Several years ago, the Bolshoi Theatre and the Union of Theater Workers, RF held a contest for the best music piece for children, as the Russian musical theater has long been in desperate need of children’s repertoire.
The winner of the competition became a well-known Russian composer Efrem Podgaits, the author of thirteen operas, including Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, The Prince and the Pauper, Thumbelina, Lord of the Flies, Little Longnose and others which were and still are successfully on the stages of various theaters. However, for this competition, he decided to present the ballet, but also written on the subject of a famous literary work — a very popular Russian fairy tale in verse by Korney Chukovsky called Moidodyr.
The winner of the competition for the best libretto became Gennady Malkhasyants (1937-2008), but he managed to write only the synopsis for the first act of the ballet, unfortunately his death did not allow him even to learn the results of the first round. So Efrem Podgaits had to finish the second act of the libretto by himself, practically ‘blindfold’.
At the initiative of Sergei Filin, the Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet, the young choreographer Yuri Smekalov, the soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre, was invited to produce a ballet at the New Stage of the Bolshoi. After reviewing the libretto and music material Yuri Smekalov decided to write a new story, a thriller —fairytale , with new eccentric characters — such as Generalissimo Soap, Kitty, Wizard (Chukovsky), Fresh as a Daisy , Uncle Croc, Soldierpicks.
Smekalov staged several choreographic miniatures, successfully performed on different stages. As a choreographer, he debuted in 2008 within the framework of the Autumn Gold ballet festival creating the original project Verba volant, scripta manent, dedicated to his friend and mentor, George Aleksidze.
Moidodyr is the first full-length ballet by Yuri Smekalov and his first production at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia.
The leading parts will be taken by Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Nina Kaptsova, Anastasia Stashkevich, Kristina Kretova, Anastasia Meskova, Daria Khokhlova, Victoria Litvinova, Yulia Lunkina, Dmitry Gudanov, Ruslan Skvortsov, Semyon Chudin, Vyacheslav Lopatin, Artem Ovcharenko, Andrei Bolotin, Vitaly Biktimirov, Denis Savin, Alexei Matrakhov, Alexander Smoliyaninov, Igor Tsvirko at alias.
Art. Lebedev Studio