The Mikhailovsky in London: Worldwide Perspectives
The Mikhailovsky Theatre ballet troupe made a triumphal ending of its guest season at London’s Coliseum, and the theatre's second visit to the British capital has attracted a great deal of attention from the international press.  
    The summer season traditionally saw London welcoming Russia’s best-known ballet companies — the Bolshoy and the Mariinsky — to its main venues. But despite its proximity to these giants of ballet, the appearance of the Mikhailovsky Ballet was aroused heightened interest from urbane British theatre-goers and mass audiences alike, demonstrating that the rapidly blossoming company is more than capable of holding its own amongst the best. As Vremia Novostei remarks, ‘touring in this sort of crowded environment is a great challenge for ballet-dancers. In taking up the gauntlet, the theatre proves that it is confident in its own abilities.’

On this visit, the theatre surprised British audiences with the variety of its tour ‘menu’, in which classical offerings like Swan Lake and Giselle sit side-by-side with a children’s show (Cipollino), a new work by a promising young choreographer (Slava Samodurov’s In a Minor Key), and the première of a rediscovered treasure of Soviet choreography (Laurencia). It is, then, no accident that the theatre’s guest runs have become a key fixture of London’s cultural and society calendars.

The ballet Swan Lake is an obligatory performance for any Russian company touring in London, but it is the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s revival of the Asaf Messerer adaptation of Alexander Gorsky’s choreography that has been judged the best by England’s most demanding critics. According to the Financial Times, this production is ‘a cascade of glittering movement’. The Guardian notes ‘compared to later Soviet productions, which recast so much of the ballet in big strokes of dance and action, this is a Swan Lake that sings through its detail [...] The choreography, too, is rich in subtle embellishment’. Kommersant turns its attention to the ‘perfect synchronisation and precision of the danced tableau’ created by the female corps de ballet. Having already brought itself to the critics’ attention during the theatre’s last London season, the Mikhailovsky’s Giselle in Nikita Dolgushin’s staging has also managed to repeat its success: on this occasion, it was awarded the highest rating, five stars, by the Financial Times. The critics have given Irina Perren’s choreographic and acting skills their due: as Gerald Dowler remarks, ‘her technique serves her artistry completely, with balances held not for show but in defiance of the gravity of the mortal world’.

Aside from the company’s leading dancers — Yekaterina Borchenko, Marat Shemiunov, Irina Perren and Vera Arbuzova — the main roles in the London season performances were filled by guest soloists: the English Royal Ballet prima Tamara Rojo, the Berlin Staatsballett soloist Polina Semionova, the San Fransisco ballet prima Maria Kochetkova and the Mariinsky soloist Denis Matvienko. In engaging the stars of the European stage, the Mikhailovsky Theatre is affirming its status as a fully-fledged member of the international theatrical community.