Stanislavsky Theatre

The story of their love is truly a tragic one. For over 15 years Rodin and Claudel were one integral whole, both sensuously and creatively. The eventual breakup of the couple was a fatal blow to the mental health of Camille leading to her tragic end. Half-forgotten, isolated and impoverished, Camille becomes insane. Her mind, damaged by mental disorder, is constantly filled with tormenting paranoid belief in a conspiracy against her being lead and inspired by Rodin himself.

She spends 30 long years in a mental clinic where she dies in 1943, abandoned and completely forgotten.

Rodin, Her Eternal Idol is a comprehensive creative study of the tragic path of a genius. By resorting to the distinctive plastique of modern psychological ballet Boris Eifman not only offers a new interpretation of the world of human passions, so masterfully portrayed by Rodin and Claudel, but also through his work explores the incomprehensible mystery of the creative process.

“The story of life and love of Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel is an amazing tale of an incredibly dramatic alliance of two artists where everything was entwined: passion, hatred and artistic jealousy. Spiritual and energy exchange between the two sculptors was an outstanding phenomenon: being so close to Rodin, Camille was an inspiration for his work, helping him find a new style and create masterpieces; and as her own talent matured at great pace, she developed into a great sculptor herself. Her beauty, her youth and her genius – all was sacrificed for her beloved.

After breaking up with Rodin Claudel plunges into the darkness of insanity. The desolate woman’s soul is destroyed by pathological hatred towards her former tutor and lover, who, as Camille believes, has stolen her life and talent.

This new ballet portrays Rodin’s longing for his Muse and torments of his conscience, it also visualizes Camille’s delusions, triggered by mental illness and filled with morbid obsessions – or rather those of the insane Erinys that ruthless fate has turned her into.

In our performance, through the language of dance we talk about passion, inner struggle and despair – of all those manifestations of the human essence that were so brilliantly expressed by Rodin and Camille in bronze and marble. While creating this new ballet I was striving to transform a moment captured in carved stone into an unrestrained, emotionally rich torrent of body movements.

Rodin, Her Eternal Idol is a contemplation of the immense price that people of genius have to pay for the gift of creation of eternal masterpieces. And, of course, it is a reflection on those torments and mysteries of creative process that will always be of importance to any artist.”

Boris Eifman