Les Saisons Russes du XXIème siècle at Grand Théâtre de Genève

Despite their relatively short history as a company, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes endowed modern ballet with an impressive amount of classic works. In the wake of the Ballet Russes’ centennial year in 2009, Petrushka, Le Spectre de la rose, Les Noces, Les Sylphides and The Rite of Spring have all been performed at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

The celebrations continue with Les Saisons russes du XXIème siècle, an evening of dance presenting three of these modern Russian dance legends. Scheherazade, Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite inspired Diaghilev’s star choreographer Michel Fokine’s 1910 ballet version. In 1993, Russian dancer and choreographer Andris Liepa reconstituted Fokine’s ballet and Léon Bakst’s set and costumes. This version has since become a standard repertoire piece for many great Russian ballet companies, its exotic Thousand-and-One Nights allure delicately coloured with Slavic enchantment. Les Saisons russes du XXIème siècle created by Andris Liepa comes to Geneva to perform Scheherazade in his historic reconstitution of Fokine’s original. With the participation of international soloists as Nikolai Tsiskaridze & Ilza Liepa from the Bolchoï ; Natalia Krapivina and Georgi Smelevsky from Stanislavsky Theater; Natalia Balakhnicheva, Alexandra Timofeeva and Mikhail Martiniuk from the « Ballet Kremlin » Theater, Moscow, Artistic Director Andrei Petrov. Shéhérazadewas in created in 1910 at L’Opéra de Paris.

Two other Ballets Russes masterpieces by Fokine feature on the evening’s playbill: Les Sylphides, a one-act ballet in sets and costumes by Alexandre Benois, in which a young poet’s daydreams become a flurry of ethereal, feminine spirits, and the Polovtsian Dances from Alexander Borodin’s opera Prince Igor.

The original Paris 1909 Ballets Russes cast of Les Sylphides in Paris brought together three of the greatest names in the history of dance: Tamara Karsavina, Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky. With internationally renowned soloists, Andris Liepa and Les Saisons russes du XXIème siècle can safely promise similar standards of excellence in the celebrated Russian ballet tradition.