The XIV “Diaghilev. P.S.” Festival will continue with the performance of the Samara Academic Opera and Ballet Theater – the “Dolgushin Time” on the main stage of the G.A. Tovstonogov BDT. The program is dedicated to the legacy of Nikita Dolgushin (1938-2012) – a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, ballet master, choreographer, teacher, People’s Artist of the USSR. Dolgushin managed to create his own works and restore old ballets with equal inspiration. Nikita Dolgushin’s name has been associated with the Samara Opera and Ballet Theater since 1975, when he participated in the theater’s tours to Sochi, Lipetsk and Volgograd. In 1976 and 1988 he performed in “Giselle” and “Swan Lake” and gave lessons to soloists and ballet dancers. In 1997 Dolgushin was offered the artistic direction and the position of the chief ballet master of the theater which he held until 2006 and staged here such ballets as “Sleeping Beauty”, “Carmen Suite”, “Don Quixote”. A real treasure of the SAOBT repertoire was Dolgushin’s evening of one-act ballets of the Silver Age, one of them being “Armida’s Pavilion” to the music by Nikolai Tcherepnin. Dolgushin created it based on the legendary production by choreographer Mikhail Fokin and artist Alexandre Benois, a hit of Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons in Paris. 

This ballet in which the Silver Age peers into the Baroque era will make up the first part of the evening.

The second part will include fragments of two ballets choreographed by Igor Chernyshev: the duet of Phrygia and Spartacus from “Spartacus” by Aram Khachaturian and the duet and monologues of Antony and Cleopatra from “Antony and Cleopatra” by Eduard Lazarev.

The second part will be concluded by fragments of “Carmen Suite” ballet to the music of Georges Bizet – Rodion Shchedrin choreographed by Nikita Dolgushin, which was created especially for the Samara Theater Company in 2003. The peculiarity of his version of “Carmen Suite” is the absence of Torero – Alberto Alonso, one of the main characters of the performance. The choreographer wanted to concentrate all the audience’s attention on José and Carmen.

The evening will conclude with a fragment of Act II from “La Sylphide” ballet by Jean Schneitzhoffer and Hermann Levenskold choreographed by August Burnonville in Nikita Dolgushin’s version.

Each of the three parts of the program is preceded by an archive video of Nikita Dolgushin’s own ballet solos as an example of exceptional talent and the highest performing skills.

The program will feature dancers of the Samara Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia: Denis Rodkin and Eleonora Sevenard.