Celebrating The Kirov

Joanna Hunter. April 2008

The long-awaited return of The Kirov Ballet to British shores next month is one of the major cultural highlights of the year

SUPPOSE YOU WERE asked to name the ballet greats. Chances are you would immediately reel off Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Anna Pavlova. And what most unites these legendary figures? All were members of the resident company of the Mariinsky Theatre of St Petersburg, more famously known as The Kirov Ballet.

Without doubt one of the most famous and influential performing companies in the world, The Kirov, along with its sibling rival The Bolshoi in Moscow, has helped ensure that Russian ballet’s reputation for setting the standards in the ballet world for over 200 years continues apace.

Famed for its purity of style, The Kirov is particularly celebrated for its George Balanchine productions, as well as its performances of Marius Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty and two acts of Swan Lake, both of which were created especially for the company.

It wasn’t that long ago that a visit to St Petersburg would have been a real challenge for travellers and Kirov foreign tours were an all-too-rare treat, not least because dancers sometimes used them as a chance to defect; Nureyev did so dramatically in Paris in 1961. But East-West ballet relations have thawed, and not only can you now see The Kirov in situ, but you also get a chance to see some of the most skilled dancers in the world perform outside of Russia.

Next month, The Kirov will make a very special appearance in the UK, performing at The Lowry (13-17 May) in Salford, Greater Manchester, only one and a half miles from Manchester city centre. It then makes its debut at the Birmingham Hippodrome (20-24 May). The company will perform Balanchine’s Jewels, described by The Guardian as “some of the most beautiful classical fireworks ever” and Petipa’s Don Quixote, described by The Times as “still pretty hard to resist”, in addition to a gala programme.

You’ll have a spring in your step once you’ve seen The Kirov’s dancers perform – and chances are they will inspire you to visit them on home turf.

Giselle
Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg.
7th, 8th and 11th May/08

Romeo and Juliet
Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg.
9th and 10th May/08

The Kirov Ballet



One of the most famous of all ballet companies, The Kirov Ballet and Orchestra from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, returns to The Lowry with two spectacular full-length ballets and a stunning gala evening.

Jewels (Tue 13 & Wed 14 May)
George Balanchine’s dazzling ballet Jewels is a series of three stylistically diverse classical divertissements. Emeralds is set to elegant music by Fauré; Rubies is hot and jazzy, set to Stravinsky; while Diamonds is aristocratic in tone and set to Tchaikovsky. Hailed as the greatest choreographer of the twentieth century, Balanchine trained at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Ballet before moving to the United States where he created Jewels for his own New York City Ballet in 1967. The Kirov was the first company in Europe to stage all three acts together, reviving the original cascading décor and costumes to magnificent effect.

Gala Programme (Thu 15 May)
The Kirov’s Gala Programme is a box of delights for ballet lovers, featuring Fokine’s one-act Chopiniana, followed by a sequence of brilliant set pieces. Finally, the sublime Kingdom of the Shades from Act III of La Bayadère shows the Kirov corps de ballet off to perfection.

Don Quixote (Fri 16 & Sat 17 May)
This faithful recreation of Alexander Gorsky’s 1900 production bristles with wit and bravura. Created by choreographer Marius Petipa, the adventurous Spanish romance tells of the relationship between Kitri, the daughter of a socially ambitious innkeeper, and her lover Basilio, a handsome but poor barber. Vivid settings and authentic dances make Don Quixote one of the most colourful ballets in the Kirov’s current repertoire.

‘Some of the most beautiful classical fireworks ever.’ The Guardian on Jewels

‘…a dance-packed feast of broad humour, easygoing romance and a touch of fantasy…[this] Russian classic is still pretty hard to resist.’ The Times on Don Quixote

JEWELS
The Lowry, Manchester
Tuesday 13 May | Wednesday 14 May

Birmingham Hippodrome
Tuesday 20 May | Wednesday 21 May



George Balanchine’s three-act Jewels* is a masterpiece of twentieth-century ballet, inspired by the brilliance and colour of three different gemstones.

