This fascinating production, originally intended as a one-time event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the city of St Petersburg, has been running for several years and continues to cast its spell over more and more spectators, be it in Europe, the USA or in Asian countries. The St Petersburg State Ballet On Ice is now coming to Malta with this fantastic ice choreography.
Seven tonnes of ice will transform the Mediterranean Conference Centre into a real, frozen ice palace where the Russian ice dancers from the St Petersburg State Ballet On Ice will present Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece “Cinderella” on glistening blades. Athletic ice-skating with jetés, lifts and pirouettes together with magnificent ballet make for a fascinating combination.
‘Cinderella’–
a fascinating ice show!
An enchanting, graceful fairy-tale, Sergei Prokofieffs’ “Cinderella” is the story of the transformation of a poor orphan girl into a princess, which is ideally suited for the glittering world of ice. As if defying gravity, Cinderella, the good fairy and the entire princely entourage glide over ice in the ballroom scene, while the stepmother and her daughters, with their martial looking twists and jumps draw attention to themselves. The lifts of Cinderella and her Prince and the immense charm of Sergei Prokofieff’s ballet music do the rest to draw the spectator into a world of fantasy and poetry in motion.
As early as 1967, Konstantin Boyarski founded the State Ice Ballet and set it going with a production based on Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker”, combining the art of ice skating with classical Russian ballet for the first time. Even in those days, it had an immediate and overwhelming success with connoisseurs of ballet and the critical public in its home country. The arduous work of adapting classical figures, lifts and jetés to the ice rink had been worthwhile. A new, magical genre was thus born with the ice ballet.
Over the years, not only has the repertoire expanded, but the refinement and design of sets, props and costumes has been perfected as well. Today, a “core” of 80 ice skating dancers with about 800 costumes enchant on the mirror-like surfaces of theatres and arenas across the world.
Most of the dancers today are individuals and couples who have won Russian and international prizes and medals for ice-skating. They went through rigorous and intensive training under the choreographer Konstantin Rassadin (Marinski Theatre) to learn how to merge the elements of athletic ice-skating with the skills of classical Russian ballet to give a high quality and graceful performance. Today, ex European champion Olga Ivanova and the former Olympic starter Andrei Stroganov dance to Prokofieff’s “Cinderella”. Choreographer at the St Petersburg State Ballet On Ice, Konstantin Rassadin, was the lead soloist for more than 23 years at the ballet in the Marinski Theatre (formerly known as the Kirov Theatre) and has danced and worked with stars like Rudolf Nurejew, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Dudinskaya.