Gala des Etoiles

By Maddy 15.07.2019

Last weekend, Director Georges Rischette has presented us the “Gala des Etoiles – Russian Season Mystery” at Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg – Grand Theatre. On Saturday, we got the chance to see the best ballerinas and dancers from all over the world accompanied by the amazing pianist Maestro Igor Zapravdin – Wienner Staatsballett and the astonishing young violinist Yury Revich who plays a Stradivarius.

Maestro Igor Zapravdin and Yury Revich (c) Christian Kieffer

The Gala started with a surprise show of dance and illusionism, performed by Laurent Beretta, Paris, who continued to be our host for the night. Every moment with him was a new rollercoaster in the illusionism world, sprinkled with witty jokes and self-irony.

Laurent Beretta – Moderator & Illusionist (c) Christian Kieffer

This year, Gala des Etoiles proposed to celebrate the Russian ballet, through homages paid for famous Russian ballerinas, dancers and choreographs. Although one would expect only classical ballet from this show, we were surprised with a few world premieres creations that brought the nowadays into the classic.

The night started with an homage paid to Ida Rubinstein and Léon Bakst, “Impact”, interpreted by Ketevan Papava – Wienner Staatsballett and accompanied by Maestro Igor Zapravdin. Ida Rubinstein was never considered as a top ballerina as she started her training late. She made her debut in Paris in exotic ballets choreographed by Fokine and designed by Léon Bakst. And this is what we saw, Ida and Léon’s “Impact” on what ballet can be, a combination of classical techniques, straight lines and perfect pirouettes, mixed with less constrained movements, more acting and exotic and comfortable costumes.

“Hummelflug” or “The Flight of the Bumblebee” of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is considered one of the hardest pieces to play because of its frantic pace and tempo. But there was no problem for Yury Revich and Maestro Igor Zapravdin to present us this well-known piece alongside Franceso Daniele Costa – Teatro di San Carlo Napoli, being a delight to watch and listen, with a perfect synchronization between the three.

As I said, we had part of classic ballet, homages to the Russian choreographer Marius Petipa, where we were able to see classic techniques and interpretation and start to understand what Russian ballet really is. We had the honour to see “La Bayadere”, “Pas d’esclave”, “Don Quixote” and “Le Corsaire”.  All of them were breath-taking and perfect and I suppose that was the purpose.

Also, in between these amazing classic parts and pieces, Annick Schadeck and Rhiannon Morgan brought us the world premier of “How much do we dare to see?”, a Luxembourgish contemporary choreography, with recomposed Vivaldi the Four Seasons, which took us into a mystical world where you see as much as you dare, and understand only what you dare to see. In the second part of the show, we were presented “Toothpicks” with Natasa Dudar and Lou Thabart – Leipziger Ballett, which brought the classic techniques to the computerized music of Rian Treanor. This piece is not something one would expect to see at such gala, especially considering the music, but it all made sense when they started dancing.

Last but not least, Maestro Igor Zapravdin delighted us with one more piano song “The Mysterious Gala des Etoiles” while we were able to take a pick behind the scenes of the upbringing of the show.

Overall, it was an amazing night, full of surprises and live music, old and new styles combined in a magnificent way.

This was all for this season at Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg, for more information of the new season you can check here. And also you can check more of Yury Revich here.