Jean-Christophe Maillot gets rid of the tights in Bolshoi Ballet

Cinemec Ede, January 7th, The Taming of the Shrew, Bolshoi Ballet.

Sunday the 7th of January I have seen a live broadcast of the Bolshoi Ballet from Moscow. The Taming of the Shrew is the first piece of the Bolshoi made by a foreign choreographer, by Jean-Christophe Maillot. The piece is inspired on the shakespearean tail holding the same name. Although it is storytelling it is not a typical ballet piece wich you might expect from Bolshoi. It is a modern ballet.

The story is about two sisters. The youngest one, Bianca, has 3 suitors. Her father does not want her to marry before her elder sister Katharina does. Katharina is the shrew and she has not found a man whom can measure up to her. The 3 suitors of Bianca know someone who can. Petruchio is the one who accapts the challenge to tame the shrew and the interesting relationship starts.

The clear to see ballet dancers tell this story in movement material they normaly do not use. The grounded and big movement give a great feeling of the monstruosities of Katharina and Petruchio. The simple but stylefull decor gives all the attenion to the dancers who are skipping and hopping across the stage. The small corps de ballet is in my opinion not quite in it's place. They do not add anything exept for some nice movement material the look at.

If you like ballet you should defenetly see this peformace. If you do not like ballet you should also go and watch this peformance because there are no man in tights on stage. The piece is danced by ballet dancers but you can not call this piece a typical ballet.

Choreographer: Jean-Christophe Maillot
Assistant to Choreographer: Bernice Coppieters
Set Designer: Ernest Pignon-Ernest
Costume Designer: Augustin Maillot
Assistant to Costume Designer: Jean-Michel Laîné
Lighting & Video Projection: Dominique Drillot
Assistant: Stefani Matthieu
Dramatist: Jean Rouaud
Répétiteurs: Yan Godovsky, Victor Barykin, Josu Zabala
Music Director: Igor Dronov

Katharina	Ekaterina Krysanova
Petruchio	Vladislav Lantratov
Bianca	Olga Smirnova
Lucentio	Semyon Chudin
Hortensio	Igor Tsvirko
Gremio	Vyacheslav Lopatin
The Widow	Yulia Grebenshchikova
Baptista	Artemy Belyakov
The Housekeeper	Anna Tikhomirova
Grumio	Georgy Gusev
Maidservants	Daria Bochkova Anastasia Gubanova Diana Kosyreva Yanina Parienko Ana Turazashvili Daria Khokhlova
Servants	Batyr Annadurdyev Dmitry Dorokhov Dmitri Zhuk Alexei Matrakhov Anton Savichev Maxim Surov