Ballet Map of Russia

Russian ballet is usually associated with Moscow’s Bolshoi and St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theaters, as well as with St. Petersburg’s Ballet Academy on Architect Rossi Street. But there is not a single large city in Russia that does not have at least some sort of theater for opera and ballet, where local performers put on at least some manner of performance of Swan Lake, Giselle or Don Quixote. ¶ Among hundreds of such theaters, which at times can be rather odd institutions, there are approximately 25 major State Theaters funded by federal and regional budgets. Half of them are serious centers of academic art. They have permanent ballet companies consisting of 100 or more dancers,

and their own schools of choreography. Their repertoires include all the popular classics and numerous contemporary productions. These theaters host major international festivals with the participation of leading Russian and foreign dancers. How they pull it off can be a tale more wondrous than Sleeping Beauty.

Ufa

A call from my old acquaintance at the Ministry of Culture interrupts me just as I am about to leave for work.

“Something urgent has come up! Write a libretto for a ballet based on a Bashkir national theme for the theater in Ufa! They will send you materials about Bashkir folklore and I have also sent a pile of books to the office for you…”

“Hold on as second, what libretto? I don’t know the first thing about Bashkir folklore! When do you need it by?”

“The sooner the better. It’s January. In June they have to stage the premiere. You see, the theater in Ufa has to regularly perform works based on a national theme. Even though Bashkiria is a part of Russia, it is still a republic. They have their own president, their own government and their own composers – people well-respected there. As soon as the theater puts together a successful cultural project on the federal level, these composers run to complain to the Bashkir Ministry of Culture that their works aren’t being performed. The theater has to uphold parity. Now is a good time: the opera premiere is being moved to the next season and there’s a whole six months available! The music is already there, it will be directed by Andrei Petrov from Moscow, the director of the Kremlin Ballet. But at the last minute everyone realized that they need some sort of story. People there don’t like abstract works. Come up with something, but no more than two acts. There’s not much money.”

There was nothing I could say. Throughout the vast expanse of Russia, there is no more effective ballet manager, although there are many who claim to be. He works with the Ufa ballet because Ufa is where the legendary Rudolf Nureyev grew up. In the local theater, little Nureyev saw the touching ballet Crane Song. He so liked the lead ballerina, Zaituna Nasretdinova, that he decided to become a dancer.

Nasretdinova, who marked her 80th birthday a couple of years ago, is still a teacher at the theater, giving a daily technique class and working with the ballerinas. She graduated from the Vaganova School of Ballet. In Soviet times, instructors from the capital would travel to the farthest reaches of the Soviet Union in search of talented children. Rudolf Nureyev received his training thanks to this. Now, in his native Ufa, there is a marvelous school of choreography housed in a huge building with approximately 600 students and more than 100 instructors, among whom the majority also received their training at the Vaganova School.

The head instructor for the theater’s ballet troupe is Leonora Kuvatova, famous within Russia for, having studied alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, with whom she danced a duet for her graduation examination. It is a strong troupe, with many brilliant soloists: the elegant graduate of the Vaganova School, Yelena Fomina; the graceful oriental beauties, Gulsina Mavlyukasova and Guzel Suleimanova; the lyrical Ildar Manyapov, adored by all the local girls; and the austere Ruslan Mukhametov, who brings to mind the romantic figure of a Hollywood cowboy. But the star of the troupe, the idol of local ballet-lovers, is Denis Zaintdinov, the stocky dancer of average height with a phenomenal jump. Without any visible effort, he breaks away from the earth, reaching incredible heights and, through some sort of magic, hangs in the air, serenely pulling off a cascade of acrobatic feats above the heads of his partners.

“Does it bother you that during the Nureyev Festival, you have to yield the lead roles to guest dancers?” I ask him.

“Not at all,” Zaintdinov laughs. “The Festival repertoire consists mostly of classical works choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich [the famous former head of the Bolshoi], and in his work no one is number two – everyone is a lead. And negative characters are no less interesting than positive ones. Also, when the Festival has guests like the soloists from the Paris Opera Ballet [Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris], it is helpful to watch their performance.”

