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Opera House to present the Bolshoi Ballet’s ‘Carmen Suite’ and ‘Petrushka’

One of the best ballet companies

Submitted Photos The 1891 Fredonia Opera House will present one of the world’s greatest ballet companies — the Bolshoi Ballet — performing two ballets, “Carmen Suite” and “Petrushka” this Thursday at 7 p.m.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House will present one of the world’s greatest ballet companies — the Bolshoi Ballet — performing two ballets, “Carmen Suite” and “Petrushka” this Thursday, May 30, at 7 p.m. The ballets will be presented in high definition, captured live via satellite from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

Carmen Suite is a one-act ballet created in 1967 by Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso to music by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin for Alonso’s wife, Bolshoi prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya. Inspired by Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen, it premiered at the Bolshoi, but was banned immediately after by the Soviet hierarchy as “disrespectful” to the opera and called “raw … nothing but eroticism.” A call and praise from the revered composer Dmitri Shostakovich resulted in the ban being lifted. The ballet has since become Shchedrin’s best-known work and has remained popular in the West for what reviewer James Sanderson calls “an iconoclastic but highly entertaining retelling of Bizet’s opera.”

Carmen Suite will captivate audiences in this double bill alongside Petrushka, a new creation for the Bolshoi by contemporary choreographer Edward Clug. Petrushka is a ballet composed in four scenes to music by Igor Stravinsky. Petrushka tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets, brought to life by the Charlatan. Petrushka loves the Ballerina, but she rejects him. She prefers the Moor. Petrushka is angry and hurt, and challenges the Moor. The Moor kills him; and Petrushka’s ghost rises above the puppet theatre as night falls. He shakes his fist at the Charlatan, then collapses in a second death.

The presentation runs two hours, 20 minutes with one intermission. Bolshoi Ballet Live is presented as part of the Stage on Screen series, which is sponsored by Dr. James and Marcia Merrins.

Individual tickets to Carmen Suite and Petrushka are $15, ($10 students). A special flexible Stage on Screen subscription of eight tickets that can be used however you want — one at a time to eight different Stage on Screen events, all at once for eight people, or anything in between — is $116. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 679-1891, Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online anytime at www.fredopera.org.

Submitted Photos The 1891 Fredonia Opera House will present one of the world’s greatest ballet companies — the Bolshoi Ballet — performing two ballets, “Carmen Suite” and “Petrushka” this Thursday at 7 p.m.

This presentation also is made possible with support from the United Arts Appeal of Chautauqua County.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House is a member-supported not-for-profit organization located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fredopera.org.

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