<img src="http://www.criticaldance.com/images/Ruzimatov02.jpg" alt="" />
<small>Faroukh Ruzimatov of The Kirov Ballet in Fokine's "Scheherazade"</small>

Welcome to our forum dedicated to one of the highlights of the UK dance year – the visit of the Kirov to London's Royal Opera House. This forum is the place for our day to day coverage of the visit.

Here you will find previews, interviews and reviews both from our own writers and from the national press.

In addition, do visit our Kirov Special page, where we have various features including an image gallery and links to the websites of some of the organisations who are involved with the visit. We are indebted to the very talented David Watson who designed the page for us.

But most of all we want to hear your views. So do post your own comments about the dancers, the ballets and all thinks Kirov in the topics already set up below.

If you are a new or recent visitor to CriticalDance we have a Guide to help you around.

We hope you enjoy the Kirov London season 2003, whether in person at the Royal Opera House or reading about it here.

<small>[ 18 September 2003, 06:21 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Reasons to be Cheerful
- the Kirov Ballet are coming to London in 2003
by Cassandra for CriticalDance

There was a time in the not so distant past when London audiences were consistently denied sight of the Russian companies, a time when that infamous iron curtain was lifted only on those rare occasions when relationships between Downing Street and the Kremlin happened to be good and sadly for us ballet lovers that wasn’t very often. Glasnost in the ‘80’s changed all that and now visits from Russian companies and Russian artists are a regular occurrence. In the past our knowledge of Russian style was all too often limited only to those dancers bold enough to look beyond the constraints of the system, attracted by the diversity of the western repertoire.

click for more

<center> <img src="http://www.ardani.com/a_kirov1.gif" alt="" /> </center>

The Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet
An overview of the history of this famous company from their website.

The Mariinsky Ballet Company is closely linked with the entire history of the development of Russian choreographic art which began more than two and a half centuries ago. An important role in the establishment and evolution of Russian ballet was played by foreign masters. At the end of the 18th century, Franz Gilferding, Gasparo Angiolini, Giuseppe Canziani and Charles le Picqué were all working in St Petersburg. Already in the 1790´s, however, the first Russian ballet teacher, Ivan Valberkh, came to the fore. The main sphere of his activities was in a small mime ballet company. He sought to make his productions rich in subject matter and to create recognisable, lifelike images.

Ballet divertissements, reflecting his response to the events of the Napoleonic War, occupied a special place in his work. The history of St Petersburg ballet in the 19th century was associated with the activities of Charles Didelot, Jules Perrot, and Arthur Saint-Léon. In 1869, the position of principal ballet master was entrusted to Marius Petipa who markedly raised the professional standards of the company. The peak accomplishments of this famous master became ballets staged in the period of his collaboration with the composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Alexander Glazunov - The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Raymonda.

click for more

<small>[ 16 July 2003, 06:41 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Clement Crisp adores the Kirov and is no doubt looking forward to a wonderful three weeks:

Kirov Ballet looks to its noble bloodline
By Clement Crisp for The Financial Times


St Petersburg. Green and ochre facades glowing in the pearly light of a northern winter; spires flashing in summer; an imperial (and haunted) city, whose dancers incarnate in their manner something of its splendour of scale. Its history - under tsars and commissars - is reflected in the changing titles of its grandest theatre. Named after an empress, renamed after one of Stalin's henchmen, the Mariinsky Theatre, later the Kirov, is the Mariinsky again, and its ballet visits London to mark the tercentenary of Tsar Peter's creation of the city.

The Kirov Ballet - as it still calls itself on foreign tours - first came to London in 1961, heralded by the scandal of Nureyev's leap to freedom in Paris the week before.

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Casting information for the Kirov at the Royal Opera House 2003

It's a tradition of the Kirov that casting is changed right up to the last minute and not just for injury.

As the official cast lists are 1 or 2 updates behind the latest information, we have put together an unofficial listing based on reliable contacts, often with back-up from other sources:

click for unofficial cast lists

<small>[ 22 July 2003, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

As you'd expect with a major company like the Kirov/Mariinsky, we have a wealth of material from our back catalogue. Here is a selection of the more recent topics:

Ballet Stars of St Petersburg at Royal Albert Hall 2003

The Kirov at The Lowry 2003

Kirov - Celebration of 300th Anniversary of St Petersburg

Kirov/Mariinsky 2002-3

Kirov in Washington 2002

And here is our coverage of the last full visit of the Kirov to the Royal Opera House in 2001:

The Sleeping Beauty

Jewels

Manon

Le Corsaire

Swan Lake

Balanchine programme

Fokine programme

<small>[ 18 July 2003, 12:39 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Later: Dear Reader, have a good laugh at this. We rang the ROH Box Office and were given revised casting, which turned out to be baloney. It's not their fault - they're not included in the loop by the Kirov.

