Swan Lake. Premiere at the Bolshoi

Exactly five months our audience didn’t hear Tchaikovsky's magic music on the Belarusian stage. That's how much the theater's calendar did not include this ballet. On 15 May, Swan Lake staged by Valentin Elizariev returns to the Bolshoi's repertoire.

This will be the 7^th production of Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky at the Bolshoi. The first was directed by conductor Natan Grubin and choreographer Konstantin Muller in 1938, then in 1948 Muller, together with conductor Allan Zholents, presented the second premiere of the ballet. Alexandra Nikolaeva, Nina Mlodzinskaya, Basia Karpilova, Semyon Drechin, and Valery Mironov shone in these productions. In 1967 and 1978, conductor Tatiana Kolomiytseva and choreographer Asaf Messerer worked on the productions. In those years, the performances featured Nina Davydenko, Irina Savelyeva, Lyudmila Brzhozovskaya, Inessa Dushkevich, Tatyana Ershova, Alexander Martynov, Yury Trayan, Vladimir Ivanov, Viktor Sarkisyan. In 1986, the musical director and conductor Gennady Provatorov, choreographer Asaf Messerer, designer Ernst Heydebrecht and artistic director Valentin Elizariev worked again on this Tchaikovsky’s ballet. A new version of this production was staged in 2012. And on 15 May 2021, the fairy tale will come to life again on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus.

In the painting shop, people work on the sets, in the sewing shop talented craftswomen sew costumes for artists, in the rehearsal halls teachers and artists work on ballet making, carefully intertwining the threads of choreography by Lev Ivanov, Marius Petipa, Alexander Gorsky, Asaf Messerer and Valentin Elizariev. Conductor Vladimir Ovodok together with the musicians of the orchestra tries to read the genius Tchaikovsky’s music in a new way. By the way, the designer of the premiere ballet is a long-time friend of the Belarusian Bolshoi Vyacheslav Okunev, People's Artist of Russia.

Valentin Elizariev staged Swan Lake only in Tokyo, and in 1986 he was the artistic director of the Belarusian production. So, he is working on the embodiment of this production on the stage of his native theatre for the first time.

It is interesting that in the Belarusian Bolshoi Theatre the directors have been attracted by the happy ending of the play. What awaits us in the premiere ballet? We'll see on 15 May.

The leading roles in the ballet are traditionally prepared by several casts of artists. Irina Eromkina, Liudmila Ulantsava, Liudmila Khitrova tried on the role of Odette/Odile; Siegfried–Oleg Eromkin, Igor Onoshko, Artem Bankovsky, Even Capitaine; Von Rothbart – Yury Kavaliou, Anton Kravchenko, Egor Azarkevich; Jesters–Takatoshi Machiyama, Taro Kurachi, Konstantin Geronik. But who will dance in the premiere performance, even Elizariev himself will not say yet.