Debuts in The Little Humpbacked Horse

Scene from the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse

The score of the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse was composed by the young Rodion Shchedrin, then still a student at the Moscow Conservatoire. It is filled with humour, mischief, tomfoolery and elements of folk art and it has inspired many musicians and choreographers with its joie de vivre. Everyone can discover something for themselves in it. The creator of the first choreographic version of The Little Humpbacked Horse at the Bolshoi Theatre (1960), Alexander Radunsky heard a traditional ballet fairytale in it with ballerina princesses, little-dancing tsars and the typical divertissements that fill a ballet with dance. Igor Belsky, who staged his own Humpbacked Horse at the Maly Opera Theatre in 1963, heard sharp satire in the music. This was reflected, first and foremost, in the image of the Tsar – and it also corresponded with the literary source (the fairytale by Pyotr Yershov) as well as with the ideological mood of the time the score was written. In Belsky’s ballet the Tsar clearly reminded audiences of Nikita Khrushchev with his gestures. In Alexei Ratmansky’s version, staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in 2009, the Tsar is an amusing and grotesquely represented duffer, an anecdotal character wearing a hat shaped like the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower. In this comic role, which some of his colleagues have already performed to great acclaim, Dmitry Pykhachov will have to employ his skills as an actor.

The fleet-footed and nimble Humpbacked Horse is one of the key characters in the ballet, appearing throughout the performance and bringing together all the other characters. In Ratmansky’s production this role requires high leaps, clear definition and precision of the frozen movements from the performers. It is an ideal role for Vladislav Shumakov, a technically confident dancer who is responsive in terms of acting skills.

In contrast to the enchanting little Humpbacked Horse, the Horses presented to Ivan are stalwart and noble. “Beautiful horses. Great and strong horses,” the libretto reads, and – with his innate sense of irony – Alexei Ratmansky presents them as clumsy parodies. Trofim Malanov will be performing the role of one of the Horses with his trademark humour.