The Grigorovich version of La Bayadère hails back to 1991, when the ballet returned to the Bolshoi stage after a 50-year absence. Its predecessor, a version created by Alexander Gorsky, rejected the Petipa original, focusing on the wedding celebration rather than the Shades scene, and including, as old records note, “flashes of arm” that destroyed the Petipa choreography.

Grigorovich’s approach, however, retains many of the Petipa basics, with the addition of his personal adjustments to both choreography and sets, but no significant alteration to the libretto. The overture that accompanies the curtain opening, for example, set to the dance of the fakirs, differs from the Petipa version that runs at the Mariinsky.

Just four years ago, I first interviewed Nadezhda Batoeva for Dance Europe magazine. At the time, she was a promising young new addition to the Mariinsky Theatre, just five years into her employment with the troupe, who explained the challenges in entering and training at the Vaganova Academy.

Coming from a family of mechanical engineers, Batoeva’s background was far from the world of ballet and at first, it wasn’t easy. “Only in the last 3 years [of study at the Academy] was I given a more favoured position in class and allowed to stand in the centre of the barre (an honoured position for the best students),” she said in that interview.

And yet, now a first soloist with the troupe, just one rank away from principal dancer, one would never have guessed that the young ballerina had had earlier struggles. On 21 March she debuted as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, the acid test in Russia for any classical ballerina. In the reliable hands of Xander Parish as her Prince Siegfried, Batoeva made her mark with a fresh interpretation of this traditional role.

Though hailing from France, Marius Petipa, who would have turned 200 years old on March 11, made a name for himself in Saint Petersburg, at the then “Bolshoi Kamenniy”, now Mariinsky Theatre, where he served as balletmaster for 34 years and where the bulk of his ballets premiered. In this “Year of Petipa”, the house that the great choreographer called home replaced their annual international ballet festival with a hybrid version focusing on Petipa ballets. Rampant with Sleeping Beauties at the start, the festival moved on to include guest artists from Moscow and New York, and even a debut in Swan Lake.

The month of February brought a myriad of events in Moscow and beyond for balletgoers. Here are some of the highlights:

– On 9 February, Artemy Belyakov reprised the role of Crassus in Spartacus at the Bolshoi.
–Former Bolshoi Star, now freelancer Prima Maria Alexandrova debuted in Alexei Miroschnichenko’s Cinderella in the city of Perm.
– On 21 February, the Mariinsky held an evening in honour of Alla Shelest. Ekaterina Kondaurova opened the evening with the White Adagio from Swan Lake. That was followed by Ekaterina Osmolkina with Vladimir Shklyarov in the duet from Legend of Love. The list of guests performing divertiseements included Vladislav Lantratov and Maria Alexandrova in the Grand pas from Don Quixote among others. The bill from the evening is here: https://www.mariinsky.ru/playbill/playbill/2019/2/…
–The Perm Ballet Theatre travelled to Moscow to present 2 performances as part of the Golden Mask Awards for the past season. The first night, 25 February, they danced Alexei Miroschnichenko’s Nutcracker and the second night 27 February, at the Helicon Opera Theatre, they performed Robbins’ Four Seasons.
– Another set of performances the scandalously popular ballet, Nureyev, closed out the month at the Bolshoi.

Note to readers: VaganovaToday has experienced some plagiarism issues recently from print magazines. All reviews on this site are copyrighted.

On 3 May, Makhar Vasiev, artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, announced plans for the troupe’s 2018-2019 season. They include the following dates and premieres, in addition to the regularly rotating classical repertoire:

▪️ 20 November 2018, Artefact Suite by Forsythe and Petrushka by Edward Clug (world premiere).
▪️ 1 February 2019, Gala Concert in honour of Ekaterina Maximova.
▪️ 4 April 2019, Christopher Wheeldon’s “A Winter’s Tale”.
▪️13 June 2019, Maurice Bejart’s “Gaite Parisienne” and Balanchine’s “Symphony in C”.
▪️ 19 July 2019, a world premiere by Slava Samodurov.

