Mariinsky Ballet makes UAE debut

Dubai: Classical music by legends such as Frederic Chopin echoed through the Emirates Palace on Thursday and Friday during the performance of the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra, titled ‘Homage to Fokine’, a part of the 10th edition of the Abu Dhabi Festival.

The audience was treated to a magical evening featuring a collection of one-act ballets that paid tribute to the revolutionary choreographer, Mikhail Fokine.

Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra, one of the world’s finest ballet companies, put on a performance showcasing masterpieces that premiered in 1908. Despite the shift in taste towards contemporary music, acting director of the Mariinsky Ballet Yury Fateyev was confident his music would captivate the audience.

“Music by famous composers such as Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Beethoven have deeper feelings and a deeper sense of harmony, so people can always connect with them,” Fateyev said before the performance.

He hoped the UAE audience would enjoy the show and that it was “very important to be in a festival in Abu Dhabi” since the performance has already been staged in countries such as Japan, Australia and the US.

The first act of the ballet, ‘Chopiniana’, celebrates music by Chopin as it elegantly expresses the sublime nature of dance. Fateyev described the act as “very romantic with a very strong feeling of style”, evoked by Chopin’s music.

Focus on Male soloist

The second act, ‘Le Spectre de la Rose’, features a male soloist who is brought to life as part of a woman’s dream. The dance moves are made vivid through the music of German romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber.

The third act, ‘The Dying Swan’, was described by Fateyev as a “genius piece” but it was the final one, ‘Scheherazade’, that he expected the audience to connect with as it has an exotic and oriental feel.

The ballet and orchestra combined 120 people.

Yekaterina Kondaurova, the principal dancer, compared the art of ballet to a museum, saying that “ballet can be preserved even with modern music because people still like classical music more than modern music”.

She described the performance as romantic and hoped the audience members would enjoy it as “each person can imagine their own interpretation” of the dance.

Ballerina speak

Kondaurova, who has been with the Mariinsky Ballet for 12 years, said being a ballerina was her life, not merely a hobby or a job.

“You can be a dancer if you practise, but to be a ballerina, you have to feel it inside and have stage charisma,” she said. She started practising to be a ballerina since the age of five.

Yekaterina Osmolkina, a soloist dancer, agreed with Kondaurova, saying that it takes patience and years of study in a ballet school to become a professional ballerina.