God, as a sign of reconciliation with the human race and as unnecessary,placed in heaven.Appearing in the sky, the Rainbow, like a bridge, connects everything that was divided in the first days of creation: Heaven, Water and Earth, God and the world he created, the Creator and man.

The colors of the rainbow symbolize the beauty of the world, where, in addition to choosing between Light and Darkness, a person can enjoy anamazing variety of colors.The rainbow is also a reminder to people of the beautiful multicolored, but lost Garden of Eden.All colors and paintsare mixed on Earth, but in the Rainbow one can notice a strict and unchanging order, like an an immutable law between the Creator and humanity! This is a stairway to Heaven and a living connection between human and the Creator.