Landgraf on Dance

12. September 2026

Focused

“Anna Karenina”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia
September 05, 2026 (evening performance)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Over the past twenty years, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has become increasingly popular among choreographers. In 2011, the Mariinsky Ballet toured Alexei Ratmansky’s 2004 adaptation to Baden-Baden. It told the story in retrospect, beginning with the heroine’s suicide, and it revolved primarily around her. I only remember Anna’s red dress, trains, and a lot of steam. Christian Spuck’s 2014 version for Zurich Ballet tried to retell the story in jam-packed, hectically changing scenes while wasting time on insignificant aspects. In John Neumeier’s 2017 ballet, Vronsky was a fancy lacrosse player, and the story was infused with sentimentality (I well remember its bare-chested Levin with a cowboy hat, sitting on a stack of straw next to an old farm tractor with his arms enthusiastically stretched toward a full moon and accompanied by Cat Stevens’s Moonshadow).
I don’t know Boris Eifman’s 2005 Anna Karenina and haven’t yet seen Maxim Petrov’s new version for the Bolshoi Ballet, which is set to Rodion Shchedrin’s 1972 score. Yuri Possokhov’s 2019 co-production for the Joffrey Ballet and the Australian Ballet was fabulous. Ilya Demutsky tailor-made the score, and the Stanislavsky Ballet’s artistic director, Maxim Sevagin, used it for his July premiere of Anna Karenina.

Demutsky and Sevagin rearranged the colorful cinematic composition’s numbers to fit Andrei Zolotarev’s new libretto. To judge in which Anna Karenina (Possokhov’s or Sevagin’s) score and libretto match better, I’d have to re-watch Possokhov’s ballet. In any case, the new musical arrangement sounded apt. Mezzo-soprano singing (by Larisa Andreeva) no longer forebodes an old station guard’s imminent death (this scene does not exist in Sevagin’s piece), for example. However, as Voice of Fate, it intensifies Anna’s desperation after being rejected by Vronsky. The noise that literally catapults them both apart sounds like the Big Bang. Andreeva also plays both Anna’s double at the theater, where society openly shuns her, and Levin’s old nurse, Agafya Mikhailovna, praising the country life. Her tender singing lulls Kitty’s and Levin’s son, Mitja (Augustin Dmitriev), into a slumber.

Sevagin focused on the protagonists’ relationships, especially the contrast between Anna’s and Vronsky’s destructive passion and Kitty’s and Levin’s spiritually balanced family happiness. The latter couldn’t be harmed when Anna, isolated and utterly despairing, threw herself at Levin. Sometimes the stage was parted to juxtapose country life with the city’s high society. Subtly, country life always looked the better choice. It seemed more sincere, warm, and genuine.

Vladimir Arefiev’s minimalist set design includes black backdrops and legs that obscure anything unnecessary, but after Anna (Erika Mikirticheva) is humiliated by her husband, Karenin (Georgi Smilevski), and the household staff shows her the door, the set also resembles a suffocating box with no escape. Vertical openings in the backdrop serve as doors or, when lit, indicate the setting or atmosphere. Their color turns late-summer yellow to allude to the countryside or rose when Kitty (Anastasia Limenko) and Levin (Evgeny Zhukov) finally come together.

Rollable set elements (for example, the bed in which Anna gives birth, Kitty’s boudoir, and Karenin’s stuffy bureau) allow for smooth scene changes. The stately chandelier carried onstage and slowly lifted illuminates the ball where Kitty is horrified by the burgeoning romance between Anna and Vronsky (Denis Dmitriev). It is later replaced by a huge lantern under which Vronsky and Anna meet. For those unfamiliar with the novel, this lantern stands for the platform where they meet. In any case, the dissonant sub-layers that disturb the music’s harmony bode ill for their romance. The same lantern later crashes and shatters, its extinguishing light symbolizing Anna’s suicide.

