Ksenia Sobchak danced in the Kremlin

The treasures in this ballet are the treasure of the princes Bersky, hidden in the park of their family mansion before the revolution, and the main villains are a professor from St. Petersburg and a gang organized by him. The professor is the offspring of the rich princely family of Berskys, who devoted his life to searching for the treasure that the grandfather of the protagonist hid. And the main character’s name is Nicolas, he is a salesman in a Parisian toy store founded by his grandfather, and at the same time “the smartest Frenchman”, the winner of a television competition, the prize of which is a trip to any part of the world. Nicolas chooses Russia…

For Andrey Petrov, artistic director and chief choreographer of the theatre, this theatre’s first premiere in four years turned out to be very successful as well. The ballet was created two years ago, at the very peak of the pandemic, when the Kremlin Palace did not give performances. The ballet was first shown at the Voronezh Opera and Ballet Theatre, and after the success in Voronezh, it was transferred to the Kremlin stage. During the transfer, the choreographer reasonably took into account the size of the Kremlin Ballet troupe (and it is fully involved in the performance) and the possibilities of the gigantic Kremlin stage. At the same time, the performance was complicated technically and choreographically. And if the parties of the main characters did not undergo any special changes, then the corps de ballet scenes of the performance became larger and more grandiose.

The fairytale story, told in the language of ballet, is based on the novel of the same name by Viktor Dobrosotsky about a Parisian, a descendant of Russian emigrants of the first wave, a doll-maker who, once in Russia, falls in love with a Russian translator and opens his own toy store in Moscow (GUM). This story, in modern times, although not particularly relevant, is fascinating and interesting. Well, for ballet, a genre in which any plot gives rise to dances, it is simply irreplaceable.

At the same time, the novel is especially popular with a variety of directors. Here we can recall the dramatic performance by Yuri Vasiliev, and his very successful film with the participation of Pierre Richard, which was released after the dramatic performance in 2012. In Yaroslavl, in the theater named after Fyodor Volkov, there is another “Toy Seller”, which is staged by Alexei Chernyshev. Even an opera was created based on this novel.

Therefore, the appearance of a new author’s ballet score is an extraordinary event. Moreover, it was created not for contemporary dance, but for a classical group with a traditional approach to choreography and ballet dramaturgy. Alexey Shelygin, the author of famous soundtracks, including “Brigade”, “Shadow Boxing”, “Sky. Airplane. The Girl” and many others, for the second time refers to the plot of “The Toy Seller”: earlier he wrote the aforementioned opera of the same name, and now the ballet. At the same time, the composer did not adapt the score of the opera, as one might assume, but wrote completely different music for the ballet. And this, perhaps, has no analogues in composer practice.

As once Tchaikovsky and Petipa, and now the composer and choreographer in this ballet worked in close cooperation. And the choreography turned out by the artistic director of the Kremlin ballet is light, imaginative, intricate. It was created in the spirit of neoclassicism. And at its core, as always with Petrov, is classical vocabulary and, above all, finger technique, but organically supplemented with elements of modern dance trends and systems.

The plot of the ballet is essentially a modern fairy tale. Its action takes place in our time on the very eve of the New Year and begins in Paris, but then is transferred to Russia, to St. Petersburg. And the ballet ends in Moscow, around a huge Christmas tree.

For the ballet, the writer created an original script, quite different from the movie script. To simplify the plot, the entire line of the rich bride Nicolas, whose millionaire father in the film is played by Pierre Richard, was excluded here. Yes, and the ballet ends in a slightly different way. Here, the treasures that are taken from Nicolas by a relative from Russia, the villainous professor, who has been vigilantly following his search, go to the state. Criminals are arrested by the Russian police. However, the ending of the story is the same in both the film and the ballet: as befits a real Christmas tale, the protagonist proposes to his beloved.

At the same time, as in any Christmas ballet, the performance has a Christmas tree, as well as other attributes of Christmas. And if the golden key that Nicolas inherited from his grandfather and opens the door of the hiding place with the treasure turned out to be from a completely different, not at all Christmas fairy tale, then the indispensable “Snowflake Waltz” with 18 snowflake dancers in white packs fills the space on the stage almost like in The Nutcracker.

The Christmas tree, arranged by Nicolas in the Main Department Store in Moscow, where he opens his toy store, is very similar to the Christmas tree in the Kremlin Palace: it sparkles with its garlands against the backdrop of the Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil’s Cathedral, and the ribbon in the new toy store, where the Christmas holiday takes place , in the ballet the mayor of the city cuts, however, not at all like Sergei Sobyanin.

