The historical force of modern ballet

The Flames of Paris will be performed for three nights in a row at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. These will be the first performances of the production since the ballet company’s international tour. The ballet travelled to New York and California, attracting the attention of dozens of critics in the American press and amassing hundreds of favourable mentions on social media.

When the tour programme was being devised, there was some concern that the revolutionary fresco wouldn’t translate in the West. But, as it turned out, such doubts were groundless.

Though notoriously difficult to please, the New York press was unanimous in its enthusiastic reception of the ballet. The Financial Times wrote: “The story is vividly told and sumptuously staged. The gorgeous sets and costumes create tableaux like the colour plates from a history primer. The deft blend of old-school classicism and lusty character dancing shows off the company’s impressive stylistic range.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s rare to find a single performance which shows off such choreographic diversity, combining “Bourbon court music and tunes” with “booming jumps, rapid turns and sometimes dizzying combinations of both”, more reminiscent of the Soviet era. “The grace with which the choreographer makes coherent theater out of a prolix sampler of dance segments,” wrote the publication, makes The Flames of Paris a joyous and action-packed spectacle, and a performance exuding camaraderie.

When the performances in New York were finished and the company set off for California, the local press had already set their sights on the arrival of the “revolutionaries” of historical allusion. “This is a crazy quilt of cultural references,” wrote the Los Angeles Times reviewer. “A rousing Soviet-style story ballet about the French revolution, created to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Bolshevik take down of the tsar”. But, while taking into account the “historical force” of the performance, the critic also described the ballet as a “contemporary crowd-pleaser”.

The performances from 4–6 February will feature Ekaterina Borchenko, Angelina Vorontsova, Irina Perren, Anna Naumenko, Ivan Zaytsev, Victor Lebedev, and Leonid Sarafanov.

The production is sponsored by LenSpetsStroy.