Makar Mikhalkin – Landgraf on Dance

“Two Annas”
MuzArts
Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theatre
St. Petersburg, Russia
December 2025 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

The production company MuzArts, founded in 2014 to showcase the Bolshoi Ballet’s prima ballerina, Svetlana Zakharova, has grown into a vital force of Russia’s ballet scene. Their recent production, Two Annas, was supported by the Diaghilev P.S. International Festival of Arts, a prominent, intercultural, cross-genre event that has been held in St. Petersburg since 2009. Two Annas premiered at St. Petersburg’s Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theatre this February and received its Moscow premiere at the Maly Theatre. Thanks to the MuzArts’s director, Yuri Baranov, I was able to watch a video of the production. Continue reading “Lasting Icons”

“Cipollino”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre (New Stage)
Moscow, Russia
March 08, 2025 (matinee and evening performance)

The boy Cippolino (Little Onion), the hero of Gianni Rodari’s 1957 children’s book Adventures of Cipollino, enjoyed an international career. He was especially popular in eastern countries and a famous cartoon and film figure in the Soviet Union. A ballet adaption by Genrikh Mayorov (1936-2022) entered the Bolshoi Ballet’s repertory three years after its Kiev premiere. Cipollino was revived at the Bolshoi earlier this season and still attracts crowds. Though a children’s fairy tale, adults can appreciate the production, especially when danced at top quality. I saw a matinee attended primarily by children and their parents as well as a sold-out evening performance.

The young Cipollino and his family are members of jovial townsfolk who are anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables—Cobbler Grape, Professor Pear, Godfather Pumpkin, and the Radish family, whose daughter, Little Radish, becomes Cipollino’s best buddy. They’re ruled by the high-handed, eccentric Prince Lemon whose court includes an acerbic guard, ludicrous knights, and the two overexcited Countesses Cherry. Continue reading “Brimful”