I just wanted to alert our readers to a panel discussion that has just been announced for part of the Boston Fleet series of programs in November:

FLEETBOSTON CELEBRITY SERIES
AND THE WANG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
TO CO-PRESENT PANEL DISCUSSION
"DANCING THROUGH TIME: THE KIROV, ST. PETERSBURG, AND BALLET INTO THE
21ST CENTURY"
ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10 AT 7 PM
AT THE SHUBERT THEATRE

(Boston) FleetBoston Celebrity Series, Martha H. Jones, President and
Executive Director, and The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Josiah
A. Spaulding, Jr., President and CEO, will co-present a panel
discussion, "DANCING THROUGH TIME: THE KIROV, ST. PETERSBURG, AND BALLET INTO
THE 21St CENTURY" on Monday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m. at The Shubert
Theatre, 265 Tremont Street, Boston. Dancing Through Time is free and open
to the public.

"DANCING THROUGH TIME" is designed as a conversation between the
moderator and the three panelists. They will talk for 1 hour and fifteen
minutes, then the floor will be opened for audience questions for 20
minutes. Among the topics for discussion are: the world-wide influence of the
Mariinsky (Kirov) tradition; the state of the arts in post-Soviet
Russia and particularly in St. Petersburg which has just celebrated its
300th anniversary; the Kirov Ballet's current challenges and future plans.
Panelists will be: Makhar Vaziev, Director of the Kirov Ballet; Mikko
Nissinen, Artistic Director, Boston Ballet; and Julie Buckler, Harris K.
Weston Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at
Harvard University. The moderator will be Harlow Robinson, Professor of
History and Modern Languages at Northeastern University.

MAKHAR VAZIEV, Director of the Kirov Ballet, was born in 1960 in
Alagir, North Ossetia, Makhar Vaziev entered the St. Petersburg Vaganova
Academy of Ballet in 1973 and graduated in 1981. Mr. Vaziev joined the
Kirov Ballet in 1979 and became a principal dancer in 1989. In 1995 he was
appointed Director of the Kirov Ballet. His repertoire included La
Sylphide (James), La Bayadere (Solor), The Sleeping Beauty (Prince Desire),
The Nutcracker (Prince), Swan Lake (Siegfried), Don Quixote (Basil),
Giselle (Albrecht), Le Corsaire (Ali), Raymonda (Abderkhaman), Paquita
Grand Pas, The Legend of Love (Ferkhad), S?heherazade (Golden Slave),
Fokine's Chopiniana and Le Spectre de la Rose; Balanchine's Theme and
Variations and Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, and Roland Petit's Carmen.
During his Directorship, a number of new productions have entered the
repertoire of the Kirov Ballet, including Balanchine´s Symphony in C,
Serenade, Apollo and Jewels; Roland Petit´s Carmen and Le jeune homme et la
mort; Petrushka, The Nutcracker, and the recreation of the 1890
production of The Sleeping Beauty.

MIKKO NISSINEN, Artistic Director, Boston Ballet, was born in Helsinki,
Finland, Nissinen began his dance training at age ten with The Finnish
National Ballet School and, in 1978, he won First Prize at The National
Ballet Competition in Kuopio, Finland. In 1979 he joined The Kirov
Ballet School to continue his studies and went on to dance with the Dutch
National Ballet, Basel Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. In 1996 Nissinen
retired as Principal Dancer from San Francisco Ballet and was appointed
Artistic Director of the Marin Ballet in San Rafael, California. In
1998 Nissinen was appointed Artistic Director of Alberta Ballet, in
Calgary, Canada. Mr. Nissinen assumed the position of Artistic Director of
Boston Ballet and the Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education in 2001.

JULIE BUCKLER, Harris K. Weston Associate Professor of Slavic Languages
and Literatures at Harvard University, is the author of City of Cities:
St. Petersburg, Eclecticism, and the Aesthetics of Derivation; The
Literary Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Imperial Russia and the upcoming
Mapping St. Petersburg. Among her current projects is an article entitled
"Staging Russianness: The Strangeness of Singing and Dancing."

HARLOW ROBINSON, Professor of History and Modern Languages at
Northeastern University, is author of The Last Impresario: The Life, Times and
Legacy of Sol Hurok; Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography; and Selected Letters
of Sergei Prokofiev. His articles, essays and reviews have appeared in
numerous anthologies, and in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times,
Opera News, Musical Quarterly, Opera Quarterly, Dance, Christian Science
Monitor, Symphony Magazine, Stagebill, and other popular and scholarly
publications. Professor Robinson has lectured and written program essays
for The Boston Symphony, Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, San
Francisco Symphony, Lincoln Center and many other institutions, and
written liner notes for recordings released by Sony, Elektra/Nonesuch,
Philips, BMG, Dorian and Bridge. He has also worked as a writer and
commentator for PBS television, National Public Radio, Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation and the Texaco-Metropolitan Opera International Radio
Network.

