World premiere: 20 April 1967, Bolsoi Theatre, Moscow
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre: 19 April 2010
Running time: 45 minutes
Carmen is a passionate, free-spirited woman in contrast to the temperamental and fickle Don José. Fate, a ballerina dressed in black and a representation of Carmen’s alter ego, shows Carmen the cards. After a fight with tobacco dealers, Carmen seduces Don José and convinces him to release her from jail. Carmen is subsequently caught in a love triangle between Don José and the popular bullfighter Escamillo.
The star of the ballerina
Olga Nikolaevna Moiseyeva rose impetuously in Leningrad ballet. At her graduation performance from the Leningrad School of Dance in 1947, as a pupil of Agrippina Vaganova, she danced the demanding scene of
The Shadows from
La Bayadère, when ballet connoisseur Yuri Slonimsky saw her potential as a prima. Noted by critics, “her spirituality and the poetic nature of her movements, mind and grace” were in great demand onstage. As a dancer with the Kirov Ballet Moiseyeva quickly won solo roles, demonstrating her dazzling technique in the finest traditions of the Leningrad school. In classical productions Moiseyeva underlined the dramatic content of her roles: her perfectly conceived Odette-Odile in
Swan Lake, Nikia in
La Bayadère appeared very contemporary and convincing. Her concept of dramatically vivid dance helped the ballerina create the image of Mekhmeneh-Bahnu in Yuri Grigorovich’s
The Legend of Love. One of Moiseyeva’s great masterpieces was her performance in Leonid Yakobson’s miniature
Mother. The dance imagery of the pain at losing a child and the despair that draws the heroine back to her memories again and again stunned audiences. In
Spartacus, another ballet by Yakobson, Moiseyeva’s performance of deep tragedy ceded to the obsessive dance of the perfidious Aegina. Moiseyeva’s heroines were unparalleled by her contemporaries. Olga Moiseyeva achieved the same results from her pupils when she became a coach at the theatre. As a coach, Moiseyeva’s star also rose impetuously. While still a dancer she began to teach roles with younger dancers. The results were not long in coming. Galina Mezentseva, one of Olga Moiseyeva’s first pupils, became a world-class star. She later worked with Altynai Asylmuratova, Yulia Makhalina, Irma Nioradze, Irina Zhelonkina, Svetlana Zakharova, Tatiana Amosova and Olesya Novikova. Many renowned dancers of the Kirov-Mariinsky Ballet and other renowned theatres throughout the world have won acclaim with Olga Moiseyeva’s advice: “Never repeat what someone else has done, look for your own interpretation,” Moiseyeva tells her pupils, which offers an explanation as to why they are so diverse. The dazzling star of Olga Moiseyeva as a ballerina and as a teacher has aided them all in discovering their own personas.
