Dance Open 2018: La fille Mal Gardée, performed by Ekaterinburg ballet

Belle epoque ballet comedy

After several successful attempts on the reconstruction of Petipa’s productions at the Mariinsky Theater, La Scala and Novosibirsk, Sergei Vikharev and Pavel Gershenzon accepted a more challenging task offered by Vyacheslav Samodurov. Their goal was not to just revive the ballet, but to try to interpret the classics in a stylish way. In Petipa’s notations stored in Harvard, La Fille Mal Gardée is not recorded completely: some dances have only the general structure, others are missing, pantomime scenes are described in words. As Vikharev admitted, that was not a reconstruction in the full sense. He created some of the lost parts himself. «In my performance, there is about 45–50% of authenticity. However, it is 100% Russian ballet in style. It is an example of Russian ballet school, which was formed during the 19th century and exists until today. «Vikharev and Gershenzon got an idea that the old Dance Lesson from the Bournonville’s ballet «Conservatory» would be the perfect prologue to the performance. It was already performed in the repertoire of the theater as an independent piece. Pas de deux from Bournonville’s Fair in Bruges was also included into the performance. Due to Vikharev’s highest skills as a choreographer, it is almost impossible to notice the difference between the old and new fragments and recognize the modern origin of the pantomime he created. Sergei Vikharev managed to stage a ballet comedy, perhaps the most challenging genre of musical theater. La Fille Mal Gardée is the first production based on Marius Petipa’s choreography included in the Dance Open festival program. In the year of the 200th anniversary of the world’s most famous choreographer, this ballet proves that the true classic is timeless and we can always relate to it.

Dance Open 2019: «Nutcracker», choreography by Alexey Miroshnichenko Performed by Perm Ballet

Dance Open 2018: «La Fille Mal Gardée», choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, Performed by Ekaterinburg ballet

Marius Petipa: 200th anniversary

Marius Petipa in his own words

«Ballet is a serious art, in which the critical things are movement and beauty, rather than all kinds of jumps, meaningless spinning and legs lifted above the head.». «The power of choreography, its charm, is not in this or that technical stunt, not in the final pirouette, but in its ability to create an artistic image». «During my long career, I've always had great relationships with all ballet dancers, and I’ve known hundreds of them. Now, however, you only ever hear about all sorts of discord between them». «I adore everything that is elegant, but certainly not skeletons, with whom you can do nothing in terms of choreographic art». «I follow the music. Sometimes I see pictures in my head; some times I make sketches of the groups. I’ve always had an excellent memory. Name any old ballet, and I will tell you exactly what dances there are in each act». «The audience should be aware that the most difficult thing in every pas is to compose variations. Every time, you need to find a completely new style». «My pas are used in every single ballet performance, but they do not even bother to rehearse them properly, and forget to mention my name on the playbill. What will it be like after I die? Perhaps, I will not be mentioned on playbills at all». «God save my second motherland, which I love with all my heart».

Dance Open 2019: «Nutcracker», choreography by Alexey Miroshnichenko Performed by Perm Ballet

Dance Open 2018: «La Fille Mal Gardée», choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, Performed by Ekaterinburg ballet

Marius Petipa in his own words

Anna Galaida specially for Dance Open

Marius Petipa: 200th anniversary

Marius Petipa’s name remains hugely familiar in the 21 century. It appears on the posters of the most popular ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Giselle, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker. His portrait is readily available: an old man with gentle smile and neatly combed beard. His work is discussed in bookloads of scientific articles, and his character portrayed in films. However, as the bicentenary of his birth arrives, all that we know for sure about him as that we know almost nothing. Petipa himself turned his biography into a legend. Born to a theatrical family, he had an eye on success and a taste for adventure — essential attributes for a career in the arts. To win commissions, Marius changed the date of his birth and pretended to be his own brother. His indomitable spirit pushed him to romantic adventures that forced him to flee from Spain. He fought like a lion for every penny he could get from impressarios or the Ministry of the Russian Emperor’s Court. He was not reluctant to borrow other artists’ ideas, and even whole scenes from other choreographers’ ballets. Even so, at the age of 85, the principal choreographer of St. Petersburg’s Imperial theatres turned the story of his eventful, passionate life — full of triumphs, hardship, and disappointment — into something truly apocryphal. For more than a century, Petipa’s memoirs were the main source of information for his biographers. The situation with his works is even more complicated. Nowadays, the name Petipa is almost synonymous with the whole tradition of classical ballet. He is considered, if not the author, then the editor of all 19th century ballets that have survived to this day, with the exception of Bournonville’s Danish La Sylphide. Indeed, as the head of the Imperial Ballet for more than forty years, Petipa created not only about a hundred ballets, as well as dances in dozens of operas, but also the principles and values of the modern system of classical ballet. True, he was not the one to come up with the idea of large classical ensembles or of bringing national dance to the stage. He did not introduce pointe dance or the principle of the ballet hierarchy. He did not invent ballet d’action or pantomime. He may not even have been as innovative as is generally believed when it comes to the creation of ballet combinations. Nevertheless, Petipa synthesized and propagated all the experience accumulated by the art of ballet through the two centuries of its professional existence. Meanwhile, his followers, paying all their respects to his great legacy, have for a century already been shaping and cutting the golden brocade of Petipa’s ballets according to the tastes of their times. The scores of Petipa productions, stored in the library of Harvard University, suggest that even the exemplary St. Petersburg editions of today are so far removed from the original as to be beyond recognition. Nowadays, Petipa may be seen as a Homer of the ballet — a giant whose life and work are legendary, and whose name has served for well over a century as a shorthand for the collective conscious and unconscious of the ballet.

Under the Presidency of H.R.H. The Princess of Hanover

Ballet Monte-Carlo

CINDERELLA

Ballet in 3 actsPremiere in Saint Petersburg

Choreography by Jean-Christophe MaillotMusic by Sergei Prokofiev

Alexandrinsky Theatre 12+

April 6 and 7, 201819:00

A tale which will always attract hearts. A dream which ensures happy end despite all stepmothers and furious sisters of the world. A glittering certificate which guarantees that fairness will reign the world, and tiny diligence will be ever awarded. All that Cinderella is. If it is still possible to retell the old story in a fresh way but keeping all its tenderness, charm and beauty, Jean-Christophe Maillot is the best person to do that. Starting with the Prokofiev’s essentially human vision that Cinderella was not simply a character from a fairy tale, but also a human being, whose fate moved everyone, Maillot plays on the wonderful and natural to deploy this great picture-book with hints of the familiar and strange. Guided by the memory of her mother, Cinderella makes her journey in search of a true love among the tragic excesses of a court with a sophisticated aesthetic. The choreographer seizes on the theme, an obsession for humankind, of the recognition of one’s true love — an essential key in understanding Jean-Christophe Maillot’s narration. Not just Cinderella, but also Romeo and Juliet, the white and black swans and even more recently Katharina and Petruchio… all of whom see a cartload of calamities rain down on them when it comes to nding their true love. But do the Pas de Deux created by The Jean-Christophe Maillot, each more sensual than the last, not show us that in the end, nothing is worth more effort?

There is a «Maillot style», modern, fluid and minimalist, without any aggressiveness, dream-like.

Its view of the work is exceptionally homogenous. Everything seems to be obvious and his style does not burden itself with useless flourishes. This new Cinderella is nicely adorned with a clever and aesthetic scenery.

CINDERELLA Ballet in 3 acts Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot Music: Sergei Prokofiev Scenography: Ernest Pignon-Ernest

Cinderella: about the performance