Unlike Zurich’s Anna Karenina, which didn’t have costumes to identify the protagonists, Irina Serova’s designs characterize them well without stealing the show. Karenin’s jacket is as buttoned-up as he is. Stricken by financial worries, Dolly (Daria Yurchenko) wears a plain, blue-grayish dress reminiscent of a housemaid and puts on a better dress only at special occasions. Levin isn’t masquerading as a cowboy, but in his leather jacket with sheepskin trimming and fur cap, he looks like a down-to-earth Russian peasant. For lack of a decent shirt, he arrives late to his wedding, leaving his bride exposed to the wedding party’s ironic comments.

Except for one scene in which white video rectangles flash like a picture gallery of Anna’s memories, Sevagin uses no video and instead condenses as much as possible in the choreography. At the horse race, for example, the crowd of spectators surges left and right, their necks craned, until Vronsky suddenly lies contorted on the racetrack’s wooden fence. In the first scene at the Oblonskys’ house, Stiva (Arthur Mkrtchan) is having a hot tête-à-tête with his children’s governess (Yekaterina Yanovskaya) when Anna arrives. She walks past Dolly, who stares at the scene, her four children standing like a protective shield in front of her. By simply laying her hand on her brother’s shoulder, Anna brings him to his knees, begging Dolly for forgiveness. Although Dolly gives in, their marriage remains fissured.

Wicker rocking chairs signify the German spa where Kitty recovers from her lost love and matures, thanks to her new friend Varenka (Anastasia Malyarova). Afterward, she readily accepts Levin’s advances. Again, clever choreography makes their encounter easy; fouetées and chassés carry Kitty from the spa on the stage’s right side toward the left, while à la seconde turns carry Levin from the countryside on the left side of the stage toward her. They fall in love at the center.

With fifteen scenes in total, Sevagin’s Anna Karenina has two more scenes than Possokhov’s (prologues and the epilogue included) but never feels rushed. Sevagin’s knack for efficiently conveying content gives him the freedom to present extended pas de deux and Kitty’s and Levin’s solemn wedding at length. It fells like the ballet’s core due to its spirituality. That Anna chose passion instead isn’t denounced. She condemns the two men who ruined her life—Karenin and Vronsky—while pushing them out of her mind. The darkness they fell into resembled an abyss.

Links:		Website of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
		Anna Karenina, Channel One
Photos:	1.	Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina) and Denis Dmitriev (Count Vronsky), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Karina Zhitkova
	2.	Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Karina Zhitkova
	3.	Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina) and Denis Dmitriev (Count Vronsky), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Karina Zhitkova
	4.	Denis Dmitriev (Count Vronsky), Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina), Georgi Smilevski (Alexei Karenin), and Saveli Peschetov (Seryozha); “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Karina Zhitkova
	5.	Arthur Mkrtchan (Stiva Oblonsky) and Daria Yurchenko (Dolly Oblonskaya), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Alexander Filkin
	6.	Georgi Smilevski (Alexei Karenin) and Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Karina Zhitkova
	7.	Georgi Smilevski (Alexei Karenin) and Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Alexander Filkin
	8.	Georgi Smilevski (Alexei Karenin), Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina), and Denis Dmitriev (Count Vronsky), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Karina Zhitkova
	9.	Denis Dmitriev (Count Vronsky) and Erika Mikirticheva (Anna Karenina), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Alexander Filkin
	10.	Anastasia Limenko (Kitty Shcherbatskaya) and Evgeny Zhukov (Kostya Levin), “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Alexander Filkin
	11.	Larisa Andreeva (Agafya Mikhailovna), Augustin Dmitriev (Mitja), Anastasia Limenko (Kitty Shcherbatskaya), and Evgeny Zhukov (Kostya Levin); “Anna Karenina” by Maxim Sevagin, Stanislavsky Ballet 2026 © MAMT/Alexander Filkin
Editing:		Kayla Kauffman

9. September 202612. September 2026

First Time

“Cinderella”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre
Moscow, Russia
September 05, 2026 (Historic Stage)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Of the two Cinderellas that premiered last May on major Russian stages in celebration of Sergei Prokofiev’s 135th birthday anniversary, I saw Nadezha Kalinina’s version for the Kazan Ballet a few weeks later on video. With some delay, I got to know Vyacheslav Lopatin’s Cinderella for the Bolshoi Ballet last Saturday during the new season’s opening matinee. Lopatin, principal of the company and fledgling ballet master, had never choreographed before. Giving his debut with no less than a full-blown production was due to the artistic director’s, Makhar Vaziev’s, encouragement and support. The outcome isn’t (and realistically couldn’t be) mind-boggling, but it is respectable.