2003-2004 DANCE SERIES
The Kirov Ballet and Orchestra is the first company in 2003-2004 Dance
Series co-presented by FleetBoston Celebrity Series and The Wang Center
for the Performing Arts. The Series runs from November 2003 to May 2004
and will include Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Mark Morris Dance
Group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and The Paul Taylor Dance
Company. The Dance Series is sponsored by Fidelity Investments and the
Poduska Family Foundation.

ABOUT FLEETBOSTON CELEBRITY SERIES
FleetBoston Celebrity Series is New England's preeminent, non-profit
presenter of music, dance and the performing arts from around the world
and a leader in arts-in-education, and provides a wide range of
engaging, entertaining and enriching programs onstage, in classrooms and in
other locations throughout the city of Boston and surrounding communities.
Each season, the Celebrity Series brings world-class performances by
instrumental and vocal soloists, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles,
modern dance and ballet companies, jazz and popular music performers
and folk and ethic performance groups to venues throughout Boston.
Project Discovery, the Celebrity Series' award-winning arts-in-education
program, builds innovative, energetic partnerships with area schools and
community organizations and engages new audiences of all ages with a
variety of performing arts programs, serving more than 20,000 individuals
each year. For more information about FleetBoston Celebrity Series call
617-482-2595 or visit the Celebrity Series online at
www.celebrityseries.org.

ABOUT THE WANG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., which operates The Wang
Theatre and The Shubert Theatre, as well as Wang Center Productions,
Inc., is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to presenting the finest
performing artists and cultural attractions from around the world. The
Wang Center provides support and maintains unique partnerships with
many of Boston's premier arts organizations, including Boston Ballet,
Boston Lyric Opera, FleetBoston Celebrity Series, Commonwealth Shakespeare
Company and numerous other local organizations. Through its membership
in the Independent Producers Network (IPN), The Wang Center is an
investor in Broadway and touring shows, including the Tony Award-winner
Thoroughly Modern Millie and a new touring production of Starlight Express.
The Wang Center's commitment to developing new works has recently
expanded through the launch of a new play reading series of original works
by both new and established writers. Suskind Young At Arts, the
education department of The Wang Center, is the fifth largest of its kind in
the country. It motivates young people, inspires teachers and connects
communities through innovative programs in the literary, visual and
performing arts. For more information about The Wang Center, call (617)
482-9393 or visit www.wangcenter.org.

###

<small>[ 17 April 2005, 05:42 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

And here is their preliminary casting information for the Boston run:

FleetBoston Celebrity Series and
The Wang Center for the Performing Arts
to present the
KIROV BALLET AND ORCHESTRA
in four performances of an all-Fokine program
NOVEMBER 13-16 AT THE WANG THEATRE

(Boston) FleetBoston Celebrity Series, Martha H. Jones, President and
Executive Director, and The Wang Center for the Performing Arts,
President and CEO Josiah A. Spaulding, Jr., will co-present the KIROV BALLET
AND ORCHEASTRA in a program of works by pioneering choreographer,
Mikhail Fokine, on Thursday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, November 14
at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, November 15 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, November 16 at
3:00 p.m. at The Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street, Boston. On Opening
night, November 13, The Kirov Ballet Gala, to benefit the Classical
Dance Initiative of FleetBoston Celebrity Series and The Wang Center for
the Performing Arts, will begin at 5:30 p.m. in The Grand Lobby of The
Wang Theatre. The Kirov Ballet opening night performance and Gala is
sponsored by Jann Leeming & Arthur Little and Spring Sirkin & Arthur Frank.

The CELEBRITY SERIES was the presenter and The Wang Center for the
Performing Arts was the venue for the most recent Boston engagement of The
Kirov Ballet in 1992.

The KIROV BALLET is one of the two major ballet companies of Russia,
the other being the Bolshoi Ballet. The history of the Mariinsky Ballet
Company (Kirov Ballet) dates from 1783, when the Bolshoi Theatre was
constructed. In 1889 the company moved into the nearby Mariinsky Theatre.
In 1935 the company was renamed the Kirov Ballet. In 1991 it was
officially renamed the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Ballet Company; however, on
its frequent tours abroad it is still referred to by its Soviet-era
name, the Kirov Ballet.

Under the direction of Marius Petipa the company premiered the
Tchaikovsky ballets Sleeping Beauty (1890) and Swan Lake (1895). The company
went into decline after the Russian Revolution in 1917, but the great
teacher and ballet mistress Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951) helped preserve
its traditions by training the company's principal dancers. Her work
became the foundation of ballet instruction in the Soviet Union. During
the cold war, the Kirov Ballet experienced difficulties as many of its
dancers, including Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova and Mikhail
Baryshnikov defected to the West. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the
company has produced, along with its traditional repertoire, ballets by
Balanchine and other modern choreographers. Oleg Vinogradov was the
artistic director from 1977 to 1997; Valery Gergiev now holds the post.

