From 15 to 22 January the ballet company of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre will be on tour in St Petersburg for the seventh time. Despite the unstable epidemiological situation, the theatre management took the decision not to cancel this annual visit. The company has brought three productions to the Mariinsky Theatre and it opened its tour with the St Petersburg premiere of the ballet A Thousand and One Nights. In August 2020 this production by the Primorsky Stage became the first world premiere of a major story-ballet following the enforced interruption to activities on-stage. The second part of the tour includes Le Corsaire and The Sleeping Beauty.
The visit to St Petersburg by Oleg Nikolaevich Kozhemyako, Governor of the Primorsky Krai, also speaks volumes about the significance of the current tour; on 17 January he attended the final performance of A Thousand and One Nights. At the end of the evening, Oleg Kozhemyako congratulated the company on its success and expressed the hope that soon the Primorsky Stage might be able to perform this ballet not just in Russia but internationally as well. "I am tremendously grateful to the performers for their skill and responsiveness, and also for this magnificent production. They have shown a level of skill that St Petersburg audiences might not, perhaps, have been expecting. This is the result of the combined efforts of choreographer Eldar Aliev, designer Pyotr Okunev, the orchestra, the chorus and, of course, the ballet company. One may judge the success of the tour by the sell-out performances, lengthy applause and positive reviews that these performances have garnered," the governor stated when being interviewed.
Also on 17 January, a meeting was held between the Governor of the Primorsky Krai and Valery Gergiev. Oleg Kozhemyako and maestro Gergiev discussed development plans for the Primorsky Stage, including the construction of a museum and theatre education complex set to include the branch of the Mariinsky Theatre.
"During the pandemic we took a succession of difficult decisions, and one of them was to run the V Far East Festival Mariinsky in August 2020 featuring world-class stars including Elena Stikhina, Yulia Matochkina, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Sergei Skorokhodov, Vladislav Sulimsky, Yevgeny Nikitin and Ildar Abdrazakov. It was important for us that alongside these names there were also the names of new stars of the Primorsky Stage. Among the latter were Alyona Diyanova, Anastasia Kikot, Laura Bustamante, Tatiana Makarchuk, Mergen Sandanov, Yevgeny Plekhanov and Vyacheslav Vasiliev. The ballet performances by the Primorsky Stage simultaneously featured Mariinsky Theatre soloists Renata Shakirova, Yekaterina Chebykina and Roman Belyakov and Primorsky Stage soloists Anna Samostrelova, Irina Sapozhnikova, Liliya Berezhnova, Sergei Umanets and Kanat Nadyrbek," commented Valery Gergiev.
The maestro stressed that hosting the now-traditional tour by the Primorsky Stage at such a difficult and demanding time was an indicator of both the dynamic and the harmonious development of the company. "The St Petersburg visit by the company, now already 'one of our own' despite having had to travel so far, is an amazing phenomenon. The jewel of these performances has been, first and foremost, their new production of the ballet A Thousand and One Nights. Everything in it was a pleasure: the music by Fikret Amirov, the choreography by Eldar Aliev, the work by the dancers and Azerbaijani conductor Eyyub Guliyev, whom we will involve more frequently in our projects in the future. One particular element of the current tour was the eagerly anticipated visit by Oleg Nikolaevich Kozhemyako. We have discussed many important issues regarding the development of the Primorsky branch and the construction of a theatre education complex in Vladivostok. We managed to attend the premiere performance, at which we received genuine pleasure not just from the ballet but also from the reception it was given by St Petersburg audiences."
The Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre also shared the plans which pose serious tasks for the Primorsky Stage. "Ballet plans include the famed production of La Bayadère by Marius Petipa, revised version by Vladimir Ponomarev and Vakhtang Chabukiani, and Raymonda in addition to other classical and contemporary works. We also plan to expand the opera repertoire significantly. This may mean new productions as well as older ones transferred from the Mariinsky Theatre. Turandot and Die Fledermaus are just a couple of titles we aim to stage over the course of the 2020-21 season. Moreover, we are examining the possibility of bringing the ballet A Thousand and One Nights, created for the Primorsky Stage, to the Mariinsky Theatre's principal stage. This in itself says a great deal. The artistic links between St Petersburg and Vladivostok are becoming ever stronger. In the near future, we will increasingly see the finest performers and productions of the Primorsky Stage at the various Mariinsky Theatre venues and vice versa."
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