"The ballet world in search of a major choreographer need search no more. He is Boris Eifman…"
-The New York Times

 

"Eifman’s company give a committed, athletic performance. Zmievets is tireless and fearless, from her love duets to a dead fall from a height. Oleg Markov makes a charismatic Karenin, with bold, ardent partnering from Oleg Gabyshev’s Vronsky."
-The Independent

 

 

Boris Eifman’s ballet Anna Karenina is a true burst of inner psychological energy and is amazingly precise in delivering emotional impact upon its viewers. By setting aside all secondary storylines in Leo Tolstoy’s novel, the choreographer focused on the love triangle “Anna – Karenin – Vronsky”.

Using dance language, Boris Eifman in his ballet managed to portray the drama of a woman being reborn. According to the choreographer, it is the love passion, the “basic instinct” which has led the heroine to the breach of the then current norms of social morality, killed motherly love in Anna Karenina and destroyed her inner world. Being so completely consumed and crushed by passion, a woman is ready for any sacrifice.

The choreographer says that his ballet speaks not of previous times but of today: the timeless emotional content of the performance and obvious parallels to reality can’t leave the contemporary viewer indifferent. The brilliant technical mastery of the company’s dancers and Boris Eifman’s astounding choreography present to us in a remarkably impressive way all the aspects and peripeteias of the Tolstoy’s novel.

 

A ballet by Boris Eifman
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy
Music: Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Sets: Zinovy Margolin
Costumes: Vyacheslav Okunev
Light: Gleb Filshtinsky