The ballet festival in Nureyev’s home town was founded ten years ago. It was the brainchild of Yuri Grigorovich and the head ballet master of the local theater, Shamil Teregulov. Since then, many leading young dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet, once directed by Nureyev, have taken part in the festival.

“Of course, I was interested to see what kind of a city was Ufa, which Nureyev had talked about so often,” said Karl Paquette, a six-foot-plus fair-haired giant who reminds one of an ancient Viking and is one of the Paris dancers. “But, beside that, I was drawn by the opportunity to dance Grigorovich’s works, which have very interesting male parts. We all worship Nureyev’s productions, but he staged works for himself. Grigorovich stages them for everyone; he characterizes the roles through the dancing.  In his Swan Lake and Nutcracker, I feel that I am the male lead. Here, every part is not just a collection of movements, but a full-fledged dramatic role.”

Professional curiosity and touristic impressions aside, for many, the festival in Ufa has turned out to be a springboard to a dance career in Russia. After a successful appearance in Ufa, Alexander Volchkov, a young soloist from the Bolshoi with nothing in particular to set him apart, became one of that theater’s leading dancers. Karl Paquette was invited to dance in Romeo and Juliet in Moscow. And, after a triumph in Ufa, the Spanish dancer, Igor Yebra Iglesias ascended the throne of the tsars in the Kremlin: he played the role of Ivan the Terrible in Grigorovich’s eponymous ballet.

“I was invited to Ufa as an artistic heir to Nureyev, because I work under the direction of his favorite pupil, Charles Jude,” Yebra said. “But, like many others, I too dreamed of dancing parts from the works of Grigorovich. At one point, I decided to study ballet after seeing his Spartacus. And, after his assistants saw my performances in Ufa, Grigorovich allowed me to prepare the role of Ivan the Terrible, shown to me by the first performer of that role in the Bolshoi, Yuri Vladimirov.”

Kazan

Another annual festival dedicated to Rudolf Nureyev takes place in Kazan, the capital of the neighboring republic, Tatarstan. Nureyev spent time in the Kazan theater not long before his death. Now they proudly show every visitor a poster he signed.

In 2005, Kazan commemorated its millennium. The opening ceremonies launching the numerous celebrations took place in the Opera and Ballet Theater, a majestic building with columns and national ornaments adorning the rings of balconies. It was closed for reconstruction for more than a year. Now, its stage may become the envy of theaters in many of the world’s capitals. But during the renovations, the troupe was forced to roam from one cramped theatrical stage to another, rehearsing in gymnasiums, while lighting and scenery specialists rushed between storage facilities at either end of the city.

Despite these hardships, the company produced Le Corsaire, a work that companies working under much more favorable conditions rarely undertake. In many ways, the adventures of the ballet’s heroes – who must withstand a storm and every-day adversity that threatens to tear apart their close-knit crew –  echoed the situation of the ballet company itself. The multitude of earlier versions of Le Corsaire reminds one of a varied pile of riches, like a treasure trove of pirates who happen to be the ballet’s protagonists. Here we have the time-honored virtuoso solo, appropriated by prima donnas from their favorite, but now forgotten, productions. Here we also have the most difficult ensembles in the choreography of Marius Petipa:  the trio de odalisques (the Slave Dance), Le Jardin Animé (Enchanted Garden), the trio in the grotto, famous in another version, where it turns into a “competitive duet.” And then there is the picturesque dancing and mise en scènes, recalling a faded canvas depicting the rather musty plot of the eponymous work by Byron, on which the ballet is based. It is not enough to master the choreographic fabric, as it might be, for instance, with Giselle. Here, with every revival, a great deal of thought must go into deciding what to make from this cloth.