We have learned our lesson.

******************************

Folks, it ain't easy, but we'll do our best to keep you informed of cast changes, but many will only be revealed on the day.


Casting for Monday 21st July - Le Corsaire

First day and first change from the latest published information:

Andrian Fadeyev replaces Ilya Kuznetsov
(source - ROH)

Here is the link to the information about Fadeyev from the Kirov/Mariinsky website

Svetlana Zakharova
and
Slave - Leonid Sarafanov

perform as scheduled.

We try very hard to avoid rumours etc, but we also work on the basis that audiences have a right to up to date casting information. We have now heard from two reliable sources that Kuznetsov will not be performing at all in the season. He was scheduled for two further performances of "Le Corsaire".

If Fadeyev replaces Kuznetsov in the remaining performances of "Le Corsaire" and keeps his other roles, he will have 9 leads over the three weeks, which is more than any other male dancer.

<small>[ 22 July 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Marc Haegeman is a notable photographer of Russian Ballet and his For ballet lovers only website is well worth a look for images and articles.

<img src="http://users.skynet.be/ballet-lovers/Afb/Swans2.jpg" alt="" />
<small>Daria Pavlenko, Igor Kolb and maestro Alexander Titov
Receiving flowers after Swan Lake</small>

He has just launched a new section - "WINGS, CURTAINS AND FLOWERS - A KIROV BALLET PHOTO GALLERY", which takes a fresh perspective on photographing Russian ballet.

<small>[ 21 July 2003, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Gosh
you're good at statistics, Stuart!

That's debatable Emma. But what is without doubt is the difficulty of cast changes. We try very hard to avoid rumour and gossip here. Thus we place great store by the information that official bodies give out in an effort to be fair to dancers and companies.

I spoke with the ROH twice yesterday regarding the cast change for last night and was twice told Fadeyev. In fact it was Vladimir Shishov, which was also a name around in the unofficial gossip. Oy veh!

The ROH box Office today gave me the original casting for tonight rather than the revised one with Vishneva!!

In order to help ballet goers, We have used a reliable, but unofficial source, which backs up the material we have heard from elsewhere. Here is the information which you should use to update the Hochhauser/ROH website material and is the best view we have been able to gather, but is still subject to change up to and on the day for injury and other reasons:

Ilya Kuznetsov is not coming to London. Vladimir Shishov will dance all Conrads in "Le Corsaire" in place of Kuznetsov, as far as we know, that is 21st, 23rd July plus 9th August Matinee. However, as Shishov is also scheduled to dance in the 9th August Evening performance, this latter date may change.

Daria Pavlenko will not perform in "Swan Lake" this week and casting has been changed to reflect the situation:

24th Zakharova / Zelensky
25th Gumerova / Korsuntsev
26th Mat Tereshkina / Fadeyev
26th Eve Sologub / Kolb

Later Just received official confirmation of the above.

Igor Kolb has an extra Chopiniana on 30th Evening, as well as the Matinee.

Daniil Korsuntsev replaces Ruzimatov as the Golden Slave in "Schéhérazade" on 30th July Evening.

As the official cast lists are 1 or 2 updates behind the latest information, we have put together an unofficial listing based on reliable contacts, often with back-up from other sources:

click for unofficial cast list information

<small>[ 29 July 2003, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Just as well they're all so wonderful, otherwise one might lose patience with the unique Kirov approach to casting information...thanks by the way to everyone at criticaldance.com for trying to shed light on who's really dancing what. Much appreciated.

I am sure there will be more of that to come. Aside from a brief respite in late August, this troupe won't be on home ground at all between September and January 2004 ... that's a LOT of travel time! I hope injuries don't mount at all in the ranks.

I'm curious too, are they travelling with full orchestra? I know that when they come here to Berkeley, they'll have their own musicians, which must not only make for an major Entourage, but also a major expense!

Yes Mary Ellen, they do have the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre playing for them. Yes, there is a high cost involved with this, but it can get very tricky when you use local orchestras. The ROH seats 2,200 with prices up to £100, so they are probably pulling in around £100,000 a night from ticket sales and maybe £150,000 on days when there is a matinee as well.