Alexander Smoliyaninov – Landgraf on Dance

“Master and Margarita”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre (New Stage)
Moscow, Russia
February 18/19, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Around two years ago, I saw Edward Clug’s ballet adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita at the Bolshoi Theatre and found it fabulous. Last week’s two performances corroborated my impression. They also reminded me that, however chaotic the world might get, there’s no need to worry; someone is in control. In Clug’s version, it’s the Satan alias Woland and his accomplices. That hell and heaven commonly coordinate their actions went by the board.

Bulgakov intertwined two storylines (one deals with the absurd mayhem caused by Woland and his entourage on a 1930 visit to Moscow, the other is an eyewitness account of the trial of Jesus of Nazareth under Pontius Pilate’s governance), which are connected by the Master (an unrecognized Muskovit author, i.e., Bulgakov’s alter ego) and his muse, Margarita. Continue reading “Someone is in Control”

“The Tempest”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre (New Stage)
Moscow, Russia
April 22, 2025

For his latest choreography for the Bolshoi Ballet in 2024—The Tempest (after Shakespeare’s play)—Vyacheslav Samodurov again teamed up with composer Yuri Krasavin. Both had already collaborated on the one-act ballet Dancemania in 2022. This time, their cooperation must have been tempestuous. “Vyacheslav Samodurov and I did not get along right away…I still see this play completely different,” Krasavin stated in an interview. While Krasavin believed that he accompanied rather than led the artistic process, for Samodurov, “Music comes always first and the composer is the boss in many ways.” But whoever was the boss, the score (played by the Bolshoi Orchestra under the baton of Pavel Klinichev) was mesmerizing. Continue reading “Full of Spirits”