Royal Moscow Ballet tours South Africa
The Royal Moscow Ballet will tour South Africa in April, performing two shows at the Playhouse Opera.
DRAMA, romance and passion will unite when the Royal Moscow Ballet comes to Durban on 16 April with a programme of three classical ballet masterpieces, with two shows at 3pm and 7.30pm at the Playhouse Opera.The company, which consists of principal dancers from leading Russian choreography schools, will perform the dreamy Chopiniana (Les Sylphides), the fiery Carmen and the dazzling Paquita Grand Pas.
The programme opens with Chopiniana, which had its first performance in St Petersburg, Russia, in 1907 with music by Frederic Chopin and choreography by Mikhail Fokine, who said the ballet was his “favourite child” representing his dream of romantic ballet “with all its mood, poetry and sadness”.
Carmen was first set as a one-act ballet by the famed Russian choreographer Marius Pepita in 1845, some 30 years before George Bizet’s celebrated opera was first heard. Several versions followed, including that by choreographer Alberto Alonso working with renowned Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, whose husband Rodion Shehedrin created the Carmen Suite, based on Bizet’s music scored only for strings and percussion instruments.
The programme culminates with the Paquita Grand Pas, first presented by the Paris Opera Ballet in 1846. After several revivals, it is still a major cornerstone of traditional classical ballet repertory.
The title role of the Spanish gypsy girl who saves the life of a French officer has been performed by the world’s leading ballerinas, including Pavlova, who included it in her company’s repertory.
Tickets, priced at R200, R250 and R300, are available at Computicket.
