Gala Benois de la danse was held on the Historical Stage of the Bolshoi Theater

The traditional gala of diploma winners and winners of the Benois de la danse prize of past years was held on the Historical Stage of the Bolshoi Theater. Despite the predominance of Russian artists, the concert managed to avoid the impression of a regional one due to the abundance of foreign choreography, believes Tatyana Kuznetsova.

The gala concert “Stars of Benois de la danse – laureates of different years” was added to the competition of the same name in 2004, and since then the two-day Benois has become known as a festival. As a rule, the gala enjoys bOpublic attention: among the contestants there may be substandard “pig in a poke”, and the concert is guaranteed to be composed of selected soloists and choreographers. There were, however, years when a gala with its proprietary numbers looked much more stereotyped than a competition that presented Moscow with current ballet events. This time the goals and objectives of the two festival days coincided: Benois de la danse had to confirm its world status. On the first day, the “internationality” of the competition was provided by dancers and choreographers from Southeast Asia (see Kommersant of June 21). In the program of the second day, compiled by the artistic director and chairman of the jury of the festival Svetlana Zakharova, mostly Russian dancers danced, but the goal was achieved thanks to Western choreographers – fortunately, over the three decades of the existence of Benois, all the more or less significant authors of the world have become its diploma winners or laureates.

There were only three classical pas de deux in the concert. The two-act program was framed by the hits Le Corsaire and Don Quixote, which warmed up the audience, but did not become the highlight of the evening: the pas de deux were entrusted to the youth, and the youth yielded to the elders. The strong soloist of the Bolshoi Eleonora Sevenard (Medora) danced without mistakes, her professional level is simply lower than that of the other ballerinas who performed; Novosibirsk Konrad Nikita Ksenofontov jumped off risky tricks, too, safely, but was not remembered for anything original. The young ballerina of the Bolshoi, Elizaveta Kokoreva (Kitri), who closed the concert, performed worse than her abilities: she behaved with intense artificiality and tore off the fouette, trying to unscrew more doubles. Her short Basil (Aleksey Putintsev) showed amazing partner qualities, twice catching the girl on a “fish” with a double twist. All jumps (especially the striking double cabriole back with a wide spread of legs and arched back) he performed flawlessly, all rotations – precisely and musically. However, the passion of the conqueror of the air and that game for the public, which others call “charisma”, is not in this amazing artist with the physical data of the hero and the soul of the lyricist. In contrast to the fatter Ivan Vasiliev, who opened the concert with a set of tricks in his own layout called “Prince Orlovsky’s Toast”: for his flirty spontaneity and seething temperament, the audience forgave him for dirty pirouettes, inaccurate positions, and clumsy poses. A somewhat unusual pas de deux from Giselle in the Chinese version – extremely slow, with different accents and nuances – was performed by Benois-2023 laureate Qiu Yunting with diploma student Li Wentao. With her graceful, sluggish-aloof dance, a fragile, long-legged Chinese woman with delicate hands and a light rather big jump confirmed that she deserved the prize.

This was the end of the traditional classics: the remaining nine duets belonged to modern world-famous choreographers, which looked impressive in today’s isolation times.

Nadezhda Batoeva and Konstantin Zverev from the Mariinsky Theater brought the cult adagio from Angelin Preljocaj’s “Park”, in which, according to the St. Premieres of the Mikhailovsky Theater Irina Perren and Nikita Chetverikov presented a duet from the pointless performance “Without Words” by their artistic director Nacho Duato, and the ballerina Perrin was ballerina graceful in it. A duet from the repertory Orlando was performed by Maria Vinogradova and Artemy Belyakov (Bolshoi Theatre), and even the exquisite beauty of this couple could not hide the emptiness of Christian Shpuk’s handicraft choreography. The final “black” adagio from “Lady of the Camellias” by John Neumeier (the famous three-act ballet will return to the Bolshoi Theater in July) was performed with great dedication by Svetlana Zakharova with the support of Denis Rodkin. Supports, by the way, he should have rehearsed better for the premiere: seams, interceptions and hitches are visible, and Armand Duval’s passion should have been portrayed more authentically. Svetlana Zakharova, on the contrary, should moderate the amplitude of feelings and pas: the farewell love date of a consumptive courtesan looked too energetic.

As a result, the most interesting numbers of the program turned out to be the duets of Russian choreographers – Yuri Posokhov, who lives and works in the USA, and Benois-2023 laureate Vyacheslav Samodurov, who became a freelancer after leaving the post of artistic director of the Yekaterinburg Ballet. Yekaterinburg prima Elena Vorobieva and Arsenty Lazarev, who joined the Bolshoi Theater this year, performed an amusing duet from Samodur’s latest ballet Stripsody. The choreographer, having finally got rid of the need to maintain the status of a reformer, here frolics recklessly. Under the meow, yelp, muttering of Katie Berberyan’s music, the artists break off the most unexpected knees – both combinational, and movement, and purely plastic (like turning their own bodies into soft bags of bones). Duets by Yuri Possokhov are much more classical and much more lyrical, but this seemingly smooth choreography has so many unexpected details, subtle sensuality, rare musicality and non-sugar poetry that even the most hackneyed arabesques look like they have been discovered for the first time. Soloists of the Bolshoi feel Possokhov’s choreography with their skin. That is why Ana Turazashvili and Denis Savin in the Georgian “Sagalobeli”, and especially Ekaterina Krysanova and Vladislav Lantratov in the duet from the ballet “The Bells” to the music of Sergei Rachmaninov, danced with that confidential harmony, which is so rare in modern theater and which is much more important than triple sodebasques and double fouettes.