Continue reading “First Time”

12. August 20269. September 2026

Torn Between Two

“Elláda” (“Minotaur”/“Leda and the Swans”)
MuzArts
Maly Theatre
Moscow, Russia
June 15 and 22, 2026 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

In mid-June, Moscow’s production company MuzArts premiered the double bill Elláda at the Maly Theatre. Moscow’s local press called MuzArts’ director, Yuri Baranov, “Russia’s current top ballet producer with an excellent grasp on the global ballet scene who knows how to create ideas, discover and recruit talent, and attract sponsors,”—in short, a Diaghilev 2.0. So I was glad that MuzArts’ executive producer, Daria Faezova, sent video recordings of both performances. If a company is in the vanguard of a dance scene as vibrant as Russia’s, you won’t want to miss their productions. Continue reading “Torn Between Two”

4. August 202612. August 2026

Squandered

“Scirocco” (“Death in Venice”/“Bridge of Sighs”)
WINNDance
Teatro Malibran
Venice, Italy
August 01, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

“When if not now” (WINN) is the attitude of movers and shakers. Earlier this year, two such movers and shakers, Slava Tutukin (former soloist of the Mikhailovsky Ballet, St. Petersburg, and the Aalto Ballet, Essen) and Marijn Rademaker (choreographer and ex-principal of Stuttgart Ballet and Dutch National Ballet) founded WINNDance, a Stuttgart-based dance company for dancers forty years old and older. It attracted renowned names: People’s Artist of Russia, Diana Vishneva; the late Hans van Manen’s muse, Igone de Jongh; Hamburg Ballet’s Ivan Urban, Silvia Azzoni, and Oleksandr Ryabko; the Royal Ballet’s former principal, Mara Galeazzi; and Polina Semionova (who didn’t perform in Venice). The new enterprise includes an educational platform (WINN&Learn) and an exploratory platform for collaboration with different industries (WINNLab). Continue reading “Squandered”

29. July 20264. August 2026

A Ballet Onion

“Ma Bayadère”
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
July 24, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

The pronoun Ma in Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo’s 2025 Ma Bayadère is a clever modification. It allows the ballet’s creator, artistic director Jean-Christophe Maillot, to twist and mock Petipa’s La Bayadère with impunity while also advertising his brand. Ma Bayadère is like an onion of correlating layers. Like previous productions by Maillot, it reinterprets ballet history. Last weekend, the audience of the annual Ludwigsburg Festival had the opportunity to watch the German premiere of Ma Bayadère at the Ludwigsburg Forum.

Maillot transforms Petipa’s Indian Rajah from a palace ruler to a company’s choreographer who dances the role of the Rajah in his own La Bayadère. Niki, Gamza, and Solo are dancers of his company and prepare for the roles of the temple dancer, Nikiya, the Rajah’s daughter, Gamzatti, and the warrior, Solor, respectively. Continue reading “A Ballet Onion”

15. July 202629. July 2026

A Swansong and a Phoenix’s Rise from the Ashes

“Curtain Call”
Leonid Yacobson Ballet
Alexandrinsky Theatre
St. Petersburg, Russia
June 01, 2026 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Few ballets have been so ingenious and gripping that I stopped taking notes so as not to miss a single moment. Vyacheslav Samodurov’s new choreography, Curtain Call, for the Leonid Yacobson Ballet, St. Petersburg, was one of them. Luckily, I received a video that I could replay.
The one-act piece premiered in early June as part of a triple bill alongside a new creation by Igor Bulytsyn’s (Bruch. Suite) and Samodurov’s 2024 award-winning 598 Beats. In mid-July, the company assembled all three pieces Samodurov has created for them so far (including the 2022 Cheeky Chastushki) in a new triple bill.

