The XVII annual international ballet festival will run at the Mariinsky Theatre from 30 March to 9 April 2017.
In line with tradition the opening will see a premiere – Édouard Deldevez' Paquita with additional musical numbers by Ludwig Minkus and Riccardo Drigo. Yuri Smekalov is working on the new production, while Marius Petipa's choreography of the Grand pas is being reconstructed by Yuri Burlaka. The St Petersburg premiere of the ballet Paquita in 1847 (a transfer of the Paris production at the Bolshoi (Stone) Theatre was Marius Petipa's first work as a choreographer in Russia. Having undergone several revivals, which saw the addition of individual dance numbers, the ballet remained on the playbill for a long time. In the Soviet period the full version of the ballet vanished from the repertoire – only the bravura Grand pas was retained, to this day remaining a "jewel in the crown" of ballet evenings.
The first performances will take place at the historic Mariinsky Theatre on 30 and 31 March and 6 April.
For the fifth year in a row the festival will present works by the Creative Workshop of Young Choreographers. As part of the workshop, ballet impresario Sergei Danilian came up with the initiative for running the project Dreamers – beloved by St Petersburg audiences, the talented choreographers Vladimir Varnava, Ilya Zhivoi and Maxim Petrov will present a co-production to music by the French group Daft Punk. The costumes, in a first collaboration with the Mariinsky Theatre, are being created by the famous Russian designer Igor Chapurin.
The cast of the workshop's participants will be supplemented by American choreographer Garrett Smith, Brazilian dancer Guilherme Maciel and Olga Vasilieva, winner of the young choreographers' competition as part of the festival Context. Diana Vishneva (2016). Maxim Petrov will also present his second work Incantations set to music by Alexander Rabinovich-Barakovsky (4 April, Mariinsky II).
Once again the festival will host the Perm Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre. The guest company will be performing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, staged by Alexei Miroshnichenko (5 April, Mariinsky Theatre).
The festival's playbill will feature Mariinsky Theatre repertoire productions with guest dancers from the Bolshoi Theatre and the Dutch National Ballet – Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev with choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky (1 April, Mariinsky II), La Bayadère by Ludwig Minkus staged by Marius Petipa and revised by Vladimir Ponomarev and Vakhtang Chabukiani with individual dances by Konstantin Sergeyev and Nikolai Zubkovsky (2 April, Mariinsky Theatre), Don Quixote by Ludwig Minkus with choreography by Alexander Gorsky after motifs of the production by Marius Petipa (7 April, Mariinsky Theatre) and Jewels by George Balanchine to music by Gabriel Fauré, Igor Stravinsky and Pyotr Tchaikovsky (8 April, Mariinsky II).
On 9 April the XVII International Ballet Festival Mariinsky will conclude with a Gala Concert, as part of which the company will present Anton Pimonov's new work, as well as a classical Divertissement featuring lead Mariinsky Theatre dancers and guest stars (Mariinsky II).
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