The Astana Ballet tour took place from April 7 to 16 at the Almaty Theatre, DKNews.kz reports.
The program includes a concert by Maria Mudryak, performances “Salome”, “The Language of Love”, “Romeo and Juliet”, a performance by Ethno Fashion Ballet, and a show program “Melodic show”. Almaty residents greeted the artists with thunderous applause: the capital’s team won the hearts of residents of the cultural capital of Kazakhstan!
According to the theater director Alexander Sovostyanov, this is a kind of final exam for the theater, because everyone is somehow connected with this wonderful city.
“Without changing our traditions, we have prepared a rich program, which included a vocal concert by opera star Maria Mudryak. We are very happy that we were able to organize this concert with our symphony orchestra. In addition, we carefully approached the new format of celebrating Nauryz and, since we are the guardians of our national choreography, we prepared a unique performance by Ethno Fashion Ballet. It was interesting, spectacular and I hope it truly melted the hearts of the audience. We are very glad that the touring performances of our theater found the right response from critics and audiences,” he noted.
“Almaty residents look forward to any tour of the Astana Ballet Theater with anticipation, because they are accustomed to: the capital’s artists will bring not just the best, but also something special - unique, bold, innovative. The tour program opened with a concert by Maria Mudryak. Now a mature, professional opera singer, she has not lost her liveliness of character, artistry and feminine charm, and this, of course, has made the public fall in love with her again. In addition to the masterpiece, in the literal sense of the word, her magnificent work with the orchestra delighted me,” shared Lyudmila Makarenko, a columnist for the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper.
“The evening of ballet introduced the Almaty audience to two choreographic experiments: the performances “Salome” and “The Language of Love.” The experimentalism of the first is expressed in the extraordinary dynamics, minimalism and symbolism in the stage design; the choreographer creates unusually graphic multi-figure compositions that captivate the viewer with the beauty of the plasticity of modern dance; the second represents the poetics of the images of the great Abai; here, both in the choreography and in the stage design, ethnography and images of nomadic culture predominate. Both performances are beautiful in their own way, captivating the viewer, the main difficulty for whom was to connect these two universes, so different from each other, in one theatrical evening,” shared Valeria Nedlina, musicologist.
“Almaty residents are looking forward to the theater’s spring tour, expecting to see new productions and national programs, but this time Astana Ballet exceeded all expectations. Such different events happened within one week! And this shows the theater’s desire to develop in different directions, to embrace an ever-increasing creative space, to be interesting not only to old-time music lovers and ballet lovers, but also to attract young people, to educate and captivate them into the magical world of theater, music and dance,” notes Flyura Musina, ballet critic.
“The repertoire of the tour showed the fruitful work of the theater in terms of the variety of genres of the presented repertoire and the performing skills of the artists. The ballet "Romeo and Juliet", with its rich texture of choreography and stage action, became a clear indicator of the artistic growth of the troupe. The theater’s focus on development and plastic experiments undoubtedly attracts new viewers and provides an opportunity for the development of the choreographic culture of Kazakhstan,” said Togzhan Moldalim, art manager of Qazaq Ballet Creative Lab.
“The next meeting of the orchestra with the Almaty audience took place at the ballet “Romeo and Juliet”. And again delight - this time from the brilliant, emotionally verified performance of Prokofiev's music. The new ballet production was a success in every sense: excellent scenography, bright, dynamic crowd scenes, duets piercing in intensity of emotions. And what deserves special appreciation are the unsurpassed artists: technical, artistic, youthfully daring, lively,” added Lyudmila Makarenko.
“Undoubtedly, the theater team today is a highly professional troupe, which is capable of a variety of tasks dictated by the artistic management of the theater. And Nurlan Kanetov himself and the theater’s teachers and tutors work tirelessly not only on the technical perfection of performance, but also on the smallest nuances and touches of parts and images. This is not surprising, because in the past they themselves were magnificent primas and premieres of the ballet theater,” concluded Flyura Musina.
The tour took place with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