The Kirov’s acclaimed portrayal of lyric Emeralds, vibrant Rubies and glittering Diamonds is unsurpassed.

"Some of the most beautiful classical fireworks ever"
The Guardian

DON QUIXOTE
The Lowry, Manchester
Friday 16 May | Saturday 17 May (mat & eve)

Birmingham Hippodrome
Friday 23 May | Saturday 24 May (mat & eve)



The excitement, colour and wit of Cervantes' masterpiece are brilliantly conveyed in this sparkling production of Don Quixote. In astounding displays of virtuoso dancing, the plot unfolds merrily as the love between Kitri and Basil is challenged by the fruitless attempts of Kitri's father to engineer his unwilling daughter into a more lucrative match.

Drama, comedy, love and dazzling choreography sparkle in an exquisite blend of exuberance and bravura.

“...A dance-packed feast of broad humour… easygoing romance and a touch of fantasy...
[this] Russian classic is hard to resist”
The Times

GALA PROGRAMME
The Lowry, Manchester
Thursday 15 May

Birmingham Hippodrome
Thursday 22 May



A cornucopia of delights, Fokine’s romantic Chopiniana and the breathtakingly sublime Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadère frame a dazzling sequence of divertissements including Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux*, Talisman, Carnival in Venice, Harlequinade and Auber's Grand Pas Classique.

Jewel in the Kirov crown
May 8 2008



She is only asoloist but Oleysa Novikova of the Kirov Ballet has already snatched the roles of an Emerald and a Ruby in George Balanchine's box-office ballet gem, Jewels.

Perhaps one day she might dance the principal role she covets? "No, I think not," she says wistfully, rolling soulful dark eyes like a child denied the most glittering trinket in the jewellery box. "I am too small to be a Brilliant," which is what the Russians call their diamonds.

Although known for his experimental approach to classical dance and as the founder of New York City Ballet, Balanchine created the Diamonds act of the full-length Jewels in homage to the Kirov's grand Imperial style.

It was, of course, a cool and regal elegance he was wholly familiar with, having been trained at the company's ballet school in St Petersburg before joining the Kirov in 1921 where he began to choreograph student works. Three years later he left with three other dancers on a short European tour, was head-hunted by Diaghilev for Ballets Russe and never went back.

Ironically, given its historical ties to Balanchine, the Kirov was one of the last ballet companies in the world to embrace his work. Yet it was also the first European company to stage Jewels in its entirety, performing all three acts in October 1999 at its decadent Mariinsky Theatre home.

Novikova is talking to me there, perched on one of the theatre's ornate velvet chairs in a dark green and white ante-room to the auditorium. Dark-haired, with a heart-shaped face, she talks animatedly of her love of dancing and of touring and of how much she is looking forward to her arrival in Birmingham on May 19.

It will be the Kirov Ballet's first visit to the city accompanied by its orchestra and the programme at the Birmingham Hippodrome, May 20-24, includes Jewels with Novikova as an Emerald. Balanchine described the Emeralds section as "the evocation of France; the France of elegance, comfort, dress, perfume."

Novikova, however, will not be drawn on whether she prefers the romantic Emeralds set to a Fauvre score to the dynamic Las Vegasbrashness of Rubies and Stravinsky. Balanchine gave his classical showpiece Diamonds the music of Tchaikovsky. What else?

"I just adore Balanchine; I'd like to do more of his work. Technically it's difficult and I am really exhausted after a performance but I like it very much," she exclaims. "I would also like to do more new repertoire in general - Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, John Cranko, the more the better. But we consider ourselves to be the capital of classical ballet; we do not do so much contemporary choreography."

Like virtually every dancer with the Kirov Ballet, Novikova is a graduate of what is now the Vaganova Ballet Academy: "I started at the academy when I was 10 years old. I had tried to enter the school twice before but failed. I wasn't accepted because they said the length of my fingers and toes was not right. I thought I was not talented enough but my own dancing teachers encouraged me to try a third time and I got in.

