Ballet Evening

Last year the entire musical world celebrated the 50th death anniversary of Igor Stravinsky, a composer of genius, a “Russian European” who managed to meld into world culture, while remaining deeply a national author. Next year will be marked by another significant date – the 150th anniversary of Sergei Diaghilev’s birth. An outstanding entrepreneur, impresario of the “World of Art” and “Russian Seasons”, he opened up the Russian art to the world “at the right time and in the right place.” But his main discovery was the muse of Igor Stravinsky.
Stravinsky and Diaghilev loved Italy; spent a long time there together and in singles, discussed new ideas and indulged in rest. And the cemetery of San Michele became the eternal shelter for them both.
The joint production, which brings together the best forces of European musical, theatrical and stage arts, will show excerpts from Stravinsky’s most famous Diaghilev ballets. They will feature the soloists of the National Ballet of Spain Miriam Mendoza and Sergio Bernal; stars of the Hamburg Ballet Alessandrо Flora and Jacopo Belussi; soloists of the ballet of the Grand Theater of Geneva, Simone Repele and Sasha Riva, who also head their own ballet company Riva & Repele Tanzarte.
The role of the reader will be performed by the famous Russian choreographer, artistic director of the ballet troupe of the Florentine “Teatro Communale” Vladimir Derevyanko.

The second part of the evening will embrace Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring”. Its premiere, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, took place at the theater on the Champs Elysees in Paris in 1913 and produced the effect of an “atomic bomb explosion”; only later this work was recognized as the cornerstone of the art of the new, twentieth century. Today “The Rite of Spring” has many stage versions; in Sochi, the choreography of the Slovenian choreographer Edward Klug will be performed by the troupe of the National Ballet of Slovenia. This version has already been shown at the Sochi Festival in 2015.
As the columnist for the Afisha magazine writes, The Rite of Spring by the Balkan choreographer Edward Klug is a powerful energy glow, bold compositional finds and stage special effects … ”