Chopiniana & Romeo and Juliet: Birgitta Festival

O wydarzeniu

The Russian National Ballet performs at the Birgitta Festival. This festival of the Tallinn Philharmonic Society combines the dark charm of a medieval convent in Tallinn, Estonia with the latest in modern musical theatre in all its variety and richness.

Chopiniana
Music by Frederic Chopin
Orchestration by Alexander Glazunov
Choreography by Mikhail Fokin
Stage directing and costumes by Elena and Sergei Radchenko

The ballet Chopiniana evolved out of the well‐known Waltz No 7 by the great Polish romanticist. This classical and beautiful short ballet, the most noted composition by its creator Mikhail Fokin, is presently a part of the permanent repertoire of numerous leading theatres. Chopiniana lacks a traditional plot. With the curtain opening, the audience find themselves in a picturesque yet frozen world of ballet dancers, who start living under the influence of a young man’s dreams, accompanying him as a light veil throughout the ballet’s various moods. “Fokin’s dances stand out with lyrical significance, which is impossible to describe in words yet which lives and acts. This choreography is music just like poetry, a song without lyrics, a mystery without actions visible to the eye. These are the features that make Chopiniana a perfect piece of work inspired by the art of the 20th century,” characterises Fokin’s contemporary Fyodor Lopuhhov the ballet.

Romeo and Juliet
A short ballet based on William Shakespeare’s tragedy
Music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Original choreography by Marius Petipa
Stage directing and costumes by Elena and Sergei Radchenko

A poignant love story that has endured for many centuries and is known to all. It is a story of a boy and a girl, madly in love, who die victims of the enmity between their antagonistic families. The short ballet is based on the music from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s overture‐fantasy by the same name and the 6th Symphony.