"It was not easy being a student. The day started around 9am with two hours of classical ballet, followed by academic subjects like mathematics, and then classes such as folk dancing. We finished about 5.30pm but sometimes dance practice went on to 7pm. If you lived far away from the school there was a 90-minute journey to and from school. I was one of those children. It was exhausting."

Principal Andrian Fadeyev is one of Novikova's five dance partners, although they will not perform together on the two-week UK visit. He graduated from the academy in 1995 and was already a principal by the age of 20 two years later.

"The company's policy is to give the dancers an opportunity to show what they are capable of. If you have the skills and abilities and if you are reliable, look beautiful on stage and have a good line, you will find your way," he says of his meteoric rise from corps to principal.

He too enjoys Balanchine. "His ballets are said not to have plots but all Balanchine ballets have a special kind of touch and a colour - and he knew how to fuse music and classical choreography," he exlains.

"His choreography differs from the classical but the difference is not so profound. It was difficult when we started but then it comes into your body and begins to help with the classical style.

For instance, Balanchine requires very, very turned out feet and footwork that is clean and distinct and very fast. There are a lot of very small steps. This makes you stronger and faster in the rest of your work."

Blonde, with dreamy grey-blue eyes, Fadeyev's mother was a dancer while his wife - Kirov principal character artist Alexandra Gronskaya - sometimes brings their three-year-old son Pasha to the theatre.

"It is a tradition that started in the 19th century. Children stand in the wings and watch the performance. This is how ballet careers start; how mine started. It is very important that the children understand what it means to be a dancer. They see the bleeding toes and the heaving in the wings and also get a tiny taste of the glamour."

The Kirov's programme includes the full-length ballets Jewels and Don Quixote and agala performance made up of the one-act Chopiniana - which British audiences know as Les Sylphides - set pieces from his Le Spectre de la Rose and the Kingdom of the Shades sequence from Act III of La Bayadere.

* Birmingham Hippodrome, May 20-24 as part of The International Dance Festival Birmingham.

Ballet stars arriving

May 9 2008 by Val Javin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHAT travels with 500 pairs of pointe shoes, 400 pairs of tights, 300 wigs, 250 tutus and 500 assorted costumes?

The answer is the renowned Kirov Ballet which arrives at the Lowry next week with a programme of work which includes Jewels, Don Quixote and a gala performance.

Behind the elegance and glamour on stage is years of training, lots of hard work and bags of resources.

Regarded as Russian ballet aristocracy The Kirov is renowned for its elegant style, its lyricism and the precision of its corps de ballet.

The company arrives in Salford for performances which run from Tuesday to Saturday.

With the company will be 90 dancers and 70 orchestra members, plus 65 specialist support staff who all tour with the company.

Those support staff include a masseur, costume and wig specialists, technicians, stage managers, lighting technicians, pianists and personal teachers for each soloist.

And during a week of hard work those 90 dancers are expected to get through 1,000 bottles of water.

Virtually all Kirov dancers are graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St Petersburg.

Of the 4,000 a year who apply to get into the school just 300 even get an audition. From these, the school selects about 60 and only 25 or so will complete the eight-year training course.

The Kirov has about 180 dancers, plus a reserve troupe of 30. Its corps de ballet has 66 girls and 53 boys.

At home in Russia the ballet company, along with the Kirov opera and orchestra companies, share the Mariinsky Theatre, which opened in 1860 and was named after Tsar Alexander II’s wife Maria. Its magnificent décor has survived almost untouched since opening.

And one other thing changes when the company is on home soil; its name. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the company has reverted to its pre-Revolution name of Mariinksy. Only in the West do we continue to call them The Kirov, after an assassinated Communist Party leader.

Rare chance to see ballet institution
Kevin Bourke 8/ 5/2008

THE Kirov are, by general acknowledgement, one of the world's great ballet companies, and they're coming to The Lowry from Tuesday.

