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| | Arts Calendar / July 20 / Ballet |
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19:00 | The Fountain of Bakhchisarai |
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 Ballet in three acts to music by Boris Asafiev. Mariinsky Theatre presents. Libretto by Nikolai Volkov based on the poem by Alexander Pushkin. Choreography by Rostislav Zakharov (1934). Set and costume design: Valentina Khodasevich. The "star hour" of the drama ballet was heralded by the appearance in 1934 at the Leningrad Theatre, then not yet known as the Kirov, of the ballet The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. In it the desire to combine choreography with the themes of high literature and the defence of new Soviet art for the sake of realisticity crystalised the new direction of ballet's development. The Fountain of Bakhchisarai emerged in an atmosphere of creative discussions of the progressive cultural elite of Leningrad: Boris Asafiev, professor of the conservatory, an authoratitave composer and music historian, stage director Sergei Radlov who defined the theatre's artistic policy at the time, conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky, designer Valentina Khodasevich, librettist Niklai Volkov and the critic Ivan Sollertinsky. The twenty-seven-year-old choreographer Rostislav Zakharov found himself at the epicentre of artistic and theatre life. He, as a debutant in grand ballet and as a graduate of the stage-directing faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Stage Arts who had recommended himself with his productions of dances in operas and plastique in productions at Radlov's Youth Theatre, was invited to stage the choreography of the new ballet.
Bolshoi Theater New Stage  |
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