“We needed a ballet like this for touring, to compete with better-known companies,” said the ballet’s artistic director, Vladimir Yakovlev. He is also from St. Petersburg and is also a graduate of the Vaganskaya School, as are the majority of the more successful Russian ballet dancers and producers. In his youth, he was a soloist in Kazan and this is not the first decade that he has kept the troupe in magnificent form.

The company includes masters from different generations. The oldest is the virtuoso dancer and expressive actor Bakhytzhan Smagulov, who plays the role of every imaginable villain. The troupe boasts two prima donnas – equally strong technically, but as different as night and day in their emotional makeup. Yelena Shcheglova effusively radiates charm and optimism, inspiring those around her even under the most hopeless of circumstances. The torrid beauty, Yelena Kostrova, stuns with her temperament and irresistible feminine allure. And we have the unique and lyrical principal Nurlan Kanetov, whose tall, finely-chiseled figure forms ideally fluid lines that make his dancing seem like a spellbinding, endlessly-flowing melody. Needless to say, it is he who dances the princes of the classical repertoire. Furthermore, a ballet was put on for him about the biblical Joseph, where Kanetov holds the audience in a state of rapt attention for three long acts. He has a worthy competitor in Denis Ustalov, another expressive actor and magnificent dancer in the troupe, captivatingly performing Peer Gynt in a ballet based on Grieg’s music that is no shorter or less impressive. The troupe is made brighter and more colorful by the dancing of the very young, but marvelously trained and artistic Alexandra Surodeyeva and Ruslan Savdenov.

In terms of the number of its foreign tours, the Tatar company holds second place only to the Mariinsky. The Kazan dancers give up to 100 opera and ballet performances abroad each year, and not just in the backwoods, but in main artistic venues of Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands. And they invite eminent dancers to their own festival, even for rather small, supporting roles. Thanks to Natalya Sadovskaya, an impresario well-known in Russia, many Russian stars have performed here, from Yekaterina Maksimova to Ulyana Lopatkina. Sadovskaya is a direct descendent of the Sadovsky dynasty – which holds a place of reverence in the history of Russian ballet – of actors in Moscow’s oldest dramatic theater, the Maly. In her youth, she danced in the company of the Bolshoi Theater, and now teaches the history of ballet at the Moscow Academy of Choreography and helps theaters in Kazan, Syktyvkar, Yakutsk, Chelyabinsk and other Russian cities far from the center invite dancers from the capital.

“Why did you have to arrange such a long show?” my colleagues and I jokingly reproach Sadovskaya, as we stand in the wings with our suitcases, nervously glancing at our watches. “We’ll be late for the train!”

The danger was real. For some reason, the only way to leave Kazan for Moscow in the evening is on a single train that starts in the Urals and stops in the capital of Tatarstan for only five minutes. This train is usually packed and tickets are sold on the assumption that the conductor will find available seating for new passengers. At the end of a performance, the dancers barely have time to change before they must race to the station. If they are late, they have to catch up with the train by car.

“What time is it?” asks Romeo, a soloist from one of the Moscow theaters, who is doing stretching exercises next to us. He and his partner must leave on the same train as we journalists. But his Juliet has already calculated that the gala speeches, ovations and presentation of flowers to the dancers at the end of each of the event’s performances have been so drawn-out, there is no longer any chance of making the train. Sadovskaya runs to negotiate with the directors in charge of the evening and the program is changed on the fly. Romeo and Juliet are let onto the stage out of turn and we chuckle, noticing that the pace at which the two declare their love for one another is quite a bit brisker than usual. Ten minutes after their number is over and with traces of hastily removed makeup on their faces, they are next to us in a car heading full-speed to the train station through brightly-lit streets, past the Kazan Kremlin, mosques, and ancient structures nestled among new office buildings and hotels.

Perm

Ballet made its way to Perm during World War II, with the evacuation of the Mariinsky Theater (then the Kirov) and the Leningrad School of Choreography, headed by the legendary Agrippina Vaganova. Since then, the Perm school and theater have been world famous. They have a firm grip on “third place,” after the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, and have at times broken into the lead. A Perm graduate, Nadezhda Pavlova, wound up being one of the brightest stars of the Bolshoi Theater, and countless dancers from that city have had notable international careers.