The 200-year-old Russian company will perform two full-length ballets, Balanchine's shimmering Jewels and Don Quixote, one of the highlights of the classical canon, as well as a gala evening.

The appearance is in conjunction with arts impresarios Victor and Lilian Hochhauser, who introduced the Kirov Ballet to the West in 1961 and, in the process, almost wrecked their career in `importing' great Russian artists before it had begun.

"In those days we had to deal with the Ministry of Culture in the Soviet Union which controlled everything and everybody and we were so excited when we got the Kirov. It was 1961 and it was the company's first visit abroad. We were so excited to have secured the Kirov and Covent Garden and we went to the airport with flowers to meet the dancers. We couldn't understand why all these long faces appeared."

They soon found out.

"Rudolf Nureyev, then just 24, had defected from the company just as they had left Paris airport for England! It was one of our biggest disasters, this young star defecting before our big event, and it almost nipped our career in the bud. It caused a lot of trouble. Fortunately, we survived that and the next year we brought the Bolshoi and so began to invite both companies on a regular basis."

Kirov

In these post-Perestroika days, is it much easier to deal with companies like The Kirov?

"Well, you get answers quicker," she laughs. "In the old days it was a very convoluted business. But they're still in great demand all over the world, that never changes."

The company is led by Uliana Lopatkina, who, Lilian believes, is 'probably the greatest classical ballerina in the world today'. The programme is put together by the company in close consultation with the Hochhausers.

"There are a lot of factors involved, such as what costumes and scenery may be available at any given time, but it always reflects what it is they really want to perform. This time they were very, very keen to present Jewels but, because they don't come over here often, didn't want to do only a Balanchine programme. The Kirov only had two weeks in May to spare, so this is a rare chance to see them outside London."

The Kirov Ballet perform at The Lowry from Tuesday. On Tuesday and Wednesday they perform George Balanchine's Jewels, followed by a Gala Programme on Thursday. Don Quixote is on Friday and Saturday.

Russia’s Kirov Ballet comes to The Lowry
May 9 2008 by Michael Green, Flintshire Chronicle

A Russian army will invade The Lowry at Salford Quays next week, to the delight of dance fans throughout the north west.

The world-famous Kirov Ballet and its orchestra are making their second visit to the venue from May 13-17 with a programme that reflects their cultural heritage and includes the prestigious Jewels and Don Quixote productions.

With the dancers and musicians have come the troops: ballet masters, management, technical and backstage staff needed for the exacting performances of this eagerly awaited St Petersburg company.

Preparations began a year ago and led to the shipping of three containers of sets, lighting rigs, costumes and up to 500 pairs of pointe shoes.

The large musical instruments come by sea, the smaller ones travelling as precious hand luggage with the players.

Tour manager Paul Godfrey said: ‘There are so many sensational costumes and all have to be carefully packed, every ear-ring, every backdrop accounted for.

“I am just relieved I no longer have to worry about the donkey in Don Quixote. The Kirov stopped using live animals in productions some years ago!’

Under artistic director Valery Gergiev and led by the exquisite Uliana Lopatkina, the company will perform two full-length ballets, plus a gala evening of balletic fireworks.

The three-act Jewels is a succession of stylistically diverse classical scenes which take their tone from the jewels they are named after: elegant Emeralds, set to Faure, jazzy Rubies, to Stravinsky, and glittering Diamonds, to Tchaikovsky.

Don Quixote, choreographed by the great classicist Marius Petipa, tells a romantic love story and bristles with authentic Spanish dances, bullfighters and gypsies.

The gala evening is a box of delights that includes Fokine’s one-act ballet, Chopiniana, sometimes known as Les Sylphides, his dreamy La Spectre de la Rose, and the sublime Kingdom of Shades from La Bayadere, which perfectly shows off the Kirov’s legendary corps de ballet.

