05 May 2011

Bolshoi Ballet Prepares for Return Visit to Paris Opera

Bolshoi Ballet Prepares for Return Visit to Paris Opera

The ties between the Bolshoi Theatre and L’Opera de Paris have never been as close. In 2004 and 2008, there were major Bolshoi Ballet Company seasons in Paris (in addition to which in 2008 the Bolshoi Theatre Opera Company opened the Paris Opera season.). In 2009, Bolshoi Ballet Company dancers united with the Opera Ballet Company, and appeared at the Palais Garnier in a concert devoted to the Diaghilev Russian Seasons’ centenary. In recent years, Bolshoi Ballet dancers have appeared in Paris Opera productions, and Opera Ballet Company dancers in Bolshoi productions. Last year the Bolshoi organized the Paris Opera Ballet Company tour to Novosibirsk and, at the start of 2011, it played host to the Opera Ballet Company on its home stage. Now the time has come for the Bolshoi Ballet to make a return visit to Paris. Included in the tour program are two hits of the Bolshoi Ballet repertoire: Don Quixote, an example of Moscow ‘bravura’, a world famous work from the classical legacy, a ballet which was born (1869) and came into its own at the Bolshoi (choreography by Marius Petipa, Alexander Gorsky). And The Flames of Paris, an at one time popular and then forgotten ballet of the Soviet epoch (choreography Vasily Vainonen), re-thought and revived at the Bolshoi in 2008 by Alexei Ratmansky.