Perm is now the site of one of the most popular Russian competitions for young dancers – the Arabesque, held biannually. And the troupe tries to maintain a repertoire that includes the world of ballet’s most complex works. Taking pride in their status as direct descendents of the Petersburg ballet school, the Permyaki began to master the productions of its famous pupil, George Balanchine, long before the Moscow and Petersburg ballets did. However, they were able to demonstrate the results of these studies to capital connoisseurs only last year, after the world had finished celebrating the hundred-year anniversary of Balanchine’s birth, after the triumphs of Ulyana Lopatkina and Svetlana Zakharova dancing at Balanchine commemorations, after the captivating visits of their fellow choreographers, after there had been stories told, films made and all manner of discussion about him. In other words, when Balanchine-mania had been abundantly satisfied.

Alas, the look of the Perm troupe performing the meditative neo-romantic Serenade and the festive Ballet Imperial recalls the edifying and farcical scene from Gone with the Wind, where Scarlett, after coming up with the idea of borrowing money from Rhett Butler, makes a gown out of an old, velvet curtain, arms herself with every surviving piece of jewelry she can lay her hands on, and, trembling with fear that he might guess at her straitened circumstances, sets off to charm the lady-killer.

Like Scarlett, the Perm troupe manages to create a respectable impression. You have to grant the dancers that they have been very well schooled. The most complex combinations, transitions, the corps dances – a test of virtuosity and synchrony – have been rehearsed with enviable precision.

But Scarlett’s downfall was a small detail: she was not able to hide her hands, roughened by daily labor, and Rhett guessed her game. The Perm Ballet’s downfall is not their hands, but their feet – which had always been a great source of pride for them. Not believing their eyes, the audience is astonished to see shoes with unbending soles and square toes that distort the ballerinas’ leg lines to the point of caricature. And this in the ballets of Balanchine, an aesthete who approached being fetishistic when it came to feet, notoriously requiring that shoes arch in ideally fluid lines and devising an abundance of beautiful movements with these lines in mind.

“What are you so surprised about?” a former star of the Perm troupe asked, seeing the look on my face. She has long since moved to Moscow and is already bringing to a close a successful career in one of its best troupes. “In Soviet times, the theater had a special shop to make individual pointe shoes. The dancers didn’t pay for their shoes – all expenses were met by the government. They gave you as many shoes as you needed. Each dancer in the corps de ballet could order footwear custom made for her foot. But now only the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky have shoemakers, and even there, many of the most highly-skilled ones have left for higher-paying work in private companies. Most of the provincial theaters use the various Moscow companies, who shape the shoes using average measurements. How can we achieve an aesthetic look when our main concern is saving money?”

I sigh and remember that there are theaters in other cities along the Volga (Samara, Cheboksary, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov) with histories that are no less interesting than that of the Perm troupe, but whose current situation is much more deplorable. They are forced to save money not only on shoes, but on dancers. Nonetheless, using every trick in the book, they stage noteworthy performances, conduct festivals and go on tour (at times combining the troupes of three nearby cities to come up with the number of performers needed for classical mise en scènes for Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty). In comparison with their troubles, the resources available to Yuri Grigorovich’s theater in Krasnodar seem limitless and completely fantastic.

Krasnodar

It is a two-hour flight from Moscow to Krasnodar. On the way, the Ministry of Culture press secretary explains that the Grigorovich Ballet is part of the Premiere Krasnodar Krai [Region] State Arts Alliance, headed by Leonard Gatov. This is one of the largest and most high-powered theatrical organizations in Russia; it would not be out of place to call it an empire. Premiere includes a symphony orchestra, which recently celebrated its 190th year, a big band, instrumental ensembles, several theaters – dramatic, puppet, dance and musical; and colleges of music and choreography. All of these organizations do a great job of putting on original shows and concert programs and then taking them to theaters all over the world. Premiere has its own technical shop for scenery and props, which includes among its clients the operas of Rome, Istanbul, Seoul, and many cities of Russia. It maintains spas and resorts for the benefit of the performers. Conductors, directors, singers and artists from Moscow collaborate with Premiere.