Theatre and dance reviews

FOR the second time in five years The Lowry has pulled off the coup of attracting the great Kirov company to Salford, this time acting as the launch venue for a brief, two-week, British visit that takes in Birmingham next week but leaves out London.

It’s a piece of one-upmanship for the provinces but - perhaps because of the economic downturn, the fact that top price tickets are £95 and the actual works on offer are neither Swan Lake nor Sleeping Beauty - The Lowry was disappointingly not full last night, though I’m told things are more encouraging later in the week.

The opening programme is Balanchine’s Jewels, a plotless, three-act collection of gems – Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds – created for New York City Ballet in 1967.

Though best known of course for his work with NYCB, Balanchine actually began his career with the Kirov (in 1921), so it’s clearly appropriate that the increasingly adventurous new outlook permeating the company should embrace this masterpiece of modern dance.

It’s purely - but not simply – a celebration of dance about dancing, with music by Faure, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, with classical-style costumes in colours appropriate to each section and a setting that features a cascade of jewels suspended above the dancers’ heads.

Fluid

In Emeralds, the quieter opening piece, the dancers drift ethereally through the fluid Faure, with central solos from the pleasant pairing of Olesya Novikova and Maxim Zuzin. All very nice but not inspiring.

Rubies – the undoubted hit of the evening with last night’s audience - is packed with the American spirit that so fascinated Balanchine. Perky, full of humour, with its references to the Broadway musical, all danced to the jazzy rhythms of Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. The so-American demands are not part of the Kirov dancers’ upbringing – they probably never wanted to be showgirl or boy hoofers – but the whole company here launch into the piece with infectious energy and clear enjoyment.

Then comes Diamonds - to music from Tchaikovsky’s third symphony - which is Balanchine’s tribute to classical Russian choreography. Anyone still hankering after Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty will be ecstatic about this, with its great pas de deux (Viktoria Tereshkina and Evgeny Ivanchenko, her haughty and very precise, him athletic and mostly precise) and a corps who sweep on for a spectacular finale with massed formations of dancers.

Overall then, some impressive, rather than really great dancing, in a piece that the box office is proving hasn’t got huge popular appeal oop North. A half empty house doesn’t make for a great atmosphere and it’s to be hoped the rest of the week brings the excitement that was so obviously lacking last night

Uliana speaks language of perfection

May 14 2008

The Kirov Ballet comes to Birmingham Hippodrome next week. Susan Turner met its star ballerina Uliana Lopatkina at the Mariinsky Theatre, the company's home in St Petersburg.

_________

Prima ballerina Uliana Lopatkina makes a dramatic entrance even for an interview, arriving 43 minutes late with profuse apologies and much expressive gesturing.

Has it been a hard day? I enquire politely: "Always, always" she murmurs, rolling large smoke-grey eyes.

She has come straight from the rehearsal studio, explains this 5ft 10", ultra-willowy Kirov Ballet star, who at 34 is a national icon in Russia in much the way we idolise our football players or the late Princess of Wales.

Nevertheless, she has managed to exchange her practice clothes for a fashionable black tunic over leggings and patent knee-length boots. There are pearls at her throat and ears and her copper-coloured elfin hairstyle is blow-dried to perfection. Her strong-jawed face is carefully made-up. She looks glossy and groomed.

Her sombre off-stage presence is perhaps a reflection of a stage persona that, by all ac-counts, is intense, precise, immaculate. She has been described as "The Soul of Russia," and the "the world's greatest classic dancer of her time." It's said one hasn't lived if one hasn't experienced her Dying Swan.

Lopatkina takes her considerable technical and dramatic talent, and the fact she feels she has to uphold the Kirov's formidable classical heritage and ballet as an art form, very seriously indeed.

The company's fifth studio at its home in the bowels of the beautiful Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg is reserved for her exclusive use. There she works regularly on her technique for up to five hours at a stretch and it is not unu-sual for her to still be rehearsing at 10pm.

She believes her coach is the most important part of the process and since returning from maternity leave four years ago, has worked with former Kirov ballerina Irina Christiakova.

