Late addition to line-up of Bolshoi stars

By BERNADETTE RAE

Galina Stepanenko, one of the Bolshoi's prima ballerinas, is a late addition to the Russian "ballet spectacular" which opens at the Aotea Centre on Saturday. So her name does not feature on advance programme information.

But Dennis Brown, whose company Event Entertainment is bringing the Stars of the Bolshoi to the South Pacific, promises two appearances by Stepanenko, who will fly in directly from guest appearances in Turkey.

The published programme includes the Pas de Deux from Sleeping Beauty, Act II from Swan Lake and Dying Swan, to music by Saint-Saëns, a dance made famous by Anna Pavlova, who performed it in 1907.

Stepanenko was born in 1966 and graduated from the Moscow Ballet School in 1984. She performed in the Moscow Classical Ballet between 1984 and 1987, with the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet from 1987 to 1989 and was invited to join the Bolshoi Theatre, where she rose to star status.

The Stars of the Bolshoi ensemble, with seven other dancers from the Bolshoi Theatre, two from the St Petersburg Ballet and two from the Russian Classical Ballet, plus a corp de ballet of 20, came under criticism from the Royal New Zealand Ballet's artistic director, Matz Skoog, when its sophisticated advertising campaign clashed with the local company's publicity for its own classical showcase the Air New Zealand Gala Evening of Stars.

Skoog cautioned that the quality of a production was far from guaranteed just because it came out of Russia and featured famous names.

Brown, whose previous shows have included Glen Campbell, Victor Borge and the Welsh Choir, confesses his viewing of the programme in a theatre outside London this year was his first experience of the ballet.

"I liked it because it was a series of excerpts and easy to follow," he says. "I don't pretend to be a knowledgeable ballet person, but all our research shows that New Zealanders prefer their ballet traditional. And the audience reacted very favourably the night we went.

"I expect we will attract a lot of other New Zealanders who are new to ballet. They will come because they want to see excerpts from famous ballets, danced by people from famous ballet companies."

Brown says he has had to defend the Russian stars to the media since Skoog's criticism and had referred the incident back to Moscow.

He reports that Alexander Voroshilo, executive director of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, replied: "Our dancers will answer from the stage."

* Stars of the Bolshoi is at the Aotea Centre from next Saturday to Wednesday, September 26.