On 18 November at 19.00, the Mariinsky-II will host the first ballet premiere of the 2017-18 season – Pétrouchka with choreography by Vladimir Varnava. The performance will celebrate 135 years since the birth of Igor Stravinsky.
The roles are being rehearsed by Alexander Sergeyev and Vladimir Shklyarov (Pétrouchka), Yaroslav Baibordin, David Zaleyev and Vasily Tkachenko (Death of Pétrouchka), Tatiana Tkachenko and Zlata Yalinich (the Diva) and Roman Belyakov, Yevgeny Deryabin and Yuri Smekalov (the Strong Man).
"Before approaching Le Sacre du printemps, on which I had to work long and hard, I wanted to amuse myself with the composition of an orchestral piece in which the piano would play a dominant role. (...) When I was composing that music, before my very eyes I saw the image of a dancing puppet who suddenly snaps his chains, who with his cascades of devilish arpeggios makes the orchestra lose its patience, the orchestra in turn responding to him with threatening fanfares," Igor Stravinsky recalled about working on the ballet, which appeared on the composer's initiative. Bringing the idea to life involved the involvement of Alexandre Benois – he had to produce the libretto and design the ballet-to-be. And only once the score was complete did Michel Fokine begin creating the choreography for the now ready scene plan.
The world premiere of Pétrouchka took place in Paris as part of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets russes on 13 June 1911. In Russia the ballet was staged almost ten years later (in 1920), when Leonid Leontiev and Alexandre Benois revived the production "after Fokine". Later, such choreographers as Maurice Béjart, John Neumeier and Oleg Vinogradov set their sights on this vivid opus.
This new reading of Igor Stravinsky's ballet has been undertaken by one of the most popular young Russian choreographers – Vladimir Varnava. He first presented Pétrouchka at the close of the Diaghilev Festival in Perm in 2017. Speaking of the production, he said that "I really love Fokine's Pétrouchka. In my opinion, it's a brilliant ballet. For me, it was important to retain the thread of the ballet created in 1911, but at the same time not to repeat it: to borrow somethings, but to rethink them with regard to the present day, to find cultural codes and to draw out those threads to a modern audience." Also working with the choreographer on the 21st century Pétrouchka is the team who created Yaroslavna, which proved to be a true event of the previous theatre season: the Production Designer is Galya Solodovnikova, the Lighting Designer is Igor Fomin and the Librettist is Konstantin Fyodorov.
The evening of the premiere will also feature another key ballet for Igor Stravinsky – The Firebird with choreography by Michel Fokine. The lead roles will be performed by Ekaterina Kondaurova (the Firebird), Roman Belyakov (Ivan-Tsarevich), Olga Belik (the Princess of Great Beauty) and Vladimir Ponomarev (Kashchei the Immortal). Alexei Repnikov will be conducting.
The next performances of the ballet Pétrouchka will take place on 19 November (12.00) and 3 January (12.00 and 17.00).
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