Sergey Skvortsov made an amazing performance at the Summer Ballet Seasons festival

During the festival, four ballet companies, different in their level and significance, performed at the Youth Theater. Along with such well-known ballet companies as the Mari Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after E. Sapaev and the Moscow Theater named after N. Sats, for almost the entire July and August, the stage of the RAMT (in the 20s of the last century it was for some time a branch of the Bolshoi Theater) was divided and two relatively recently formed and small companies – the Russian Classical Ballet Theater (artistic director V. Grishchenko), founded in 2009. and “National Classical Ballet” (artistic director A. Nekhlyudova), which dates back to 2010.

These groups are quite small. So, in order to show the act of shadows in the large-scale ballet La Bayadère, instead of the prescribed 32 or at least 24 dancers, instead of the prescribed 32 or at least 24 dancers (at the premiere in 1877, Marius Petipa had 64 in general!) 17 corps de ballet girls. Let us note, however, that they can hardly fit on the small drama stage of the Youth Theatre, not intended for dancing.

The same picture in “Giselle”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Swan Lake” and other ballets of the classical heritage. These troupes show abridged and truncated editions of the classics. Such companies do not have the opportunity to impress the audience with truly luxurious scenery, as the Sats Theater did in its Sleeping Beauty (stage designer Vyacheslav Okunev). And the very level of companies does not allow them to apply for such expensive undertakings. Everything here is cheap and cheerful. Although no one can complain about the quality of the scenery and costumes. There are more complaints about the corps de ballet, which is recruited in such troupes according to the principle “from the forest to the pine”. And these troupes do not have such soloists as, for example, Ivan Titov in the Sats Theater.

Therefore, famous soloists from the Moscow Stasik or the Voronezh Opera and Ballet Theater are invited to the main parts in their performances. And here, discoveries can be expected not only by the audience, little experienced in ballet, which fills the RAMT hall almost to capacity all these summer days, but also by well-watched balletomanes.

If the audience is already accustomed to the consistently high technical and acting level of the performance of the premiere of the Voronezh Opera and Ballet Theater Ivan Negrobov, since he has been collaborating with the National Classical Ballet Theater since 2015, then Olga Sizykh, who performed with him in the role of Nikiya in La Bayadère, is known those who only go to the theater on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. The leading soloist of “Stasika” has an expressive presentation, elegance and fullness of the dance, so her performance together with the troupe of the “National Classical Ballet” left the most pleasant impression. Ivan Negrobov’s performances in The Sleeping Beauty (Prince Desire) and La Bayadère (Solor) demonstrated the ease of jumping with a landing in clear fifth positions, the expressiveness of the gesture and the completeness of the graphically arranged poses.

The same discoveries include performances in performances of “Summer Ballet Seasons” by guest soloists Elena Kotsyubira and Boris Zhurilov. Boris, a dancer with excellent external data, is known to ballet Moscow for his academic skills (in 2006 he graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy and worked for 12 years at the Mariinsky Theatre), refined technique and artistry. And one can only be surprised at the fact that this wonderful artist is still so little occupied in the lead roles in the troupe of the Musical Theater, in which he has been working since 2019. The only premier role in Stasik in his repertoire is the Nutcracker Prince in Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name, which is not enough for an artist of this level.

At the festival, he was irresistible as the Toreador. His talking plasticity focused on himself the views of the audience in the premiere for the “seasons” ballet “Carmen” by Bizet-Shchedrin (at the Mariinsky Theater, for example, he danced this part with Ulyana Lopatkina). He delighted the audience with his article and excellent acting in Giselle (Count Albert) and in Swan Lake (Prince Siegfried). But I saw his partner Elena Kotsyubira for the first time … A chiseled figure, beautiful elongated legs, elegant work of the feet, the dance is unhurried and refined.

Elena Kotsyubira is an experienced ballerina. In 2000 she graduated from the Perm Choreographic School in the class of the legendary teacher L. Sakharova. From the same year she was a soloist, and then the prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg MALIGOT (now the Mikhailovsky Theater). And in 2006 she became a silver laureate of the prestigious international competition “Arabesque”, where the medal was presented to her by Ekaterina Maksimova herself (now the competition bears the name of this magnificent dancer).

By the way, about competitions… With another troupe – “Russian Classical Ballet Theatre” – the gold and silver laureate of almost all possible international competitions Yuri Vybornov performed at the festival. He is the winner of the 1st and 2nd prizes on the same “Arabesque”, the 1st prize of the Siberian Grand Prix, the 2nd prize of the international competition in Korea (Seoul, 2019) and the 2nd prize of the Chinese competition Xiamen , 1st prize and a gold medal at the Yuri Grigorovich competition “Young Ballet of the World” and other equally prestigious international competitions. And his only performance in Don Quixote with a ballet under the direction of Valentin Grishchenko fully corresponded to all these victories.

