As winter weather peeks in — with snow predicted this last week in October for Petersburg — the wintertime setting of Mikhail Fokine’s 1911 production of “Petrushka” seems an apt choice for October billing. As the first in a three-ballet program on the 24th of October, the rather dark tale of the puppet retains …
This year’s White Nights festival has included numerous changes at the Mariinsky Theatre: the troupe’s second “tour” to the Bolshoi stage set for mid-July with “Fountain of Bakchisarei”, the appointment of the troupe’s first “artistic director” in many decades, the premiere of a new version of “Coppelia” (coming July 25th) and also a few debuts in …
“The Fountain of Bakchisarai”, referred to as a “choreographic poem” in four sections based on the work by Alexander Pushkin with a prologue and epilogue and created by Rostislav Zakharov in 1934, is a quintessentially Russian ballet in its philosophical leanings which juxtaposes the refined civilization of Slavic (in this case Polish) Europe with the …
Coinciding with the birthday of the city of Saint Petersburg, the Mariinsky’s annual White Nights Festival began on 27 May with summer heat flowing through the city. A full house ushered in the start of this yearly celebration of dance, symphony, and opera delights. Although they’ve not performed together in this ballet previously, Oksana Skorik …
Leonid Jakobson’s version of “Spartacus” is a monumental, three-act stylistic ballet that immediately carries the viewer to ancient Greece through its unique choreographic style. Inspired, it is said, by the haut-reliefs of the Pergamon Altar, this “Spartacus” is littered with parallel (turned in) leg and arm positions intended to reproduce the two-dimensional images on Etruscan …