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Bolshoi Ballet goes on guest performances to Japan

Guest performances will be staged in seven cities

MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. The Bolshoi Theater Ballet went on long guest performances to Japan that will begin on Wednesday. Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake will become a highlight of the guest tour. The line-up of the ballet company will be changed at guest performances, Bolshoi Ballet Artistic Director Sergey Filin told TASS.

This will be 20th anniversary guest tour for the Bolshoi Ballet in the Land of the Rising Sun. Guest performances will be staged in seven cities. Japan has selected a guest repertoire thoroughly for the Bolshoi Ballet with 17 ballets to be staged, Filin said.

“On the one hand, they want entertaining, full-feature, classical spectacles that would have the full house, on the other hand, they want those representing the Bolshoi Theater fully,” the artistic director said. Bolshoi golden hits, such as Don Quixote and Bayadere, are on the guest tour. “This repertoire was approved in advance, but the composition of actors was changed,” he said.

“This was unclear until the very last moment whether our prima Svetlana Zakharova will be able to go on guest performances,” Filin said, noting that “In early October she had a kidney problem and dropped from the theater’s working schedule. Svetlana has luckily recovered quickly and doctors permitted her to go on guest performances.

“Our American Ballet Theater premier dancer David Hallberg should have been her partner. But he will not go to Japan over injury. So, Svetlana Zakharova will dance with another partner — young talented solo dancer Denis Rodkin.”

Young Bolshoi Ballet star dancer Olga Smirnova will also be unable to dance in Japan. Doctors banned her from going on guest performances over a feet injury.

“All of us are human beings and anything can happen to each of us. Our profession is very dangerous in terms of injuries,” Filin noted, adding that “We always should have actors in reserve which will be able to replace their colleagues falling out of the current line-up, moreover, to do so well. Our troupe is a collection of quite talented masters who can keep high the brand of the main musical theater in the country under any circumstances.”

Almost the whole ballet company of around 250 actors went to Japan, including performers of leading dance parties Maria Alexandrova, Yekaterina Krysanova and Anna Nikulina. Two maestros Pavel Sorokin and Pavel Klinichev will conduct the orchestra.