fri 29/03/2024

Mariinsky

Tchaikovsky Competition Winners Tour

For a few very lucky competition winners there is a shopping trip where they are paraded around the world. A terrific opportunity, though a horrible experience, probably. Most competition winners have only a new line in their CV to stare at after...

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Best of 2014: Dance & Ballet

You usually know a good piece or performance when you see one, but sometimes you only identify a great one as such significantly after the fact. What better way to test a work's durability, then, than by seeing what remains of it in the memory after...

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Levsha, Mariinsky Opera, Barbican Hall

Of course unavoidable circumstances do strike, and concerts do get delayed, but it’s astonishing just how often those circumstances seem to conspire against Valery Gergiev. Last night’s UK premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s opera Levsha – the second...

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Betrothal in a Monastery, Maryinsky Opera, Cardiff

It’s one of the ironies of life and art that Prokofiev’s tenderest and most romantic opera was composed at a time when he was abandoning his wife in favour of a Moscow literature student half his age. Betrothal in a Monastery is a setting...

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Les Troyens, Mariinsky Opera, Gergiev, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Festival reserved its biggest operatic event for last. From St Petersburg, the Mariinsky Opera brought a production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens that could truly be described as epic: a stellar cast, a vast trompe d’oeil set, and an...

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Cinderella, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

It sure feels like longer than three weeks since the Mariinsky rolled into town – at least if you’re one of London’s ballet fans. Non-balletomanes might be wondering whether the feverish intensity with which the company’s doings are followed, its...

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Firebird/ Marguerite and Armand/ Concerto DSCH, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

This was the most eagerly anticipated programme of the Mariinsky visit - something old, something borrowed and something new. The old, that colourful fairytale of Stravinsky’s lush, melodious youth, The Firebird; the new, a recent acquisition by the...

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Apollo/ A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

The ballerina claque wars that generally accompany visits here by the Mariinsky Ballet are raging particularly feverishly this year, but it all falls silent when Uliana Lopatkina makes one of her increasingly rare appearances. So much noise is...

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Swan Lake, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

For a dance company, the always delicate balance between preserving your heritage and creating an exciting future becomes especially hard to negotiate when you are the most venerable institution in your field. The Mariinsky Ballet, now on tour in...

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Romeo and Juliet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

One of the reasons I always tell ballet sceptics to give Romeo and Juliet a go is that any production with halfway decent lovers and a vaguely competent rendition of Prokofiev’s score should convince them that this art form isn’t just about swans...

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La Bayadère, Mariinsky Ballet, Live Cinema Broadcast

La Bayadère is one of the ballets I recommend to people who have never seen ballet before. It has high drama, exquisite tragedy, fabulous costumes, one of the best "white" acts going, and it almost passes the Bechdel test. Sitting in a mostly empty...

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The Nutcracker 3D, Mariinsky Ballet/ The Nutcracker, English National Ballet, London Coliseum

The seasonal Nuts-fest continues (and culminates) with another two to add to the roast – live: English National Ballet’s recent production, and digital: the Mariinsky Theatre’s 3D film version. To the cinema we go. This is the first 3D Nutcracker...

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