LEO TOLSTOY TURNED TO LEAPS AND TWIRLS
IN THIS NARRATIVE BALLET MILESTONE
FROM JOFFREY BALLET, COMING TO L.A.
JUNE 21–23, 2024
With a brand new score created by 39-year-old wunderkind Ukrainian-born composer Ilya Demutsky, who replenishes the rhapsodic romanticism of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and genius choreographer Yuri Possokhov, who finds new depths in dance, Anna Karenina, Joffrey Ballet’s first commissioned score from 2019, is coming to Los Angeles with a live orchestra June 21–23, 2024. While the great Boris Eifman’s ballet of the same name — which used a compilation of pieces by Tchaikovsky — is a worthy precursor, Demutsky and Possokhov’s two-hour collaborative triumph honors and even increases the Slavic intensity and emotional range of Leo Tolstoy’s 1878 masterwork.
Extending its residency beyond the theatre, The Joffrey Ballet will lead dance workshops at four senior centers in Los Angeles County’s unincorporated communities. A professional teaching artist with Joffrey will lead four one-hour workshops, on June 12–13, 2024, that engage and inspire Angelenos through dance and movement with lessons tailored to older adults of all mobility levels. The health-affirming dance workshops, arranged through a partnership between the Los Angeles County Aging & Disabilities Department and The Music Center, will be held at various locations, from East L.A. to South Los Angeles, from Whittier to Altadena. Participating older adults will be invited to attend The Joffrey Ballet’s dress rehearsal on June 21, 2024.
Victoria Jaiani, Alberto Velazquez and Dylan Gutierrez,
originators of the three lead roles, will appear Friday June 21
It’s a ballet milestone and another artistic achievement to take place at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. This astounding narrative ballet is a breathtaking cinematic spectacle rich with stunning costume design to witness and music to hold its own in any company’s classical repertory. What most impresses throughout this passion ballet is how much storytelling can soar from sheer movement. Possokhov exploits and expands the vocabulary of dance to combine swift, Cossack-like spins, leaps of lust, and twirls conveying delirium and desire.
Victoria Jaiani
It’s all in the service of a multi-layered novel whose doomed title character is by the end utterly abandoned. A modest-minded St. Petersburg aristocrat, Anna seems happily yoked to Alexey Karenin, a proper and progressive politician. But, after she sees a fatal (and presaging) train accident, Anna also fatefully encounters a handsome young soldier named Alexey Vronsky.
The Ensemble
The rest is irresistible, if not inevitable, passion: Anna falls under the spell of this feckless careerist who rides horses to death much as he treats women. Anna’s tortured twists and turns perfectly convey the ever-escalating plight of an unhappy wife torn between the prospect of unconditional devotion, her duty to an honorable mate, and her non-negotiable love for her son Seyozha.
Alberto Velazquez
In a contrast that’s both moral and artistic, Tolstoy presents a very different couple. Their bonds are built on more than impulse and infatuation, and that lets them escape the uncompromising extremes that destroy Anna and Alexey. Briefly enamored with, then coldly rejected by Vronsky, Princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya settles for bedrock happiness with Konstantin Levin. An agrarian reformer — like Tolstoy — and a devotee of gospel-like simplicity, this sweet soul can only offer a simple heart for a long life.
Alberto Velazquez, Victoria Jaiani, and the Joffrey ensemble
As relentlessly as Possokhov prosecutes the self-fulfilling crackup of the adulterous duo, he chooses to end the ballet very differently from the novel. The last impression is not Anna’s infamous demise (see synopsis below): It’s a pastoral fantasy, complete with horse carts and hay-making, that gives to Kitty and Konstantin a final benediction for their safely-tempered marriage.
Victoria Jaiani, Alberto Velazquez
Whether pulsatingly harsh or liltingly melodious, Demutsky’s supple and unashamedly old-school score will be played by a 58-member orchestra at The Music Center. At its best it literally mirrors every turn in Tolstoy’s tale. The balletic poles range from stridently social scenes set at engagement balls and the racecourse (with the ensemble terrifically in tandem in their communal celebrations) to agonizingly intimate duets that deliver every detail of whatever liaison takes center stage.
Alberto Velazquez, Victoria Jaiani
photos of Joffrey’s Chicago world premiere by Cheryl Mann (2019)
Anna Karenina
The Joffrey Ballet
presented by Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in DTLA
plays June 21–23, 2024
for tickets, call 213.972.0711 or visit Music Center
for more info, visit Joffrey