"I am a perfectionist," admits Lopatkina, "but to reasonable limits. I can perceive nor-mality. For me, the hardest thing is to find a balance between my personal life and my work.

"The major part of the work is done in the studio, with the teacher the most important component. Your teacher tunes your body emotionally. This is imperative as the body has to not only feel, but show, vivid emotions. Every gesture, every line of the body has to speak. This special dance language is worked on in the studio. Of course, during rehearsals you also have to make the body perform the choreography!

"How each dancer finds the emotion to get through the show is very individual and every one has to find his or her way of doing that. It comes from outside or from your psyche, or from literature, the arts. For me, the inspiration is music, always music."

She has been working especially hard of late due to settling into a new dance partnership with former St Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theatre soloist, Ivan Kozlov. She first danced with the 25-year-old at a gala in Moscow last year where she was to perform La Rose malade. Her original partner sustained an injury and Kozlov stepped into his shoes.

The partnership was so successful he was invited to join the Kirov as a principal (no doubt at Lopatkina's insistence) and is one of very few dancers with the company who is not a graduate of the Vaganova Ballet Academy, the Kirov's feeder school, and who has not come up through the ranks. The couple will dance together on the company's tour to Birmingham next week.

"I am tall and it can be very difficult to find partners to dance with. Disproportion means disharmony and that not does provide the audience with the aesthetic joy of watching a couple," she explains. "But it's not only physique. You have to pay alot of attention to finding emotional compatibility; you have to be believable on stage. As in the old traditional Hollywood movies, you have to create an affair to remember.

"Ivan is very interesting to work with and it felt comfortable from our first rehearsal together. I am always trying to find partners who answer me on stage. Ivan's presence in the Kirov lets me dance more. There are other tall girls in the company, but he is mine at the moment. I got him first!" she exclaims.

Born in Kerch in the Ukraine of parents who worked in the shipyards, Lopatkina was desperately homesick when selected for the Vaga-nova Ballet Academy and sent to St Petersburg. There, she was one of the last proteges of the dancer and teacher Natalya Dudinskaya.

"I was nine years old and my mother and father could not be with me and could only visit St Petersburg very rarely. I had relatives here but they were strangers. So I was in boarding school in a dormitory of 18 square metres with nine other girls. For the first two years it was a disaster, I was very homesick. But then I got accustomed to it and life was not so hard."

She graduated to the Kirov Ballet in 1991 and by 1995 was already a principal. There have been numerous accolades since - she met her architect and novelist husband Vladimir Kornev at one of the award ceremonies - and in 2006 Lopatkina was made a People's Artist of Russia..

Her daughter Maria, nicknamed Masha, is now five years old although Lopatkina - four when she had her first ballet lesson - believes her too young to start dance class. Is she impressed by mummy's job? I ask. "She doesn't articulate everything. She is very sincere if she likes something I do and says so. If she doesn't, I know that too," laughs Lopatkina.

Lopatkina also takes her motherhood role extremely seriously and it saddens her that the demands of working in the theatre and a tough touring schedule mean she doesn't get to spend as much time with Masha as she wishes.

"It's so difficult," she sighs. "I don't get to spend as much time with her as I want and to bring her up myself. I miss her very much when we go on tour, although I'm fortunate that my mother lives nearby and takes care of her."

And did having a baby change her outlook and bring fresh emotion to her dancing?

"I don't agree that a ballerina is more emotional after giving birth," she emphasises. "Stage for me is another life. Giving birth changed me but it's private and very precious. Spending a long time on maternity leave gave me an opportunity to think about how I would return to my work and this gave me an impetus to re-work my old parts and look at my journey in a different way.

"But giving birth didn't add emotion, or change how I interpreted my roles. After all, a ballerina's personality is built on all her life's experiences - the loss of love, parents dying, friends dying. Motherhood is just one of those experiences so no, you don't have to give birth to find emotion."