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. (more…)