The similarity of the Christmas tree with the Kremlin should not be surprising. After all, the scenery for this new Christmas ballet was made by the famous stage designer of the Kremlin Palace, Grigory Belov, who often decorates here the main “Christmas tree” of the country. And the bright, joyful, festive, blissfully childish, Christmas atmosphere of the performance, which so successfully complements the choreography of Andrei Petrov, is largely due to him and Olga Polyanskaya, the costume designer. But the main component of the performance’s success is still the music of the composer Alexei Shelygin, which is extremely melodic by today’s standards.

In the ballet score, Shelygin uses classical dance genres of diverse character – here is a minuet, and a tarantella and, of course, a waltz, without which a real traditional ballet is not conceivable. The luxurious waltz, which sounds in the dream of the protagonist in the second act of the ballet, was staged by Andrei Petrov at a ball in the family estate of the princes Bersky. Like the Waltz of the Snowflakes, it is one of the best crowd scenes in ballet.

The music of the adagio, a lyrical duet of the two main characters, written in the spirit of a Russian romance, is also very beautiful in the performance. The music does not sound like a stylization of old references, but quite modern and fresh, thanks to intricate rhythms, complex harmonies. Which once again proves that the combinations of elements of the traditional musical language are inexhaustible, like the options for the development of chess games.

Of particular pleasure was the virtuosic and technically pure performance of the parts of the main characters, Nicolas and Natasha. The dance of the premiere and prima of the Kremlin Ballet Theater Daniil Roslanov and Ekaterina Pervushina was virtuoso and light. The texture of these dancers, their musicality, sense of style, staging and harmony of their duet, as well as figurative and emotional acting, allow us to speak of them as established masters.

At the beginning of the first act, the “puppet divertissement” staged by Petrov in the Parisian workshop of Nicolas is also organically perceived, when the spirit of the ancestor descended from the portrait revives the puppets created by his grandson. This is the Guardsman and the Princess, well danced by Alexei Kazantsev and Karina Pavlova; Tsarevich and Tsarevna, beautifully performed by Pyotr Gorbunov and Polina Diyanshina; Cavalier and Lady classically presented by Edgar Yeghiazaryan and Polina Ageeva; Harlequin and Columbine shown with feeling by Egor Motuzov and Alexandra Krisa.

The use by Andrey Petrov in his choreography of not only classical, but also modern vocabulary, built, among other things, on the basis of everyday and sports movements, allows us to more capaciously and reliably create images of our contemporaries on stage. And these images came out in the ballet very, very colorful. Moreover, there are many of them in the ballet, and such a large population is a special advantage of Andrei Petrov’s performance. There is something to dance and play the premiere of the theater for Mikhail Evgenov, who picturesquely appeared in the ballet as Major Berezkin, investigating a fight in a tea room and interrogating witnesses: a waiter, vividly shown by Evgeny Korolyov, a nurse who played a wedding with this brave major at the end of the ballet, coquettishly danced by Anastasia Shelomentseva, as well as the doctor of the district hospital vividly depicted on stage by Sergei Vasyuchenko. And how “broke away” the artists of the “Kremlin Ballet” in the roles of members of the professor’s gang (these parts were perfectly performed by Dmitry Prusakov, Bogdan Pleshakov, Ivan Zakharchenko)! Their leader, in fact, the villain-professor himself, expressively shown on stage by Maxim Sabitov, did not let us down either.

And if the mayor of the city does not look like the current mayor of Moscow in ballet, the guide of the museum of the princes Bersky, one to one – Ksenia Sobchak. She is the professor’s accomplice and steals a map during a fight arranged in the “tea” by the gang members, which should lead to the place where the treasures are hidden. And the share of Alina Kaicheva, who performed this part, as well as Maxim Apatonov, who plays in the performance the role of not even a person, but a portrait of Prince Bersky, the grandfather of the protagonist, had the biggest success at the premiere. The grotesque, comic party of the tour guide amused the viewer a lot, as they were struck by the contrast with age and the graceful, “valiant” and exemplary skits of the gray-haired and gray-bearded grandfather, whose spirit descends from the portrait and guards his beloved grandson in various, not only fascinating, but sometimes very dangerous adventures that befell his descendant in Russia.