Diana Vishneva. Tribute to a Teacher

PROGRAMME:
I. Divertissement featuring students of Lyudmila Kovaleva
Performers:
Ekaterina Borchenko (Mikhailovsky Theatre), Olga Esina (Wiener Staatsoper), Sofia Gumerova, Sofia Ivanova-Skoblikova, Alisa Petrenko, Olga Smirnova (Bolshoi Theatre), Kristina Shapran, Nika Tskhvitaria (Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre), Diana Vishneva, Zlata Yalinich, Timur Askerov, Vitaly Amelishko, Alexander Beloborodov, Roman Belyakov , Yevgeny Ivanchenko, Igor Kolb, Danila Korsuntsev, Roman Lazik (Wiener Staatsoper), Vladimir Malakhov, Artem Ovcharenko (Bolshoi Theatre), Alexander Sergeyev, Alexei Tyutyunnik, Nail Yenikeyev, Andrei Yermakov

II. LIVE
Choreography by Hans van Manen
Ballet Master: Rachel Beaujean
Lighting Design: Bert Dalhuysen
Costume Design: Keso Dekker
Video master: Henk van Dijk
Piano: Olga Khoziainova

Performers:
Diana Vishneva and Konstantin Zverev

The Mariinsky Orchestra
Conductor: Gavriel Heine

On the stage, Lyudmila Kovaleva appeared as Princess Florine, the Queen of the Dryads, Myrtha and Syuimbike. Having ended her stage career at the Kirov Theatre she moved into teaching and for over thirty-five years has taught at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. As she once gifted the young Aurora tenderness and playfulness as the Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, so she does now in her class; Lyudmila Kovaleva gives her students the most important qualities needed for the profession – classical training, freedom to exist in stylistically different movements and, most importantly, through her dedication to art and her belief in her students she inspires them to love their work.
Today Kovaleva’s students appear at the world’s greatest ballet theatres. Many of them, having long since graduated from school and gone on to win world renown and star status, continue to come to Lyudmila Kovaleva for advice. Diana Vishneva was the first whose success made people speak of Lyudmila Kovaleva’s skill as a teacher. And over the past twenty years dazzling stars have frequently sparkled among Lyudmila Kovaleva’s students. Tonight they will appear on-stage at the Mariinsky Theatre and dance in honour of their teacher.
Olga Makarova