Russian choreographer and ballet dancer MIKHAIL FOKINE is considered by
many to be the founder of modern ballet. Fokine approached the
still-youthful art of ballet with fresh insight, revitalizing a form that had
become saturated with spectacle. He based his choreography on the
traditional system of training but eliminated rigid traditions and placed
virtuosity at the command of artistic vision, thus paving the way for a
new freedom. Fokine believed an attempt should be made to harmonize
music, scenery and dance. This philosophy was summed up in his "Five
Principles" as explained in a letter to the London Times on July 6, 1914.
These principles revolutionized ballet and were applied to his creations
during the early 1900's, performed at the Mariinsky Imperial Ballet and,
under Serge Diaghilev, at the Ballets Russes. Some of them were "The
Dying Swan," "Le Vigne," "Le Pavilion d'Armide," "Les Sylphides"
(Chopiniana), "Prince Igor," "Cleopatra," "Carnaval," "Firebird,"
"Scheherazade," "Le Spectre de la Rose," "Petrouchka," "Daphnis and Chloe" and "Le
Cog d'Or."

Born in Russia in 1880, Mikhail Fokine studied at Imperial Ballet
School
(1889-98) and danced at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg after
graduation. He accompanied Sergei Diaghilev to Paris in 1909 and was
choreographer for his company, Ballets Russes, until 1914. He immigrated to
the United States in 1919, where he formed several companies and
conducted a ballet school in the New York City area. In 1932 he became a U.S.
citizen. Among the approximately 70 ballets created by Fokine are
"Chopiniana"/"Les Sylphides" (1908/1909), "Prince Igor" (1909), "The
Firebird" (1910), "Schéhérazade" (1910), "Le Spectre de la Rose" (1916), and
"Petrouchka" (1916). On January 23, 1942 Fokine's last ballet, "The
Russian Soldier" premiered at the Boston Opera House. He died the same
year.

The historic Mariinsky Theatre is the home of the Mariinsky Ballet
Company (Kirov Ballet), and is a landmark in a great tradition of theatre
building in
St. Petersburg. On January 29, 1849, a circus opened with a festive
equestrian
show in the hall built opposite St. Petersburg's Bolshoi Theatre by the
architect Albert Cavos. The building was designed so that it could
accommodate theatrical
performances. Exactly ten years later, the circus caught fire and burnt
down. This time the reconstructed building was designed purely for
musical performances. The opera company of the Bolshoi Theatre was the
first to be transferred here, followed by its ballet troupe. The new
theatre was opened on October 2, 1860 with a performance of Glinka's opera A
Life for the Tsar. It was named the Mariinsky Theatre after Alexander
II's wife Maria.

The November 13-16 Kirov Ballet program will be as follows:

*"Le Spectre de la Rose"(Music by Weber, orchestrated by Berlioz)
*"Dying Swan" (Music by Saint-Saëns)
"Schéhérazade"(Music by Rimsky-Korsakov)
"Chopiniana"(Music by Chopin)
"Firebird" (Music by Stravinsky)

*November 13 ONLY
All Choreography by Mikhail Fokine

CASTING for the November 13-16 Kirov Ballet engagement will be:

THE DYING SWAN
Uliana Lopatkina (Nov. 13 only)

LE SPECTRE DE LA ROSE
Irina Golub, Igor Kolb (Nov. 13 only)

CHOPINIANA
"Mazurka Op.67, No.3 and Valse Op.64, No.2":
Daria Sukhorukova (Nov. 13 & 15)
Irina Zhelonkina (Nov. 14 & 16)
Anton Korsakov (Nov. 16)

"Young Man":
Danila Korsuntev (Nov. 13)
Igor Kolb (Nov. 14 & 15)

"Prelude":
Daria Pavlenko (Nov. 13 & 14)
Irina Golub (Nov. 15 & 16)

"Valse Op.70, No.1":
Irina Zhelonkina (Nov. 13 & 15)
Yana Selina (Nov. 14 & 16)

SCHEHERAZADE
"Zobeide, his favorite wife":
Uliana Lopatkina (Nov. 13 & 16)
Tatiana Tkachenko (Nov. 14)
Irma Nioradze (Nov. 15)

"The Golden Slave":
Faroukh Ruzimatov (Nov. 13 & 16)
Igor Zelensky (Nov. 14)
Danila Korsuntsev (Nov. 15)

THE FIREBIRD
"Firebird":
Tatiana Amosova (Nov. 13, 15, 16)
Irma Nioradze (Nov. 14)

"Ivan Tsarevich":
Andrey Yakovlev (Nov. 13 & 15)
Victor Baranov (Nov. 14 & 16)

Conductors: Mikhail Sinkevich or Mikhail Agrest

Casting is confirmed but subject to change.

