PERM OPERA BALLET Principal Dancers Polina buldakova and Nikita Chetverikov. FOUR SEASONS
Photo by Vladimir Lupovkoy for RUS ART
ROBBINS ROMANTIQUE AUX ÉTÉS DE LA DANSE
Le 2 juillet 2018 par Caroline Bocquet
Danse , La Scène, Spectacles Danse
Les amoureux de Chopin seront comblés : ce second programme d’hommage concocté par Les Étés de la danse présente In The Night et Other Dances chorégraphiées par Robbins sur la musique de Chopin. Les quatre pièces du programme tissent un univers onirique et donnent à voir une autre facette de Jerome Robbins, plus classique, lyrique et romantique.
Pour cette soirée, trois compagnies de renom – le Miami City Ballet, le Pacific Northwest Ballet et le Perm Opera Ballet – se partagent l’affiche, dans ce programme composé de In the Night, Opus 19/The Dreamer, Other Dances et The Four Seasons.
Enfin, la soirée s’achève sur une note russe, incarnée par le Perm Opera Ballet qui interprète The Four Seasons. Le choix de cette compagnie est judicieux pour interpréter cette pièce classique, plus légère que les précédentes. Divertissement joyeux et plaisant, The Four Seasons, créé en 1979 sur la musique de Verdi, est une succession de quatre tableaux où chacune des saisons danse sous l’oeil du dieu Janus. L’hiver, les danseuses frissonnent au souffle du vent du Nord. Puis le printemps, vert tendre et délicat, apporte une brise légère ; l’été, aux couleurs rouges, est chargé de sensualité, l’automne, de malice avec le faune bondissant. Le ballet donne lieu à de magnifiques variations de solistes.
PERM OPERA BALLET, “Variation on a Rococo theme”
Photo by Anton Zaviyalov
Come See the Stars Shine: The Stars of the Russian Ballet.
Posted on April 20, 2016. Written by Angela Beaupre
Ah, the ballet: beautiful movement on stage, gorgeous costumes, glorious music. The French invented it, but the Russians perfected and honed it into jewels on stage. Montreal will be lucky enough to host the 3rd edition of Stars of the Russian Ballet at Theatre Outrement this coming Friday April 22. Their producer, Anastasia Kovalenko, was kind enough to answer a few questions for us.
“Ah, the ballet: beautiful movement on stage, gorgeous costumes, glorious music. The French invented it, but the Russians perfected and honed it into jewels on stage. Montreal will be lucky enough to host the 3rd edition of Stars of the Russian Ballet at Theatre Outrement this coming Friday April 22. Their producer, Anastasia Kovalenko, was kind enough to answer a few questions for us.”
Angela Beaupre (AB): This is the 3rd Edition of The Stars of the Russian Ballet here in Montreal. What makes you continue to come back?
Anastasia Kovalenko (AK): The true love and proudness for Russian ballet. We preserve and develop our national art: classical ballet. This is our national treasure! Thanks to the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec for his support and to Théâtre Outremont for the long term collaboration, that allows us to offer a new edition, a very special program for our public.
Alexanra Timofeeva and Mihkail Martinyuk, Ballet Stars and Principal Dancers of the Kremlin Ballet. Stars of Russian Ballet Gala in Montreal.
Stars of the Russian Ballet take steps off the classical path
Lineup takes a few bourrée steps off the well-beaten classical path
VICTOR SWOBODA, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE
Updated: January 29, 2015
A dance city like Montreal deserves to see not only hot contemporary stuff, but also a regular dose of good old-fashioned classical ballet, so the return of ballet stars from leading Russian companies next week is welcome, indeed. The Stars of the Russian Ballet will perform duets and solos at Théâtre Outremont on two nights, doubling the one-night stand that the same producer, RusArt, presented there last year.
All of the performers last year gave good accounts of the usual ballet suspects — Raymonda, Don Quixote, Giselle et al. Perhaps the evening was best summed up by the veteran Yulia Makhalina, whose stage presence and refined, efficient movement revealed the know-how that you acquire after a quarter-century as a star of St. Petersburg’s fabled Mariinsky Ballet.
Although this year’s lineup is still heavily classical in style, it does manage to take a few bourrée steps off the well-beaten classical path. Yes, there will be familiar signposts like La Bayadère, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Esmeralda and Don Quixote, but there are also markers from more recent times.
Julia Makhalina, Ballet Star and Principal Dancer if the Mariisky Theatre, Saint Petersbourg, at Les Étoiles du Ballet Russe in Montreal
Photo by Damian Siqueiros for RUS ART
PERFORMANCE A SHOW OF FORCE, IN CLASSIC STYLE
Tradition reigns at Gala des Étoiles du ballet russe
By Victor Swoboda, Special to the Gazette, January 10, 2014
MONTREAL — Montreal dance fans who are still lamenting the demise of the Gala des Étoiles a few years ago might find solace in a star-filled performance next Friday. Called the Gala des Étoiles du ballet russe, the show features 10 leading soloists trained in the bravura Russian school of classical dance. Their home companies in Russia and Ukraine include storied names like the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky.
Unlike the Gala des Étoiles, this event has no black-tie dinner-dance and the venue is Outremont Theatre rather than Place des Arts; the program nonetheless hearkens to the 19th-century warhorses that made up much of the bills in the early years of the Gala des Étoiles: Sleeping Beauty, Raymonda, Giselle, La Bayadère and Swan Lake all get their due.
Indeed, performing the Act II adagio from Swan Lake will be Yulia Makhalina, who danced here in 1988 in the third Gala des Étoiles (called Don des Étoiles back then). At the time, she was a 20-year-old member of the Mariinsky Ballet, better known in the West as the Kirov. Makhalina quickly became one of the company’s brightest lights, dancing all of the main classical ballet roles. Now the doyenne of the Mariinsky’s roster of stellar ballerina principals, she is among the distinguished group to be awarded the Benois de la danse prize (other female recipients include her Mariinsky colleagues Diana Vishneva and Ulyana Lopatkina).
“She and I were talking about which roles she would perform,” said Anastasia Kovalenko, a former Bolshoi Ballet dancer and now producer at RUS ART, the presenter of the Gala, which is supported by a program of Russia’s Cultural Ministry that promotes Russian arts abroad. ―The White Swan adagio suits her very well. From Swan Lake, she’ll also perform the Russian dance, a solo that’s associated with such great ballerinas of the past as Anna Pavlova and Mathilde Kschessinska. She’ll wear the Russian headdress called the kokoshnik. It’s a number in the pre-revolutionary spirit of Tsarist Russia.”