Rite of Spring at the Bolshoi: Béjart, Bausch, and Wayne McGregor’s new version for the Bolshoi Ballet

The Bolshoi Theatre has announced its 2012-2013 season and touring schedule.

Milan's Teatro alla Scala will kick off the season on September 6 with Robert Carsen's acclaimed production of Don Giovanni which opened La Scala's season last year. The Italian presence continues with Pier Luigi Pizzi's new production for the Bolshoi of Bellini's La Somnambula with American soprano Laura Claycomb. The six new opera productions also include Borodin's Prince Igor, to be staged by legendary theatre director Yuri Lyubimov (class of 1917!)

The big event in the ballet calender is a mini-festival around Easter 2012 to mark the centenary of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. This will bring together four versions of the ballet by the Finnish National Ballet, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, the Pina Bausch Dance Theatre, and the Bolshoi Ballet itself.

Bolshoi Ballet Artistic Director Sergei Filin in a press conference said,

In addition, the companies will present some pieces from their current repertoire… We will prepare our own new version of “The Rite” which will be choreographed by Wayne McGregor.”

The Bolshoi Ballet will also embark on a three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand in toward the end of the season, followed by its traditional Covent Garden residency July and August 2012. Filin noted,

Our full-length classical ballets continue to arouse great interest. Foreign theaters either do not have them at all or have abridged versions. Full-length, lavishly designed, pompous classical productions with a huge corps-de-ballet are always the most wanted. Only Covent Garden asked to bring new one-act ballets for the London public to see what our interests are like and what young dancers we have, as well as our current opportunities and prospects for the future.

Photo by DmitriyGuryanov

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.