There will also be live broadcasts of La Sylphide (11 Nov. 2018), The Nutcracker (Dec 2018), La Bayadere (20 Jan. 2019), and Carmen Suite/Petrushka (19 May 2019).
The company will tour to Milan in September 2018, will spend 3 weeks in London over late July/early August 2019, and will travel to Australia for a large tour in June.

As is the case with almost all classical ballets in the Bolshoi repertoire, Giselle too is presented in the version created by Yuri Grigorovich rather than the more traditional version of the troupe’s northern cousin, the Mariinsky. On 11 November, Olga Smirnova danced the leading role at the Bolshoi for the second time this year alongside the elegant Simeon Chudin, and Alena Kovalyova debuted as Myrtha.

Despite being part of the Grigorovich brand, this version differs from the original in several respects. The primary difference is the orchestration and choreography at several points: the end of the corps section just before the peasant pas de deux in Act I, Myrtha’s arabesque hops (three rather than two each time) and the direction of her steps on stage in Act II.

Alyona Kovalyova, Growing Bolshoi Star, Debuts in Swan Lake on 16 September 2017

Alyona Kovalyova, who graduated from the Vaganova Academy in 2016, is now beginning her second season at the Bolshoi. With already several premieres under her belt, this Saturday, 16 September, she will debut as Odette-Odile in Yuri Grigorovich’s version of Swan Lake on the Bolshoi main stage.

We wish Ms. Kovalyova every success in her upcoming debut, and will report back on the results!

You trained at the Gjel school of ballet, but how did you start dancing?
It was absolutely my mother’s desire, because I don’t know a young man who would want to start dancing on his own. There is one such man, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, he is the only who wanted to start ballet on his own. But all the rest of my friends were sent to start ballet by their parents. For me at the very start the profession I didn’t really like it or enjoy studying, but at one point it started to draw me in and I began to look at it in another way.

I had several pedagogues there at Gjel, first a female because it’s usually done that way, the main fundamentals are taught by females and then there is a transition to men’s work where a male teacher must understand the details of technique and how to do a specific movement correctly. Then my last two teachers were men. I graduated under Alexei Alexandrovich Evdokim, who had been a soloist at the Bolshoi.

“Tonight, your efforts allowed me to forget I’m an artistic director and simply enjoy the dance,” such were the comments from Laurent Hilaire during the reception following the Stanislavsky Ballet’s long-awaited triple bill that premiered on 7 July 2017. Hilaire’s words underscored the troupe’s high level of artistic achievement during the challenging evening that included works by Serge Lifar, Jiri Kylian and William Forsythe, the first and last of which premiered for the first time in Russia.

Hilaire, brought to the company at the start of this calendar year, has already made sweeping changes in the troupe by importing new choreographers and adding a significant number of works to the repertoire. Maintaining strict adherence to the dancers’ rights to days off (a policy blatantly ignored at the Mariinsky for decades), his respect for the art form, and in-depth, creative, yet humble approach is pushing the Stanislavsky forward to compete against its neighbour the Bolshoi. In fact, the morning after this premiere, the long-awaited Bolshoi production by Yuri Possokhov, Nureyev, was put on hold indefinitely, it’s premiere previously slated for 11 July now cancelled until an undetermined date. Perhaps simple coincidence in timing, but a juxtaposition that nonetheless highlights the growing strengths of this “smaller” Russian troupe now under Hilaire’s direction.

How did you get involved in dance?
I began at age 5 with artistic gymnastics, and at age 6 I began to study ballet in children’s groups. I was accepted at the attended Riga Choreographic School at age 11 immediately after auditioning. In fact, I was a year too young, and they wanted me to attend a year later but i’m lucky they took me in right away. My pedagogue throughout the 8 years of schooling was Rita Harlapa- Markova, I graduated under her. I was very lucky in that respect, because usually pedagogues change for the students throughout their studies, but she didn’t give me away to anyone….she fought for me.

What was the atmosphere like at the school?
It was interesting at the school because you go from a childhood period to a more adult one very quickly, and at age 12 you have classes from Monday through Saturday usually until 8 p.m. We couldn’t wear nail polish or makeup, we had a uniform of specific leotards so that everyone looked the same, and we worked very hard. It was difficult. Our pedagogue was strict we had good-natured competition in our class, but that atmosphere actually united us together.