“I have been acquainted with Grigorovich since right before preparations for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow,” Gatov told me. “I was directing the large-scale performances and was one of the producers for the closing ceremonies in Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. We decided to include scenes from Swan Lake in this ceremony. At first, Grigorovich was doubtful about this, but then he thought of an effective way to combine the most popular fragments of the swan scene. I was struck back then by how well-organized and professional he was. This composition turned out to be one of the most memorable numbers of the entire show and afterwards was often shown on television. Naturally, I dreamed of working with Grigorovich again and kept in touch with him over the years. When he left the position of head ballet master at the Bolshoi, I had already been in Krasnodar for some time and immediately suggested we work together. Now the Grigorovich Ballet is our most popular theater. Just look at the building we built for him.”

The building is indeed impressive: the severe lines of the high-tech design, combining glass, gray-steel constructions and white marble; the spectrum of grand shades of blue – from indigo to the color of ocean waves; ushers in naval-styled uniforms; fountains and waterfalls flowing down the walls in the foyer; the illusion of a starry night sky created by the design of the performance hall – all of this creates the impression of a cruise on an ocean liner.

Here the acoustics are well-calibrated and the lighting is magnificent. It allows for the reproduction of the delicate range of shadings in the set designs of Simon Virsaladze, who achieved his main coloristic effects specifically through masterfully regulated lighting. Grigorovich is almost always with the troupe, spending several months at a time in Krasnodar and touring with the ballet throughout Russia and overseas. He intends to show all of his legendary productions in Kuban [an area of Southern Russia along the Kuban River, with Krasnodar at its heart] and has already staged The Golden Age in a new two-act version, Spartacus, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, Giselle, Futile Precaution, Swan Lake, Stone Flower, La Bayadère, and Corsaire.

“I see that, for the dancers in Krasnodar, this is not just a job, they are truly interested. So it is interesting for me, too, working with them,” Grigorovich said, about explaining why he decided to settle here, after decades at the helm of the Bolshoi.

Furthermore, in Krasnodar Krai there are great prospects for social development, with the performing arts playing a significant role. Last year President Vladimir Putin – who regularly vacations in Sochi (a two-hour drive from Krasnodar) and does not hide his love for the local ski resort Krasnaya Polyana – conducted a session of the Government Council on the Black Sea coast that was devoted to the development of Russian resorts. The President called on the head of Kuban, Alexander Tkachev, to develop tourism, and the authorities have drafted a plan for such development. Among other things, it includes a section on “cultural tourism,” which is being called upon to change Sochi’s image. From now on, the city should be associated with grandiose shows along the lines of the productions of the Arena di Verona. In Italy, thousands of wealthy tourists flock to this ancient amphitheater to view extravagantly produced operas under the open sky.

Gatov’s Premiere is entirely capable of organizing a festival of this type, something demonstrated last summer at one of the most visited tourist destinations on the Black Sea coast – Akhun Mountain. The Grigorovich Ballet put on a show made up of scenes from Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet, and Don Quixote. The performance was held at the foot of the famous tower on Akhun Mountain, where a stage was specially built for this, with seating for 1,200.

The tower was erected in 1936 on a personal order of Stalin, whose dacha, Zelyonaya Roshcha (now a fashionable sanatorium) is located at the foot of the mountain. From the upper observation deck of the tower extend views imbued with majesty. Here, anyone can feel as if they are a ruler of the people, gazing out over limitless expanses of sea. Perhaps this is why in Soviet times the climb up Akhun Mountain was one of the most popular tourist routes. Yet, in recent years, the road up Akhun Mountain (with 20 hairpin turns) has devolved into 11 treacherous kilometers of asphalt, pockmarked by fallen rocks. At the summit, electricity is sporadic and there is no water beyond what is trucked up.

