Resident choreographer Andrey Kaydanovskiy transforms Alexander Pushkin’s eponymous story The Blizzard into contemporary ballet language. The piece premiered and opened the Ballet Festival Week in April 2021. Though the story is standard school reading material in Russian culture, it is rather little known in other countries. Of aristocratic stock, the young Marja falls in love with the poor young officer Vladimir, to her parents’ chagrin. The couple’s decision to marry in secret, however, is thwarted by fate, as on the way to the church at night the two lovers’ miss each other in a blizzard. Vladimir is plagued by a feeling of failure and decides to enlist. He goes to the war, where he is among the fallen. Marja’s life and that of her family takes a different turn, The power of the wizzard continues.
In his first full-length narrative ballet Andrey Kaydanovskiy builds on the existential questions that Puschkin’s story emenates from: What role does fate actually play? Is there such a thing as self-determination or is all just coincidence? How do people deal with such issues? Together with renowned film and theatre composer Lorenz Dangel and the whole artistic department ;Kaydanovskiy develops his very own narrative that dynamically unfolds the protagonists’ dramatic courses of life. Following on from the two works that celebrated world premieres as part of À Jour in the Prinzregententheater; Discovery and Cecil Hotel, Kaydanowskiy now created his first full-length narrative ballet.