Evgeny Poklitar – Landgraf on Dance

28. February 20264. March 2026

Restorative

“The Snow Maiden”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia
February 21, 2026 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

The legend of a girl made of snow who falls in love with a human but cannot survive the warmth of spring has its roots in Slavic mythology. The fairy tale entered the stage in 1873 when, due to the renovation of Moscow’s Maly Theatre, all three Imperial companies—drama, opera, and ballet—were accommodated by the Bolshoi Theatre. To seize the occasion, the management decided to unite them in a single fairy tale production. The Russian author Alexander Ostrovsky was commissioned for the libretto and Pyotr Tchaikovsky a composition. A few months later, Nikolay Rubinstein conducted the premiere. This marked the stage birth of The Snow Maiden. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1880/81 opera version is also based on Ostrovsky’s libretto. Continue reading “Restorative”

20. February 20242. March 2024

How to Warm an Audience

“Don Quixote”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia
February 15, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Moscow’s ballet audience is well-versed and demanding. The crowd that filled the Stanislavsky Theatre last Thursday to watch Don Quixote gave the quirky Don Quixote (Nikita Kirillov) and his gluttonous squire, Sancho Panza (Konstantin Semenov), a friendly but reserved welcome. The company’s former artistic director, Laurent Hilaire, added the production to the repertoire in 2019, and Hilaire’s successor, Maxim Sevagin, has kept it since 2022. As a former etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet who danced under Rudolf Nureyev’s directorate, Hilaire chose to introduce the Russian audience to Nureyev’s version of Don Quixote. Its set and costume design replicates Nicholas Georgiadis’s originals for the Paris Opera premiere.

Back at the bustling market square, the exuberance of the Spanish youth gradually spread through the rows. The legs of the toreadors sliced the air like knife edges; their leader, Espada (Evgeny Zhukov), missed no chance to parade his oomph; the sultry show of Olga Sizykh’s street dancer heated the air so much that the men began to brawl over the women – but the arrival of Don Quixote (on top of his armored old nag Rocinante) chilled passions. Continue reading “How to Warm an Audience”

10. January 202312. January 2023

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)

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. Continue reading “Frothy”