The Mariinsky Theatre deeply regrets to announce that Sergei Vikharev, a ballet master and coach with the Mariinsky Theatre and an Honoured Artist of Russia, suddenly passed away on June 2 at the age of 55.
Sergei Vikharev graduated from the Leningrad Academic Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in 1980 (class of Vladilen Semyonov) and joined Leningrad’s Kirov Theatre of Opera and Ballet (now the Mariinsky Theatre) that same year. At the Mariinsky Theatre, Vikharev, a prize-winner of various international ballet competitions, performed the leading roles in the ballets La Sylphide (James), The Sleeping Beauty (Désiré), Chopiniana, Giselle (Albrecht), Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio) and others. He was the first performer of roles in Oleg Vinogradov’s ballets The Knight in the Tiger’s Skin (Tsarevich Kajei), The Battleship Potemkin (Batman) and Pétrouchka (Pétrouchka). Vikharev has also appeared in performances with Alla Sigalova’s Independent Dance Company, as well as in ballets by Boris Eifman, Alexander Polubentsev, and Vladimir Karelin.
Since 2007, Sergei Vikharev has been a ballet master and coach at the Mariinsky Theatre. From 1987 to 1988, he coached the Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre (now the Solovyanenko Theatre). From 1999 to 2006, Vikharev was Principal Ballet Master of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre.
At the Mariinsky Theatre, Sergei Vikharev has staged reconstructions of such ballets as The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Le Réveil de Flore, Le Carnaval, and Pétrouchka, as well as the dances in the opera A Life for the Tsar (directed by Dmitry Chernyakov).
He also staged the ballet Leda and the Swan to music by Gustav Mahler (1995, St Petersburg) and the ballet scenes from Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa (1997, Italy). Sergei Vikharev has created the productions of Michel Fokine’s ballets Chopiniana, Polovtsian Dances, and Le Carnaval at the Kulyash Baiseitova National Opera and Ballet Theatre (Astana, 2006) and at the Nihon Ballet Association/NBA Ballet (Tokyo, 2007). At the Bolshoi Theatre, Vikharev staged the revival of the Mariinsky Theatre’s 1894 production of Coppélia (choreography by Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti, 2009). At the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, he staged a production of Marius Petipa’s ballet Raymonda (2011).
The Mariinsky Theatre extends its deep condolences to the family and friends of Sergei Vikharev.
We are sorely diminished by his loss.
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