Remaining Tickets for the Kirov Ballet engagement at The Wang Theatre
are $78, $65, $48 for the opening night performance on November 13 and
$90, $75, $60, $45 for all other performances. Tickets available by
calling Telecharge.com at (800) 447-7400 via the Celebrity Series or Wang
Center website, www.celebrityseries.org or www.wangcenter.org, or at The
Wang Theatre Box Office, 270 Tremont St., Boston.

DANCING THROUGH TIME
FleetBoston Celebrity Series and The Wang Center for the Performing
Arts will host a panel discussion, "Dancing Through Time: The Kirov, St.
Petersburg, and Ballet into the 21st Century" on Monday, November 10 at
7:00 p.m. at The Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont Street, Boston. Panelists
will be Makhar Vaziev, Director of the Kirov Ballet; Mikko Nissinen,
Artistic Director, Boston Ballet; Julie Buckler, Harris K. Weston
Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University;
and moderator Harlow Robinson, Professor of History and Modern
Languages at Northeastern University. Dancing Through Time is free and open to
the public.

THE KIROV BALLET GALA
The Kirov Ballet Gala, Celebrating the 300th Anniversary of the City of
St. Petersburg, will begin in The Grand Lobby of The Wang Theatre with
a cocktail
reception and dinner at 5:30 p.m. The Kirov Ballet opening night
performance will follow at 7:30 p.m. The Kirov Ballet Gala is co-chaired by
Jann E. Leeming &
Arthur D. Little and Spring Sirkin & Arthur Frank. The Kirov Ballet
Gala is a black tie optional event. Tickets for The Kirov Ballet Gala are
$500 per person and are available by calling the FleetBoston Celebrity
Series Office of Special Events at (617) 598-3220.

2003-2004 DANCE SERIES
The Kirov Ballet and Orchestra is the first company in 2003-2004 Dance
Series co-presented by FleetBoston Celebrity Series and The Wang Center
for the Performing Arts. The Series runs from November 2003 to May 2004
and will include Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Mark Morris Dance
Group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and The Paul Taylor Dance
Company. The Dance Series is sponsored by Fidelity Investments and the
Poduska Family Foundation.

ABOUT FLEETBOSTON CELEBRITY SERIES
FleetBoston Celebrity Series is New England's preeminent, non-profit
presenter of music, dance and the performing arts from around the world
and a leader in arts-in-education, and provides a wide range of
engaging, entertaining and enriching programs onstage, in classrooms and in
other locations throughout the city of Boston and surrounding communities.
Each season, the Celebrity Series brings world-class performances by
instrumental and vocal soloists, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles,
modern dance and ballet companies, jazz and popular music performers
and folk and ethic performance groups to venues throughout Boston.
Project Discovery, the Celebrity Series' award-winning arts-in-education
program, builds innovative, energetic partnerships with area schools and
community organizations and engages new audiences of all ages with a
variety of performing arts programs, serving more than 20,000 individuals
each year. For more information about FleetBoston Celebrity Series call
617-482-2595 or visit the Celebrity Series online at
www.celebrityseries.org.

ABOUT THE WANG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., which operates The Wang
Theatre and The Shubert Theatre, as well as Wang Center Productions,
Inc., is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to presenting the finest
performing artists and cultural attractions from around the world. The
Wang Center provides support and maintains unique partnerships with
many of Boston's premier arts organizations, including Boston Ballet,
Boston Lyric Opera, FleetBoston Celebrity Series, Commonwealth Shakespeare
Company and numerous other local organizations. Through its membership
in the Independent Producers Network (IPN), The Wang Center is an
investor in Broadway and touring shows, including the Tony Award-winner
Thoroughly Modern Millie and a new touring production of Starlight Express.
The Wang Center's commitment to developing new works has recently
expanded through the launch of a new play reading series of original works
by both new and established writers. Suskind Young At Arts, the
education department of The Wang Center, is the fifth largest of its kind in
the country. It motivates young people, inspires teachers and connects
communities through innovative programs in the literary, visual and
performing arts. For more information about The Wang Center, call (617)
482-9393 or visit www.wangcenter.org.

###

<small>[ 15 October 2003, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: Catherine Pawlick ]</small>

From Iris Fanger in the Boston Phoenix:

More...

From Suzanne Sataline in the Boston Globe:

More...

From Theodore Bale in the Boston Herald:

More...

Reviews (not previews) from the Boston papers.

Christine Temin in the Globe:

And T.J. Medrek in the Herald:



<small>[ 14 November 2003, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: BBalletFan ]</small>