Mariinsky - Scotch Symphony/In the Night/Ballet Imperial

Meanwhile, in London...

If I had a limitless source of money, I would definitely go to see this triple bill again, with Lopatkina in "In the Night". However, David Hallberg in the "Scotch Symphony" seemed more interesting to me, and I did not regret my choice. He was absolutely adorable and a perfect match for the role, displaying nobility and freshness of a true romantic hero.

On the other side, corps de ballet sometimes struggled to keep up with the rather challenging tempo of the piece, which was quite understandable when one kept in mind the novelty of such a style for the Mariinsky company.


I have never seen the ballet works of Jerome Robbins (Rabinovich) before, and was quite amused with his inventiveness. Accompanied by three nocturnes, three couples developed three relationship models: functional, dominating, disfunctional. Matvienkos were sweet and elegant, Victoria Tereshkina poured drama all over, but the truly mesmerising thing on the stage were Kondaurova's hands.

When I watched her in Firebird a couple of nights before, I thought that the wonderful hands / wings were just a part of the role, and anybody who dances the Firebird would be impressive. But in "In The Night" I forgot about everything on the stage apart from the beauty of her hands.


Ballet Imperial was just ballet imperial: triumph of technique over human nature.

Moving in

This blog has been separated from my older one to aggregate entries about performances I visited living in London. Being a bloody migrant, refusing to integrate and learn the language, I visit mostly dance and ballet shows, with only occasional pop-ups to the theatre.

So, here is the exodus pack, index of old entries, from newest to oldest (all in Russian, Google Translate rocks).

Mariinsky - Homage to Fokine
Dave St-Pierre Company - Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde!
ENO - Terry Gilliam - Damnation of Faust
American Ballet Theatre
OperaUpClose - La Boheme, Madame Butterfly
Bloomsbury theatre - Seagull
Bale de Rua
OperaUpClose - Barber of Seville
Bolshoi - Petrushka / Russian seasons / Paquita
Bolshoi - Serenade / Giselle
The Old Vic - T.Stoppard - The Real Thing
Yves Klein - Monotone symphony
Matthew Bourne - Dorian Gray

Not everything was blogged, but the plan is to improve and impose more discipline on contribution to entropy of the universe.