After a short break for the New Year’s holidays — January 1st to 6th were holidays for the Mariinsky and just Jan. 1st for the Bolshoi — Russian theatres slowly resumed their full performance schedule in early 2021 with the 50% capacity rule in most places.*
With the rollout of the Sputnik V this year, increasing numbers of citizens and visitors have been receiving the vaccine against the coronavirus, which will hopefully slow the spread and ease the country back to normalcy.
January and February passed without any notable premieres at the top 2 theatres except for the repeat of last September’s Bolshoi programme, “Four Characters in Search of a Plot”.
March promises some excitement though, when the Bolshoi will premiere “Orlando”, if all goes as planned, on March 24th. The work by Christian Shpuck, currently the head of Ballet Zurich in Switzerland, is based on Virginia Wolfe’s novel about a creature who travels across 350 years of time, changing from male to female along the way. Created and rehearsed during the pandemic, it will premiere on the Bolshoi’s new stage.