06.09.2018
Our 186th season opens
Aram Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus is making its return to the Mikhailovsky Theatre stage. This legendary production, which portrays an Imperial Rome complete with magnificent parades, salacious orgies, and gladiatorial battles, provides the perfect opening for our new, 186th, season. Choreographer Georgy Kovtun, who brought the ballet to our stage ten years ago, has approached this new version of Spartacus like a true artist, discovering fresh perspectives and colours, employing more complex techniques, and radically transforming some of the scenes. Ten performances of this much anticipated ballet are planned for the September—December period. Tickets for 7 and 8 September had already sold out by the end of the summer.
The opera season at the Mikhailovsky Theatre will open on 11 September with Fromental Halévy’s La Juive. This work is considered a prime example of the French grand opera style, combining beautiful music, brilliant vocal parts, and a captivating plot. Conductor Dmitry Korchak, who has been entrusted with the honour of opening the opera season, has studied its extremely complex score in depth. The production’s creators have moved the setting out of the Middle Ages, bringing it closer to our own era. The audience will find themselves caught up not so much in conventional operatic passions as in a depiction of the timeless realities of life.
The first première of the upcoming season will be Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta, directed by Andriy Zholdak, which is scheduled for 13 November. The director, who made his operatic debut with Eugene Onegin, has developed a taste for the genre and now regularly works with European opera houses. This new production on the Mikhailovsky Theatre stage will see him present his reflections on the unity and conflict between light and darkness in every human soul, on spiritual pain and beauty, and on the purity and fragility of emotions.
Shortly before the première, the Mikhailovsky Theatre will celebrate its 185th birthday. It first opened its doors to the public on 11 November 1833.
„An entire generation of the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s audience grew up with Spartacus — and, following a break, the ballet is now returning to our repertoire“, explains Artistic Director Vladimir Kekhman. „I made this decision because I wanted to give our devoted audience the chance to recall their first love, and to experience the powerful energy of this unique and spectacular production once again.“
The first première of the upcoming season will be Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta, directed by Andriy Zholdak, which is scheduled for 13 November. The director, who made his operatic debut with Eugene Onegin, has developed a taste for the genre and now regularly works with European opera houses. This new production on the Mikhailovsky Theatre stage will see him present his reflections on the unity and conflict between light and darkness in every human soul, on spiritual pain and beauty, and on the purity and fragility of emotions.
Shortly before the première, the Mikhailovsky Theatre will celebrate its 185th birthday. It first opened its doors to the public on 11 November 1833.
