Yesterday, 16 December, saw the culmination of Maya and Rodion, a performing arts festival celebrating the outstanding composer Rodion Shchedrin, and his wife and muse, the legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya. The gala at the Bolshoi’s historic venue brought together leading figures of musical theatre from Russia’s two cultural capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow. As part of the programme, the Leonid Yacobson Ballet Theatre presented its one-act ballet, Cheeky Chastushki, set to music by Rodion Shchedrin. For reference, Shchedrin’s score was originally composed as a concert piece and first performed in 1963. Its vibrant energy and rhythmic brilliance immediately caught the attention of Leonid Yacobson, who was inspired to choreograph a dance number in time with Shchedrin’s music; however, that early version has not survived. In our own time, the score has been revisited by choreographer Vyacheslav Samodurov. His Chastushki premièred exactly three years ago, in celebration of Rodion Shchedrin’s 90th birthday at the Mariinsky Theatre.

‘It is both a great honour and a great responsibility for our dancers to take part in an event as unique as this final gala,’ says the Theatre’s Art Director, Andrian Fadeev. ‘The Cheeky Chastushki ballet is accompanied by the Bolshoi Theatre Symphony Orchestra under the great Valery Gergiev. He and Rodion Shchedrin have shared a decades-long creative collaboration and personal friendship. Maestro Gergiev understands, appreciates, and feels Shchedrin’s music like no one else. When conducted by him, Cheeky Chastushki’s score, originally conceived as a symphonic concerto, transforms into a true musical treasure. Which, undoubtedly, inspires the dancers on-stage.’