Thunderous
“Night on the Bald Mountain”
Igor Moiseyev Ballet
Tchaikovsky Concert Hall
Moscow, Russia
April 23, 2025
by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf
The stage shook under the stomping jumps of Roman Gavrilov as if to enforce his courtship with Kristina Kuznetsova in the Russian folk dance, Summer. The couple was the first to step onto the stage of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall where the Igor Moiseyev company presented its program, Night on the Bald Mountain, on two consecutive days. The twelve couples that framed Kuznetsova and Gavrilov in a V-shape wore vibrant traditional garments, a signature feature of their folk-dance repertory. Compared to the performance of Summer I saw two years ago at another Moscow venue, the dancers seemed even more snappy and vigorous. Each step was clean and decisive, and the pace was mind-boggling. The Hopak sequences went on as if the dancers’ legs were inexhaustible. Calling it a lightning opening would be an understatement.
The eponymous Azerbaijan dance’s three shepherds (Sergey Kozlov, Egor Korobko, and Alexei Yanvarev) featured their long, wooden staffs in every way imaginable while dancing fleet of foot. They held them behind their backs and over their heads, hopped over them, stomped them into the floor, and integrated them into single handed cartwheels. Perfectly in sync and within the span of a second, all three shepherds sat cross-legged, ripped off their caps, and smiled radiantly.
In the Belarusian dance Yurochka, Alexander Samarin played a soft-footed womanizer looking for nice girls. He had just sweet-talked the first three beauties when his glance fell upon another three. While Samarin was swaggering, the six indignant ladies slipped out behind his back. Moments later, they returned in the arms of their men, smiling victoriously. Samarin scolded them, turned his foot indecisively to the left and right, shrugged his shoulders, and went off, hoping for more luck the next time.
The female gender outshone the men in the Moldovan dance Tabakeryaska. But this time, only one woman (Natalia Prikhodko) was calling the shots. Prikhodko, carrying a wash basket on her head, set out to do the laundry in an invisible river when six male caricatures detected her, their eyes googling at her bobbing bottom. Eagerly bending toward her, their feet scuttling on the spot, they looked like excited dogs on a leash. How hard they tried to win over Prikhodko! But the resolute lady rebuffed each advance and instead made her admirers work. While they zealously swung the linens, she lazed about off stage. It took some time for the gentlemen to realize they had been duped.
Up to then, the Igor Moiseyev State Academic Ensemble of Popular Dance, playing under the baton of Viktor Kuzovlev, had contributed rousing rhythms from the side balcony. A single accordion accompanied Finland Polka. The pas de deux, featuring Veronika Denisova and Arkady Glushko, merged dance and acrobatics. Denisova slowly walked across Glushko’s bent back as if climbing a mountain, stuck like a slender candle at his side, or balanced horizontally on his head like a mermaid out of water. After a sudden silence, a shrill tone prompted both to bow like musical clock figures.
The five women of the Korean dance Sanchonga (Alsu Gayfullina, Olga Gerda, Evgenia Pankova, Dinara Samarina, and Natalia Ugrozova) wore floor-length skirts in shimmery turquoise and red hats decorated with small, white beads that jiggled when they tilted their heads. The skirts limited their movements to small, quick steps and turns, for which they bent their supple bodies. Fans were the dance’s main prop, two of which each woman handled at the end.
Shouts and spontaneous applause greeted the large group of sailors of Yablochko, a fragment of the naval suite Day on the Ship. Given how the men stood at the rear stage, they would clearly be on their toes. Spurred by a nimble accordion player, they assembled in a V-shape or in a long line that stretched from one side of the stage to the other. The sight of forty-four legs moving in stunning unity would have made many corps de ballets blush. Yablochko is an audience favorite, and after some sailors outdid others in daredevil solos, the house was on fire.
After the break, the company performed Night on the Bald Mountain, a one-act ballet, after which the program was titled. The “bald mountain” refers to the Blockula where the devil holds court during a witches’ sabbath. But before evil forces took over the stage, frisky common folk feted. An onstage band’s sweet melodies gave the female youth an aura of innocence. Their playing turned rustic as they accompanied the men’s (mostly) good-humored rivalries. (One man got a thrashing in a stick fight) Much Hopak dancing and a two-tiered human carousel assembled from wildly circling men (and women flying up and down like carousel figures) concluded the fete.
Only three boozing buddies remained—and then only one, Paschuk (Sergey Prokhorov), as his two friends (Yury Chernyshkov 
and Vadim Shikunov) were soon compelled home by their furious wives. Paschuk slept blissfully center stage, his prominent paunch protruding in the air. Suddenly, a devil (Artur Abakumov) slipped out, badgered Paschuk, and, with the help of two fellows who shouldered the fat prey, carried him to the Blockula. There, hordes of devils and witches indulged in an orgy that was as frantic as it was lewd. A skeleton (Hadith Muzakaev), rotating its lower arms like propellers, was hot on the chief witch (Yulia Stebletsova). Walking on stilts, Koshchei (Dmitry Shaidurov) observed the debauchery from high above. Though making a hell of an effort, no demon was able to disturb Paschuk’s slumber. As they crawled away like hell’s vermin, Paschuk woke up. Befuddled, he shrugged his shoulders, crossed himself, and walked off.
But two more night owls were out and about. A young, lovestruck couple sauntered arm in arm, their heads leaning together. Not a single devilkin bothered them.
| Links: | Website of the Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| “Summer” | ||
| “Yablochko” | ||
| Photos: | 1. | Ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet/ E.Masalkov |
| 2. | Oleg Chernasov and ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| 3. | Sergey Prokhorov (Paschuk) and ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| 4. | Ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| 5. | Dmitry Shaidurov (Koshchei) and ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| 6. | Hadith Muzakaev and ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| 7. | Ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet | |
| 8. | Ensemble, “Night on the Bald Mountain”, Igor Moiseyev Ballet 2025 © Igor Moiseyev Ballet/ E.Masalkov | |
| Editing: | Kayla Kauffman |