Tag Archive: Valeria Mukhanova

Trickling

Through the Looking-Glass”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia

October 29, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

1. V.Mukhanova (adult Alice), G.Bosai (Black Queen), and ensemble; “Through the Looking-Glass” by K.Semenov, Stanislavsky Ballet 2023 © MAMT This April, the Stanislavsky Ballet premiered a new piece by one of Russia’s up-and-coming choreographers – Konstantin Semenov, who happens to be a dancer from within their own ranks. Semenov, winner of the 2015 competition for young choreographers of the festival for contemporary dance Context. Diana Vishneva, so far mainly created dance miniatures. His recent work “Through the Looking-Glass” is his first full-fledged, seventy-minute one-acter. Still a small-scale production, it was shown on the theater’s small stage, where the audience sits in intimate proximity to the dancers.
“Through the Looking-Glass” is based on Lewis Carroll’s 1871 eponymous novel, the sequel of his “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (1865). Again, young Alice enters a rhyme-ridden fantasy world, but this time through a mirror rather than a rabbit hole. Everything in this world is reversed, including written text, the meaning of words, and time (which runs counter-clockwise). (more…)

The Very Essence

Swan Lake”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia

June 05, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

1. M.Drodzdova (Odile) and V.Tedeev (Prince Siegfried), “Swan Lake” by V.Burmeister and L.Ivanov, Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre 1974 © Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre 2. M.Drodzdova (Odette), “Swan Lake” by V.Burmeister and L.Ivanov, Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre © Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre 3. O.Kardash, K.Ryzhkova, M.Drodzdova, and K.Shevtsova; “Swan Lake” by V.Burmeister and L.Ivanov, Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre 2023 © Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre When I arrived at the Stanislavsky Theatre’s royal blue auditorium for Vladimir Burmeister’s 1953 version of “Swan Lake” I had no clue what was awaiting me. No one had told me that this performance wasn’t a regular one, but dedicated to Margarita Drodzdova, People’s Artist of the USSR, who spent almost her entire career at the Stanislavsky Ballet. A leading ballerina, many roles were tailored especially to her. After her farewell from the stage in 1987, Drodzdova continued to work as a teacher, passing her knowledge to future generations of dancers.

On the occasion of Drodzdova’s 75th birthday on May 7th, the Stanislavsky Ballet honored her with a special “Swan Lake” that featured three of her coachees in the roles of Odette and Odile. (more…)

Frothy

The Nutcracker”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia

December 30, 2022 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Ensemble, “The Nutcracker” by Y.Possokhov, Stanislavsky Ballet 2022 © K.Zhitkova This winter, the Stanislavsky Ballet replaced Vasily Vainonen’s 1995 “Nutcracker” with Yuri Possokhov’s – not a brand-new rendering, but an adaption of the “Nutcracker” that Possokhov created for the Atlanta Ballet in 2018 (new designs included). Since its premiere in Moscow at the end of November, tickets have been in high demand. Given Possokhov’s good work on the Bolshoi Ballet’s “Nureyev” and an “Anna Karenina” for the Joffrey Ballet & the Australian Ballet, I was curious what approach he’d take to this iconic ballet – and it was clear within seconds that he had given this Nutcracker a strong update.

Sergey Rylko’s dazzling videos hurl us through flurrying snow to a spinning astrological sign. From there, a golden ram gallops off towards and through a faceless white town, flying in low over rooftops, an ice-rink, and a carousel. We land at the workshop of Drosselmeyer (danced by Jonah Cook, a former principal of the Bavarian State Ballet and the Zurich Ballet), who is heaping presents onto a sleigh together with his nephew (Andrey Kirichenko). Drosselmeyer’s wall-sized astrological clocks, their faces rotating mysteriously, are presumably tools that control the ticking of the universe. (more…)

Heightened Drama

“Mayerling”
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
National Theater
Munich, Germany
April 06, 2017

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2017 by Ilona Landgraf

1. S.Polunin and A.Pershenkova, “Mayerling” by K.MacMillan, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre 2017 © W.Hösl Igor Zelensky invited Moscow’s Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, his own former troupe, to perform as a guest company for this month’s Ballet Festival Week in Munich. Last October, after a short period of double directorship in Moscow and Munich, Zelensky decided to concentrate solely on directing the Bavarian State Ballet. Laurent Hilaire, former Paris Opéra Ballet étoile, took over Zelensky’s post at the Stanislavsky in January this year.

The Stanislavsky brought along Kenneth MacMillan’s “Mayerling”, a piece rarely performed on German stages. As a special treat, Sergei Polunin danced the leading role at both performances. I saw the opening night. Although Polunin left the Stanislavsky in summer 2014, he continued to perform with the company on occasion. In Munich, he has been a permanent guest dancer since Zelensky took up the reins.

“Mayerling” isn’t the sort of piece one eagerly watches again and again – for at the root of the catastrophe of the piece is a tragedy that is too sad and a society that is too disgusting to witness repeatedly. The story is based on a dark chapter of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. The Emperor’s third child with Elisabeth (“Sisi”), Duchess of the house of Wittelsbach, was Crown Prince Rudolf, who at the age of twenty-three, was forced into a marriage with Princess Stéphanie of Belgium. The ballet begins with the couple’s wedding ball and ends with the double suicide of Rudolf and his mistress, Mary Vetsera, at the royal hunting lodge at Mayerling. (more…)