Kyiv to host the premiere of the ballet “The Queen of Spades” staged by Radu Poklitaru

With the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and the Culture Department of the Kyiv City State Administration, the “Kyiv Modern Ballet” Academic Theatre will present a new project on 13 October — a contemporary ballet in two acts, “The Queen of Spades”, set to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky. This was announced today during a press conference at UNIAN by Radu Poklitaru, principal choreographer of the “Kyiv Modern Ballet” Academic Theatre, Honoured Artist of Ukraine and laureate of the Shevchenko Prize.

“On behalf of the entire theatre, I invite everyone to the premiere of the ballet ‘The Queen of Spades’. For our theatre and for our artists, this is a new step and certainly something we have not done before. That I can guarantee. From a literary point of view, my ‘Queen of Spades’ is a creative and rather free reinterpretation of Pushkin’s novella. Two movements of the Second Symphony, suffused with Ukrainian folk melodies, became the musical foundation of the first act of the ballet, while the composer’s Sixth Symphony is performed in full. We take a very responsible approach to everything that appears on stage. I decided to tell the whole story, the entire preamble. That is why our ballet is in two acts. The first part is devoted to the preamble. For this part, almost all of the main characters present in Tchaikovsky’s opera and Pushkin’s novella have been preserved; the secondary characters have disappeared, but we have added one more character who appears in neither. This is Count Saint-Germain — a semi-mythical figure, an alchemist, an adventurer, a man considered to be an incredibly popular figure in the high-society mythology of the 18th and 19th centuries,” the principal choreographer said.

Olha Nikitina, the author of the video content, emphasised that one of the goals of the production is for the audience to understand everything that happens on stage.

“We have shifted the action of the production into two planes: showing the stage that is familiar to the audience, and showing the plane on which passions rage. This is an important point. It is important for the audience to understand what is happening there at any given moment. We are going to make these moments comprehensible to the audience with the help of augmented reality, by means of virtual objects that appear within the reality of the stage. This technology is a little specific, but the production itself is mystical, and so augmented reality is absolutely organic,” she said.

Costume designer Dmytro Kuryata said that the audience will not see copies of museum exhibits on stage.

“It will be a reinterpretation. We are not making quotations or copies of museum exhibits. Since we have two acts, we are creating completely different worlds, two completely different aesthetics into which the audience will be immersed while watching this production. The main task in collaborating with Radu Poklitaru is to create a costume that is comfortable for dancing and one that would emphasise and complement the choreography, and would by no means draw the audience’s attention away from it. That is why we drew on historical eras, and the spirit of the era will be palpable, but we have done away with everything superfluous that would hinder the dance. It will be a stylisation of historical costume, but not a quotation,” Kuryata said.

Yana Barinova, Director of the Culture Department of the Kyiv City State Administration, noted that the city authorities had also made their contribution to making the premiere happen.

“This premiere is a celebration. Because to the two geniuses — Pushkin and Tchaikovsky — Radu Poklitaru has now been added. For me, this is no exaggeration. I believe one should not be afraid of high praise when it is warranted. One must be able to discern greatness among one’s contemporaries and to say so in good time. I am proud that the Culture Department of the Kyiv City State Administration is involved, and that we too have made our small contribution to the appearance of this wonderful production. We allocated financial assistance of 315 thousand hryvnias for the preparation of this production. It is not as much as one would like, but I am glad that the Culture Department has such financial instruments with which we can support the creation of new works. We will continue to support such wonderful initiatives,” she said.

The premiere of the ballet will take place on the stage of the October Palace on 13 October at 7:00 p.m. 

The recording of the press conference is HERE

Nataliia Khadzhi, UNIAN