On 26 May, the main venue of Alexandrinsky Theatre witnessed several first-time performances by our dancers. For instance, Yana Erkina made a début as the Fairy of Candour in the French choreographer Jean-Guillaume Bart’s rendition of Sleeping Beauty, while Alyona Grivnina made her first appearance as the Canary Fairy in the same show. Furthermore, Aydar Bikbulatov débuted as one of the Princess’s Suitors, and Anna Shamanova and Polina Zaytseva both joined the ‘Women Knitting’ scene for the first time.

From 12 to 30 May, the Musa Cälil Tatar Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in Kazan will be hosting the annual ballet festival that will bring together the best performers in the country. The playbill of this two-week ballet marathon is classical at its core, including such staples as Giselle, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, and The Sleeping Beauty. The main roles in these shows will be played by the soloists of major music theatres: the Bolshoi Theatres of Russia and Belarus, Mariinsky Theatre, Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, Mikhailovsky Theatre, Kremlin Ballet, and the Tatar Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

On 23 May, world ballet star Leonid Sarafanov held his first class with the Leonid Yacobson Ballet dancers as an official tutor.

The public may be familiar with Andrey Sorokin, Leonid Yacobson Ballet’s principal dancer, not just because his virtuoso skills truly shine in the shows from the theatre’s repertoire, but also because he appeared in the Grand Ballet project on the Culture Channel and in the Bolshoi feature film by Valery Todorovsky.