He surprised with rapid rotations, and performed amazing pas de basques with the opening of his legs in the air into an arabesque, while not forgetting about the image created on stage. Incredible temperament! For such a performer, as Maya Plisetskaya used to say, “the plug is always on for two hundred and twenty.”

It seems that it was impossible to outdo him in all these incredible technical “bells and whistles”, however, a dancer who could compete with him at the festival was still found.

His name is Sergei Skvortsov, but I had never heard of him before. I came to his performance in Don Quixote with the troupe of the Russian Classical Ballet Theater, experiencing some skepticism. My skepticism was fully justified when I saw the maximally abridged version of the classical ballet in the choreography of Petipa-Gorsky, from which entire scenes were thrown out, and Don Quixote himself plunged into his dream with cupids, dryads and Dulcineans during the first act (usually this scene takes place in the second act ) right in the center of Barcelona’s town square.

But Skvortsov’s dance was amazing. To describe his technique, it is not enough to give standard definitions. Before her, the technical achievements of even such, it seems, an unsurpassed dancer, as Ivan Vasilyev, the invited premier of the Bolshoi Theater, pale in front of her – and he is our main trickster in the ballet space. All these “strings” – lightning-fast and sharp air splits in a jump, insane rotations with a “corkscrew”, as in figure skating, long, half a minute, to the beat of a drum, supporting a ballerina on one arm, when the dancer himself is standing on one leg, because he beautifully raises the other one in the pass, as well as other “tricks” for which they have not yet come up with names … However, the tricks performed by Sergei Skvortsov are comparable in terms of difficulty only to those in 1997 at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow was performed by Andrey Batalov. The only difference is that the soloist of the Mariinsky Theater Batalov became one of the four winners of the Grand Prix in the history of the most prestigious international competition, and pushed Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who lost to him, to the unconditionally honorable, but only “consoling” first place in this competition. And Sergey Skvortsov, apparently, never participated in any competitions at all. And this is a paradox … Before us, apparently, is a unique nugget.

The phenomenal dancer graduated from the Dnepropetrovsk School. By the way, the same one in which Ivan Vasiliev, Artem Ovcharenko began their ascent to the ballet Olympus; another multiple laureate of international competitions, Alexander Omelchenko, was generally Skvortsov’s classmate. He worked in the Dnepropetrovsk and Cheboksary Opera and Ballet Theatres, and then in minor ballet companies, with many of which he continues to cooperate to this day as a “free artist” …

These are the amazing “unintentional” discoveries that can be made at the “Summer Ballet Seasons”.

I will share another discovery made at the performances of the Mari Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after E. Sapaev. The level of this team, which opened the “Seasons”, of course, is not comparable with those small troupes that I just spoke about. In the spring in Yoshkar-Ola, Boris Eifman transferred his famous ballet Russian Hamlet to this theater, and the troupe did an excellent job with it.

The team toured Moscow for two weeks, showed seven ballet performances. And almost all of them involved the amazingly organic Japanese dancer Itaru Nada. I saw this young artist at the Young Ballet of the World competition, which took place last year in Sochi, and then as the Favorite in the ballet Russian Hamlet, and I can say that any Moscow troupe can envy a theater with such a soloist.

Itaru was born in Osaka. From the age of 6 he studied ballet at the Art of Russian Ballet in Kyoto, and at 14 he continued his studies in Berlin, then in St. Petersburg, where he studied for 3 years. In 2020, when a pandemic was raging in the world, he graduated from the Vaganov Academy in the class of A. V. Ilyin. And by “inscrutable” ways somehow got to Yoshkar-Ola.

He is 20 years old, and he has already danced many leading roles at the Mari Ballet, except for Solor in La Bayadère, Prince Desire in The Sleeping Beauty and Albert in Giselle, which, of course, is “not far off.” He, unfortunately, is not yet prime minister, but after Moscow he became the leading soloist of the troupe. On a two-week tour, he danced almost every day: Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, the Nutcracker Prince in The Nutcracker, Phoebus in Esmeralda, Basil in Don Quixote. The high growth and elongated lines of this artist were complemented by excellent technique. He did jet en turnan well in a circle, and in general he impressed with his training and artistry, the brightness of the images, the elaboration of nuances and details, the freshness of the lyrical feeling of his heroes.

Now the festival is coming to an end. For all its time, not only 16 titles of classical ballets were shown here, but also premieres, performances that were not shown during the festival before – “Cipollino” by Karen Khachaturian and one-act ballets “Carmen” by Georges Bizet and “Paquita” by Edouard Deldevez, “Chopiniana” Frederic Chopin, “Scheherazade” by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov and “Polovtsian Dances” by A.P. Borodin. The latest at the end of the season was shown by the Moscow State Academic Theater named after N. Sats, participating in this festival for the first time.