Siberian ballet festival opens in Novosibirsk on Tuesday

NOVOSIBIRSK, May 24 (Itar-Tass) - The fourth Siberian ballet festival
opens at the Novosibirsk state academic opera and ballet theatre (NSAT) on
Tuesday.
During the five-day festival evenings, audiences will see the Swan
Lake, La Bayadere, and the renewed ballet Spartacus, with Ivan
Vassiliyev, Bolshoi's leading dancer, participating.
NSAT Director Boris Mezdrin has told Itar-Tass that the purpose of the
festival is "to enable Siberians to see the stars of choreography without
the need to travel far". Laureates of international ballet dancing
competitions will perform on the stage of NSAT. Among them will be
Yevgenia Obraztsova of the Maryinsky Theatre, Roman Polkovnikov and Anna
Zharova of the Novosibirsk opera and ballet theatre, Beatrice Knop and
Dmitry Semionov of the Berlin Staatsballet, as well as Igor Zelensky,
artistic director of NSAT, who at the same time remains the leading dancer
of the Maryinsky Theatre.
For the presentation at the festival, NSAT has prepared the one-act
ballet Carmen by famous French choreographer Roland Petit who first staged
the one-act ballet Carmen to Georges Bizet's music in London in 1949. In
Novosibirsk, the author's version of the ballet was restored by
representatives of the Roland Petit Foundation -- two coachers and one
producer who came from Paris at the invitation of NSAT.
The Siberian ballet festival will run until May 29 to bring to a close
the 66th season in the Novosibirsk opera and ballet theatre.