The most renowned Russian ballet celebrates 125th anniversary – Tchaikovsky’s fairy-ballet “The Nutcracker” was for the first time staged on 18th 1892 in St.-Petersburg. The magical ballet show graced a lot of playbills of different theatres around the world, and Tchaikovsky’s charming music follows celebration of Christmas and New Year all around the world.
The anniversary will be celebrated in December 2017 at NOVAT as well. This performance will be staged for 600th time in Novosibirsk on 26th December. At last, it’s the 10th premiere night of a rendition by Nacho Duato, the outstanding Spanish choreographer.
Lucky coincidence – this staging of “The Nutcracker” is featured with a debut of the new principal of the Ballet Company Ernest Latypov, who is to perform the Nutcracker for the first time: “The new ballet is really tough. Everyone engaged in this production admits to get tired more than usually. Nacho’s choreography grows from classic ballet, but it also has features of his own authentic style: tricky balance stunts and leaps, new features of classic moves. In my opinion, the new Nacho Duato’s production holds more of peculiar content for a dancer, although the amazing rendition of Vasily Vaynonen will surely be staged for years ahead ”.
Libretto for the very first production of “The Nutcracker” was designed by Marius Petipa – choreographer, dancer, tutor. The plot is based on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tale “The Nutcracker and The Mouse King” and rendered by Alexandre Dumas, père. The stage choreographer of the first production was Lev Ivanov. The ballet was not so well received by the critics, some would even call Tchaikovsky’s music undanceable. However, the first “Nutcracker” had been staged at the Mariinsky theatre for 30 years. Since those days the famous ballet was staged numerous times at theatres around the world – there are plenty of different revisions from classical to avant-garde. In different periods it was staged by George Balanchin, Yury Grigorovich, Rudolf Nureev, Mikhail Baryshnikov. It was in 1934 when the famous Vasily Vaynonen’s rendition was created, and later distributed to many of a stage in Russian and abroad.
In Novosibirsk “The Nutcracker” was for the first time staged on 12th March 1950, produced by ballet masters S. Pavlov and Z. Vasilyeva, and then on 23rd March 1961 Vasily Vaynonen presented his renowned rendition on Siberian stage. This performance was rediscovered in 1978. In April 1995 “The Nutcracker” was staged by Georgy Alexidze, costumes and scenery by Igor Grinevich. In 1998 ballet master Sergey Vikharev used traditional choreography of Lev Ivanov and Vasily Vaynonen to stage “The Nutcracker” with Igor Grinevich’s scenery from 1995.
As for today, NOVAT has Vasily Vaynonen’s rendition of “The Nutcracker”, designed in 2013. In September 2017 the repertoire was updated with “The Nutcracker” designed by a Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato and a French scenery designer Jerome Kaplan. NOVAT’s audience has a unique opportunity to contemplate two renditions of the beloved ballet on one stage.
Ernest Latypov has already performed several renditions of “The Nutcracker”: “Earlier on, at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet and at the Mariinsky theatre I used to dance Vaynonen’s “The Nutcracker” and Kirill Simonov’s ballet with Mikhail Shemyakin’s scenery. I must say, it’s a unique opportunity for a dancer to be engaged in two renditions of one ballet. It’s amazing the Novosibirsk theatre holds two versions of one ballet – two absolutely different revisions of “Spartacus” or two “Nutcrackers”, both beautiful in its own way“.