A week before the show, dozens of road rollers hurriedly repaved the road. The final traffic lines were painted an hour before the show began. Thanks to top-notch lighting equipment purchased in Italy and real torches and fireworks, the tower made for quite a fairy-tale setting. For Grigorovich, who had staged much more elaborate shows in the Roman Coliseum and during the closing ceremonies of the 1980 Olympics in Luzhniki, this was a breeze. He assembled medieval personages on the walls and ledges and brought the public to a state of ecstasy with the rousing dancing on stage.

Premiere has already come up with numerous additional impressive projects: a performance of La Bayadère in an arboretum, concerts by the Mariinsky ballet orchestra, and no shortage of other enticements. These projects are on a par with the staging of Aida at the foot of the pyramids. Now it is up to the city government: in order to draw tourists to the concerts and ballet it will be necessary to spruce up the city, which at present is in a rather dispiriting condition. The only thing in Sochi that meets European standards are the prices. From May through October, a stay in a hotel or sanatorium costs 650-1500 rubles a night and the food is of questionable quality. The city’s true badge of shame is its central beaches, which are dirty and poorly developed. Only two remain – the shoreline in Sochi and Khost are almost entirely built up and have not been properly maintained for more than ten years. In the past, as soon as the season was over, scuba divers would remove rocks, trees and other debris that had washed down from the mountains into the sea. This is no longer done, and in many spots you cannot set foot in the water without getting hurt.

It is not clear who will restore municipal services and raise the city to a level capable of attracting tourists. According to the head of Sochi’s city government, Viktor Kolodyazhny, more than 70% of the population is comprised of pensioners. To make matters worse, the Sochi region is under “double” jurisdiction. Every step involves a struggle between the local government and the National Parks Administration, on whose land Sochi is situated.

“That was quite a spectacle there on the mountain, but it’s a shame that the project wasn’t coordinated with the park,” said Nadezhda Didenko, the academic secretary of the Sochi branch of the Russian Geographical Society. “On top of the fact that a patch of forest was cut down, nobody solved the problem of toilets and trash pickup. Akhun Mountain is a source of therapeutic mineral waters. As a one-time thing, it’s okay, but if these shows will be put on regularly, who will take care of all this and at whose expense?”

Smoldering conflicts over all sorts of issues have been going on between the city of Sochi and the National Parks Administration for many years. National parks and the Caucasus Nature Reserve envelope the city from all sides – there is no available land. Last year, the city wanted to widen the road entering Sochi from the direction of Dagomys, but doing that would require that the old cypress trees that line the road be cut down. The only thing holding the soil and stones on the slopes in place are the roots of these trees. Cutting them down would lead to landslides and desiccation of the area. For many years now, water – both cold and hot – has flowed from the faucets of Sochi homes with lengthy interruptions. Water and sewer lines are operating at about 30% capacity, and in the villages they simply do not exist at all.

Now there is a wonderful road leading to the top of Akhun Mountain, but it has not been extended to the outlying villages. Coming to Sochi from its scenic outskirts and then getting back again is an almost insurmountable problem. And this is not only due to the lack of roads: there is often a two-hour wait for a bus or car. Only those who live close to the theater can make it to evening performances in the city center: busses only run until 8 pm, and, in the evening, enterprising drivers charge more than taxis. Even the local authorities call the transportation situation a disaster.

Meanwhile, local authorities are enthusiastically working on a plan to move the train tracks away from the coast, freeing up dozens of kilometers of beach for tourists. But it is too soon for the Turkish tourist industry to worry about competition from their neighbors up the Black Sea coast. If Premiere’s satellite shows are to be continued, it will be a demonstration of what Sochi cultural tourism could become. But for now, provincial Russian ballet is best appreciated on its home stages.    RL