13/12/2019

When fantasy comes true: "Astana Ballet" prepares the premiere of the ballet "Cinderella"

On December 20, 21 and 22, real magic will happen in "Astana Ballet". The metropolitan theater is preparing the premiere of the two-act ballet "Cinderella" to the music of Sergei Prokofiev.

The performance by Nadezhda Kalinina, who is of one of the best choreographers of our time, is distinguished by a grandiose scale in everything: in the choice of musical score (the choreographer selects the most striking fragments from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet), the scale of the scenery, the entertainment of the video content, and the variety of character images. So, the audience is expected to meet with a fairy-tale world in which a large balloon soars above the stage, and two-meter bright butterflies fascinate with their flight.

In the decoration workshop of the “Astana Ballet”, hard work has been underway for a month to create a stage design. By the forces of the staff of the metropolitan theater, amazing sketches of the set director Sergei Novikov are embodied in reality.

“This is a fantasy performance that will be equally interesting for both children and adults. We wanted to create a fabulous ballet for the whole family. So there was a plot with a book that falls to a little girl, whose imagination was played out to such an extent that sent her on a journey into the magical world. Each character in it is part of this book, so the costumes of the artists are inseparable from the set design: book themes will be traced in everything, ” says Sergei Novikov.  

The main scenery is the open chapters, they will be replaced in each act. According to the idea of the artist, each of the three books has its own “chips”. The height of one reaches seven meters and during the ballet, it will constantly change its location; in the other, the characters hover over pages that seemed to freeze at the moment of turning over.

In this performance, as the head of the decoration department Zhandos Omarov notes, both soft and hard decoration, details and small props are used.  According to the expert, Cinderella is the largest and most complex performance in the theater’s repertoire, requiring maximum technical capabilities.

“The peculiarity of these sets is that they not only visually frame the performance, but are quite functional. Artists have to climb the stairs leading to the book, fly in a balloon. And the scenery itself must move around the stage, glow, and sometimes fly. Therefore, we pay special attention to the safety. The scenery should be reliable and sturdy, but at the same time as light as possible to reduce the load on the ballet floor, as well as easily disassemble the parts for subsequent transportation in the event of touring”, - said Zhandos Omarov.  

According to the masters of the props workshop, props for ballet are made manually: books, glasses, candlesticks and many others. In addition, they are faced with the task of preparing about 160 hats. Original hats in the form of pages from a book, fir-trees and crowns are made of steel wire, then they are covered with a net or fabric and decorated with stones. According to the masters, the most difficult thing was to make the headgear of the ravens, since each feather - and the present - had to be put on glue, which in itself was a rather painstaking and time-consuming task.

Meanwhile, wigs are being made in the make-up workshop: they are given the necessary volume, painted in bright colors and generously decorated with rhinestones, flowers and butterflies.

About 160 images of chiffon, mesh, tulle, lace and other materials in 3 months - this is the front of work for sewing workshop masters. The process of creation is complicated by the presence of diverse decor: lace, rhinestones, embroidery, applique, prints and hand-painted using batik technique are used. According to the head of the workshop, Natalia Protasova, it takes about 1.5 days to create one costume.

“In addition to this, we ourselves created typesetting fabrics, assembled a canvas for sewing. They cut artificial leather into strips, sewed them, and only then did they cut and made costumes. At the moment, an active fitting is underway, it will last until the general delivery, since only the stage can show everything that will need to be finalized to an ideal result, ” says Natalya Protasova.  

As for the famous Cinderella's crystal shoes, they will be replaced with classic pointe shoes decorated with sparkling rhinestones. As the masters of the shoe workshop promise, in the light of the spotlights their radiance can easily be taken as a fabulous crystal shoes. 

All the magic created by the masters of the capital's theater can be seen firsthand on December 20, 21 and 22 at the "Astana Ballet" Theater. Well, viewers who did not have time to purchase tickets for the premiere series of performances have the opportunity to see the grandiose premiere of the ballet Cinderella on January 7 and 8, 2020.