The two-part centenary celebrations of composer Ambujam Krishna served to showcase the range of her imagination. Resource person-musicologist Sujatha Vijayaraghavan rightly pointed out, “There is enough for both — the slower, heavier kritis for the serious musician and the descriptive, faster-paced compositions for the classical dancer — in Ambujam Krishna’s body of work.”
Throwing light on the genesis of ‘Sri Krishna Leela Madhuryam, Sujatha said, “None of her compositions were deliberate, they were spontaneous outpourings. When the eminent musician Madurai N. Krishnan requested her for an opera on Krishna leela, she is supposed to have laughed it off, saying that her songs do not happen according to plan. And even before Krishnan left the driveway of her home, Ambujam, by her own admission, got a song! The rest, as they say, is history.”
Past productions
‘Sri Krishna Leela Madhuryam’ is one of two operas written by Ambujam Krishna. It was tuned by Vidwan Krishnan and has been sung as an opera on All India Radio. In addition, it has been presented in the past by star-artist Kamala and by well-known veteran Bharatanatyam artiste Sudharani Raghupathy as group productions.
Anitha Guha’s school of Bharatanatyam, Bharathanjali, presented ‘Sri Krishna Leela Madhuryam’ for the composer’s centenary celebration as a two-hour production featuring forty-three dancers and seven musicians. Anitha infused a sense of grandeur into the production with her agile, beat-perfect young students in colourful costume (Anitha) criss-crossing the vast stage in perfectly-practised formations, while elaborating on Krishna’s life in Gokul, Vrindavan and Mathura. The elaborate musical ensemble and the theatrical inputs of sound effects, shadow play and spatial design heightened it.
The picture was complete with noted actor and discourse person Revathy Sankaran setting the context for each segment with fluent and sometimes witty, visual poetry both in Tamil and English.
It is to her credit that the choreographer (Anitha) did not get carried away by the histrionics. She remembered to be true to the composer, by interjecting the lively, percussion-dominated presentation with soft-focus compositions. She used about twelve compositions, kritis and keerthanas, of the fourteen in this opera, besides the special mangalam addressed to ‘Chenkamala Kannan and Mangai Rukmini’ (the lotus-eyed Krishna and the young maiden Rukmini). Musician P.R. Venkatasubramanian had composed the additional music for the nrithya nataka.
‘Sri Krishna...’ presented Krishna’s life from childhood until his marriage to Rukmini. It began with the celebration at Nandagopa’s home in Gokul (Nandan manai thannile, Devamanohari, Adi) in which Anitha mounted a pretty tableau of gopis standing in a row to take turns at rocking the cradle. The Poothana (Smriti Krishnamoorthy) episode that followed was most dramatic, with shadow play and a rhythmic segment detailing the transformation from the demoness to a beautiful wet nurse, such as the garland of skulls turning into a necklace of precious stones, etc., using khanda beats for the demoness and a softer chatusra for the other. ‘Punnagai Poothanane Nandabalan’ in Behag was beautifully sung (K. Hariprasad).
So was the following Kapi Keerthana, ‘Chinna chinna padam’ as a gopi (Lakshita Saravanan) lovingly recollected the charming, tantrum-throwing toddler. Krishna literally grew up in front of us in ‘Thalar nadai ittu vaaran’ (Mohanam, Adi) as three dancing boys came in one after another in a marked gradation. The sweetly intoned ‘kinkini’ jathi was a take-off from the line, ‘kinkini salangai shalaar pillar enna’ as the bells resound with Krishna’s dancing steps.
Innovative ideas abounded in each song, so the oft-repeated stories did not feel stale. It must be noted that each dancer was personable and invested in her role, however small. Even Vatsasura (young Sreeja), the asura who came in the guise of a calf was easily discernible with her wily glances. In the Akkrura (Priyanka Raghuram) episode in ‘Kandaare karai kaana anandham’ in ragamalika, Rupaka tala, it was the acting and the split-second coordination of the horses that made it memorable.
The beautiful use of descriptive words in the songs could not go unnoticed. In Krishna’s fight with Kaliya in ‘Nindradinaane’ Todi, Rupakam, ‘Seeri seeri pani sirangal asaindhida, Sirithu sirithu Kannan padam niruthida…’ captured the visual image so strikingly with rhyming words, loosely translated as ‘..the snake spewed venom, while Krishna laughingly danced on it...’ The love letter from Rukmini to Krishna (perhaps the first ever written according to Revathy’s tongue-in-cheek commentary) in ‘Maalaiyida varam vendi karam kuvithu’ (Bhairavi) was a tender note of yearning. ‘I seek a boon with folded hands to be garlanded/married…’ In the last line charanam, ‘…Manam vaadum ennai anbudane sondam kolla Sundaranga… Vandhiduvai,’ loosely translated as, ‘My mind is filled with sadness, please take me with love, oh the beautiful one, please come!’
The reading of the love letter by the brahmin (Anjali) to Krishna (Smriti) — both in the background — and Rukmini (Janani Sethunarayanan), enacting it in the foreground was the most inspirational visual of the show.
Special mention must be made of Mahima (Kaliya) and Krishna (Jyotsna), who drew maximum applause in the Kalinga Narthana episode. Others in the expert orchestra consisted of Anitha and Jayashree Ramnathan (nattuvangam), Ramshankar Babu (mridangam), Ganapathy Subramanian (other percussion), Eashwar Ramakrishnan (violin) and Shruti Sagar (flute).
