Anna Karenina at Den Norske Opera & Ballett

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoj is considered by many to be the greatest novel ever written. The Norwegian National Ballet is now to dance Christian Spuck’s version of the story.

Impressive sets, strong personalities, and powerful and beautiful dance are essential to describe St. Petersburg at the end of the 19th century. Anna Karenina is central to the action. She is living in a loveless marriage with the highly respected bureaucrat Karenin, with whom she has a son, when she meets the passionate Count Vronskij – and falls in love. They become lovers, but the many eyes of the ruling class are on them, and she soon is forced into the fateful choice between her son, duty and morals on the one hand, and her consuming love on the other.

Greta Garbo has done it. And Keira Knightly. Now Eugenie Skilnand from the Norwegian National Ballet becomes one of those to interpret Anna Karenina. She worked with choreographer Christian Spuck in 2012 when he created Woyzeck for the Norwegian National Ballet. This resulted in a Norwegian Critics’ Award for Eugenie, and six points of six possible from newspaper critics.

The highly sought-after choreographer and Director of Ballet at Ballet Zürich Ballet is now back in Oslo. Christian Spuck wants to show us the overriding fate awaiting Anna Karenina, but also the other complex characters. He turns the novel into dance to music by, among others, Sergei Rachmaninov and Witold Lutoslawski, played by the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra with pianist Håvard Gimse.
The great narrator Spuck has this time created a classical and romantic ballet. “A feast for the eyes,” was the verdict of Bachtrack.com after the premiere in Zürich in the autumn of 2014.