Pique dame

Roland Petit was not satisfied with his version of Pushkin's masterpiece Lady in Spades, which he created 35 years ago for Mikhaïl Baryschnikov. When the management of the Bolshoi Ballet asked him to write a new version of this ballet, Roland Petit re-read the novel and wrote a new libretto. For the music, he chose a Russian musical monument, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathétique’. And so Roland Petit created for the two best dancers in the world (Nikolay Tsikaridze and Ilze Liepa) magnificent and dramatic duets which are the central episodes of the ballet. For the choreographer, ‘their dance gives rise to a remarkable effect: it will seem to you that Tchaikovsky's own music becomes especially pure and penetrating’.  La dama de picas reminds him of ‘’a bullfight in which both parties die: the bull and the bullfighter‘’.

Pasacaglia

‘In 1994, I presented an evening of ballets at the Paris Opera with music by the German composers Alban Berg, Arnold Schönberg and Anton von Webern. The most successful work was the ballet on Webern's Passacaglia. So when it was decided to present an evening of my ballets at the Bolshoi, this was the work I suggested to include in the programme. Passacaille is a very complex ballet. Difficult for both the choreographer and the performers. It has no plot, no sets, no musical rhythm to guide the dancers. At the same time, Passacaille demands the highest quality technique, for it is precision and purity of execution that form the basis of the choreography. I am happy to have had the opportunity to present this ballet in Moscow. The fourteen dancers involved in the production work with great enthusiasm and I hope that the public will appreciate their skill. Roland Petit.