Continue reading “A Swansong and a Phoenix’s Rise from the Ashes”

10. July 202615. July 2026

Stellar

XV International Ballet Competition—Laureates’ Gala
Bolshoi Theatre
Moscow, Russia
July 05, 2026 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

After three rounds of competition in ten days, the XV International Ballet Competition’s jury awarded medals, certificates, and diplomas to 50 of 131 contestants. Due to the high standards, discussions to determine the laureates continued late into the night after the final round. A laureates’ gala concert concluded the competition.

Of the seven gold medals, three were awarded to competitors from the USA and the Republic of Korea and one to a Japanese dancer. Russian dancers received seventeen prizes, Chinese six, and Mongolians four. Western Europe wasn’t represented, and only a few dancers from Central Europe scored: the Swede Auguste Marmus (bronze medal men, duet), coryphée and, as of late, Kammertänzer of the Hungarian National Ballet, the Serb Jana Zimonjic (bronze medal women, solo), and the Slovene Vid Vogrin (silver medal boys, duet). What mattered, though, wasn’t nationality but talent. Continue reading “Stellar”

4. July 202610. July 2026

“It is necessary to notice talent and to help it.”

XV International Ballet Competition
Bolshoi Theatre
Moscow, Russia
June 25–July 05, 2026 (live streams)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Last week, the International Ballet Competition kicked off in Moscow for the fifteenth time since its foundation in 1969. This year, it is dedicated to Yuri Grigorovich (1927–2025), the competition’s artistic director and permanent chairman of the jury for more than half a century. His Legend of Love, performed by the Mariinsky Ballet, opened the competition.

Held every four years, the International Ballet Competition is compared to an Olympic contest in which participation is an honor. This year, a record 362 dancers from thirty-five countries applied, of whom 131 were invited to Moscow. They compete in two age categories—the junior group, ages 15-19 years, and the senior group, ages 20-27 years (many of whom are leading members of a company)—each divided into solo performances and duets. Laureates will emerge from Continue reading ““It is necessary to notice talent and to help it.””

24. June 20264. July 2026

Ambitious but Not Gripping

“Wonderland” (“Alice in Wonderland”/“Through the Looking-Glass”)
Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
June 20, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Compared to Alexei Ratmansky’s recent choreography, Callirhoe, for the Vienna State Ballet, his new creation, Wonderland, for the Hamburg Ballet feels empty. It combines two dance adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s most notable novels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871), each of which is presented in a one-hour act.

No doubt, the production is ambitious and elaborate. Ratmansky and his son, Vasyl, assembled different music for each of the no fewer than twenty-eight scenes, which Philip Feeney merged into a score. Erik Satie’s Three Gnossiennes, no.3, for example, lulls Alice (Olivia Betteridge) into her dream journey down the rabbit hole. Percy Grainger’s Molly on the Shore (amended by a cock-crow) gives the cackling animals at the Caucus race—among them a crab, mouse, dodo, and eaglet—a voice, Continue reading “Ambitious but Not Gripping”

5. June 202624. June 2026

Well on the Way

“Matinee Ballet Academy”
Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
May 31, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Excitement permeated the Vienna State Opera as its auditorium filled for the Ballet Academy’s end-of-the-year performance last Sunday. One could feel the jitters of both the young artists and their families and friends who flocked to the performance. Their worries were unfounded; everything went as smoothly as could be wished.

Music by the Strauss family accompanied the opening Presentation, which assembled students of the 1.- 8. class. Its compilation of polkas, marches, gallops, and ball dances choreographed by the Academy’s director, Continue reading “Well on the Way”

4. June 20268. June 2026

Enlightening

“American Signatures”
Vienna State Ballet & Volksoper Wien
Volksoper Wien
Vienna, Austria
May 30, 2026

Of the four American choreographers included in the Vienna State Ballet’s mixed bill, American Signatures, only Jerome Robbins is well known in mainland Europe. Works by Pam Tanowitz, Lar Lubovitch, and Jessica Lang are rarely staged. Hence, I was glad to see this season’s last performance.

