A ballet gala took place on the scene of Theatre Tudor Vianu in Giurgiu

The Ballet of the State Opera Rousse has interpreted classical and contemporary ballet fragments in Giurgiu

This text is a press release by the Theatre Tudor Vianu Giurgiu.

Călin Şabac

I haven’t read any announcements for visits in Giurgiu of classical and contemporary ballet teams in the last 20 years. And now, as a result of an inspiring cultural cooperation between the Theatre “Tudor Vianu” in Giurgiu and the State Opera in Rousse on the day of 22 April 2019 we hosted on the scene of Giurgiu a real ballet gala. Famous fragments from 20 masterpieces of the universal ballet heritage were interpreted by 30 ballet dancers from the Bulgarian neighbouring city. The public of Giurgiu applauded the impressive performances of the Bulgarian dancers numerous times.

The culmination of this true royal ballet were the famous and difficult “Adagio” from “The Sleeping Beauty” by Tchaikovsky, interpreted admirably by Anton Ivanov and Maria Nikolova, and the famous Pas de deux from “Don Quijote” of the Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus, who was the official composer of the Imperial Ballets in Sankt Peterbourg. We were following with excitement the beautiful pirouettes of the marvellous Kitri – Mizuki Higashino, and the high jumps and the impressive control of Basilio – Masaki Takada. We admired the gracefullness and the expresiveness of Greta Georgieva in “The Death of the Swan”, the most famous piece for cello and piano by Saint Saëns. We were also thrilled by the famous “Polovtsian dances” from the opera “Prince Igor” by Borodin, with which the spectacle ended. The public reacted with standing ovation.

I have given only a few examples, but each of the dancers was exceptional and impressed the public, deserving the applauses.

In the well-selected programme of the artistic director Zornitsa Petrova the classical repertoire had greater value. It was diverse. It focused on Russian composers, but was not limited only to them. There were a few interepretations of modern ballet – e.g. Hristo Dobrev excelled in his dance on the music of Jacques Brel (Au Suivant). This interpretation introduced certain contrast with the remaining part of the spectacle – in carefully thought out limits. The famous classical moments from the choreography of big ballet masters such as Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov and George Balanchine were mixed with choreography of contemporary dance, done by Asen Nakov, Silvia Tomova, Chrstian Bakalov. The choreograhic diversity was developed by “The Polovtsian Dances”, remade by the ballet master Mariana Zaharieva.

The whole ballet evening was joy for the spectators as they were watching the ballet dancers of the State Opera Rousse. We are sure that we will see them again on the scene in Giurgiu and we hope that our actors will impress the public in Rousse the next season.

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Vladimir Mitev

Vladimir Mitev is a Bulgarian Romanian-speaking journalist. He has interacted with many Bulgarian and Romanian media outlets, including Bulgarian National Radio, Mediapool, all major Bulgarian television stations, Darik Radio, and more (Bulgaria); Radio Romania, The Liberal Community 1848, all the major Romanian television stations; DoR; Libertatea; PressHub; and others (Romania); The Analysis, Acorn Radio (USA); Open Democracy (UK); voxEurop (France); the Observatory for the Balkans and the Caucasus; The Other News (Italy); The Institute for Central Europe (Poland); Argument (Czechia); Merce (Hungary); Bilten (Croatia); and Agora (the Republic of Moldova).
He promotes the idea of non-hegemonic, mutually empowering interactions in Central and Southeastern Europe that could contribute to the formation of a dynamic regional identity and connect citizens to the global community.

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