A film turned into a ballet
The making of the ballet "Anna Karenina" and its subsequent première may easily have served as a storyline for a thriller featuring a visit from the Soviet Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva and a mysterious contribution from Pierre Cardin as a costume designer. All this was triggered by Rodion Shchedrin's, the score's composer, disappointment. At the beginning of the 1970s. a ballet version of "Anna Karenia" was filmed by Margarita Pilikhina to Shchedrin's score. The glitch was, however, that the director edited out a large section of music from the final cut, which only fanned the composer into fury. He was so outraged that he decided to write a separate ballet that no one would interfere with. The idea became a reality several years later with the help from exquisite choreographers, as Shchedrin was assisted by his wife, Maya Plisetskaya, a celebrated ballet dancer herself, and Viktor Smirnov Golovanov. The première was held at the celebrated Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow, which nonetheless was interfered with the then Soviet Minister of Culture.
Miniskirts and sex
It turned out that Yekaterina Furtseva took little to no liking in miniskirts and the ballet's explicit content. Fortunately, the crisis was averted by Maya Plisetskaya's powers of persuasion. Interestingly, the première performance was attended by a mysterious guest from behind the Iron Curtain, namely fashion designer Pierre Cardin. He designed beautiful costumes for the performance, but his name could not be revealed to the audience. That was a pity, especially as the costumes for soloists, including Maya Plisetskaya's, were just fabulous.
Music to sin for
The Polish première of the ballet was held at the end on the 1970s, and the work was subsequently staged nearly a decade ago at the Teatr Wielki Polish National Opera in Warsaw, and is now brought to the Wroclaw audience by the local opera house. Choreographer Bożena Klimczak admits that music is just amazing. "The music brings contrasting effects, and it overflows with emotions," she points out. The stage design is conceived as a railway station, suspended in time, as it were. This is where Anna Karenina meets Vronsky, a great love of hers, and this is where she dies. The heroine's metamorphosis from an obedient wife to self-aware lover is represented both by choreography and costume design. "We start off with darker hues that transform into burning red as the plot progresses," say costume designers Julia Skrzynecka and Agata Roguska.
The main role will be performed by Wroclaw Opera soloists: Nozomi Inoue, Dajana Kłos and Paulina Woś. Wojciech Ślęzak, Oleksandr Apanasenko, Andrzej Malinowski and Łukasz Ożga will be starring as Karenin, while the role of Vronsky will be rendered by Andrzej Malinowski, Sergey Oberemok and Łukasz Ożga.
The show will be held on 13 and 14 February, and later on 23 February and 6 and 23 April, all of them at 7 pm. Tickets for the show range from 50-200 PLN.
