A fascinating ballet in which the central character does not even dance. The excellent choreography is based on the original by the Marius Petipa but the neither the story nor the music by Minkus can compete with his great Tchaikovsky trilogy. I saw the matinee so did not get to see the new ‘superstars’ Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova. I cannot imagine they could have been much better than Denis Matvienko and Oksana Bondareva who expended an astonishing amount of energy, deserving the barrage of applause and carpets of flowers they received.
I was sitting in the last row but one of the stalls and took the picture above with my iPhone – it isn’t cropped and shows how big the Coliseum stage is but the Mikhailovsky is such a huge company they amazingly managed to make to make it look small and cramped! My only regret is that I did not see their Giselle this time as there was no matinee. I should be able to go out in the evenings again soon.
Grandpa's reviews 