The theater season in Astrakhan will end with the ballet Anna Karenina

The artistic council of the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theater discussed the premiere of the performance based on Leo Tolstoy's novel.

The great writer was once in the Astrakhan Governorate, passing through, on his way to the Caucasus. Almost 150 years later, the characters of his novel Anna Karenina, performed by dancers of the Opera and Ballet Theater, in the language of modern choreographic dance will present on the Astrakhan stage the psychology of the drama, the inner feelings of the characters, their passion and death because of love.

Vera Arbuzova, the choreographer from St. Petersburg, the Honored Artist of Russia, the winner of the professional ballet award "Soul of Dance", the winner of the highest theatrical award of St. Petersburg "Golden Sofit", undertook to realize the great novel on the Astrakhan stage. "This is my author's choreography, it seems to me that in this performance all its participants can give free rein to feelings, emotions, plastic expression of the drama that corresponds to the content of the work", the choreographer said.

She gladly responded to the invitation of the theater's Artistic Director, the chief Conductor Valery Voronin to stage a neoclassical contemporary ballet on the Astrakhan stage. In the new production the symphonic orchestra will present an interesting musical series: for her ballet the choreographer has chosen fragments of music from various works by Britten, Levashkevich and Mozart. The performance will also feature the opera soloists. "It is right when different choreographers work in the theater," emphasized Valery Voronin. "We have many wonderful classical ballets, this production will present a new modern choreographic vocabulary, the theater continues to develop and experiment".

Leo Tolstoy's novel and the ballet based on it are popular all over the world. The main roles in it were once performed by Maya Plisetskaya, Maris Liepa, Diana Vishneva, Ulyana Lopatkina... Now the main tragedy of female passions can be seen in Astrakhan, although the scenery and events taking place on stage will transport the audience to the luxurious fashionable salons of St. Petersburg, in Venice, the Roman Theater, the hippodrome, the Nikolaevsky station platform... A digital version of the stage design, fragments of scenery, and costumes of the characters were presented by production designer from St. Petersburg Violetta Zhigalina. Talking about the aesthetics of the costumes presented at the art council, she noted that she drew inspiration from the designers of the early 20th century, when women's fashion moved away from crinolines and corsets, but at the same time retained femininity and silhouette. The costumes presented by the artist refer to the work of the fashion houses of Dior and Roberto Capucci.

The premiere of the ballet is scheduled for the end of June. Anna Karenina will end the theater season with a story about great love and loneliness, about the difficult choice of a loving woman, whom Leo Tolstoy himself pitied and did not consider guilty.