Robbin’s Interplay premiered in autumn 1945, shortly after World War II, as the second choreography in his oeuvre. Absolutely nothing in the piece hints at war. Instead, its eight dancers (four women and four men) portray unburdened, fun-loving youth with contagious optimism and self-assurance. A backdrop as gloriously blue as a summer sky intensifies the bright colors of the men’s shirts (with which they wear black, skintight pants and white socks) and the girls’ short dresses. Of course, they wear ponytails. The American way of living that they represent reminds me of Continue reading “Enlightening”

1. June 20269. September 2026

Cosmic Plans

“Cinderella”
Tartar State Academic Ballet
Jalil Opera and Ballet Tartar State Academic Theatre
Kazan, Russia
May 11, 2026 (video)

Romeo and Juliet is inextricably linked to Sergei Prokofiev’s (1891-1953) music, but it’s less well known that he also composed the score for Cinderella. The ballet was the Bolshoi Theatre’s first post-war world premiere in 1945. One year later, a lighter, more fairy tale-like version premiered at the Kirov Theatre (now Mariinsky Theatre) in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). This year, Prokofiev would have celebrated his 135th birthday, and two new Cinderellas seem like respectable gifts. In mid-May, Nadezhda Kalinina’s version opened the 39th Rudolf Nureyev International Classical Ballet Festival in Kazan. Vyacheslav Lopatin’s debut choreography for his home company, the Bolshoi Ballet, followed closely on May 28th. I had the opportunity to watch a recording of Kazan’s Cinderella. Continue reading “Cosmic Plans”

30. April 20261. June 2026

Congratulations

“Giselle”
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
April 26, 2026 (live stream)

The Vienna State Ballet’s recent live stream of Giselle was one of those precious events where everything is perfect. Choreographed for Vienna in 1993 by Elena Tchernichova, the piece is the company’s “calling card.” Additionally, perhaps due to the new artistic director, Alessandra Ferri, who passed on her experience studying with Tchernichova herself, the dancers performed especially well. “Elena Tchernichova was the person who first taught me the role of Giselle when I was just twenty-one, dancing with American Ballet Theatre alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov,” Ferri revealed. Continue reading “Congratulations”

29. April 202630. April 2026

Retrospection

“Tribute to Tetley”
Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart State Opera
Stuttgart, Germany
April 25, 2026

In 1972, no one foresaw how fateful Glen Tetley’s (1926-2007) invitation to stage his 1965 piece, The Mythical Hunter, for Stuttgart’s junior company would be. He and the artistic director, John Cranko, got along, and Tetley was commissioned to create a new ballet for the main company. It was June 1973, and Voluntaries wasn’t yet finished when news of Cranko’s sudden death on a transatlantic flight reached Stuttgart. At the request of Marcia Haydée and Cranko’s heir, the late Dieter Graefe, Tetley subsequently took over as the company’s artistic director. But administrative work burdened him. After two seasons, he passed the reins to Haydée, relieved to renew his focus on choreography. Yet fate had something else in store. In 1986, just as Tetley agreed to become Erik Bruhn’s artistic associate at the National Ballet of Canada, Bruhn died. Tetley kept his word, took up the post, and stayed for five years. Continue reading “Retrospection”

24. April 202629. April 2026

Growing From Solid Roots

“Miniatures”
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo
Salle Garnier Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Monte-Carlo, Monaco
April 18, 2026

Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo’s recent premiere, Miniatures, takes up the 2004 project of the same title. Back then, Bruno Mantovani, artistic director of the festival Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo and director of the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, challenged Le Ballets de Monte-Carlo’s artistic director, Jean-Christophe Maillot, with seven contemporary compositions. Each of them represented another mindscape; none was written for dance, and Maillot was tasked with choreographies. He was successful. Mantovani threw four new compositions commissioned for this year’s festival into the ring (and also played them with the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain during the run of the program), which former and current dancers of the company put into dance. Two of Maillot’s 2004 works complemented the ninety-minute program. Continue reading “Growing From Solid Roots”