International and Latvian ballet stars will shine again in Jūrmala
For the 24th time, ballet will be celebrated in Jūrmala. On 3 August 2024, at 20:00, Dzintari Concert Hall will host the International Ballet Festival ‘Ballet Stars in Jūrmala’, with Aivars Leimanis as the artistic director. Featuring performances by both local and international guest artists, the audience will have the opportunity to enjoy works by renowned contemporary choreographers and excerpts from classical ballets, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the colourful and diverse world of ballet.
Festival audiences can look forward to a reunion with the great Latvian dancer and Hamburg Ballet star, Anna Laudere, and her stage partner, Hamburg Ballet’s leading soloist, Edvin Revazov. They will perform the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, choreographed by John Neumeier, long-time artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet. The new artistic director of this ballet troupe, Demis Volpi, will choreograph Winter, with music from Antonio Vivaldi’s cycle The Four Seasons.
The Bavarian State Ballet’s leading soloists, Maria Baranova and Jinhao Zhang, will perform a pas de deux from Adolphe Charles Adam’s classical ballet Giselle, as well as an excerpt from the innovative and modern ballet Cinderella, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon with music by Sergei Prokofiev.
Luca-Andrea Lino Tessarini, soloist of the Netherlands Dance Theatre, will perform his new work Antidot with his colleague, Nicole Ward. The Netherlands Dance Theatre, or NDT, is now considered the leading contemporary dance company, setting the tone for contemporary dance worldwide. Every artist in this troupe possesses exceptional dancing skills and a genuine personality.
The audience will have the opportunity to appreciate the talent of Ukrainian dancer Veronika Reznichenko, who will perform a variation from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty. The young artist is currently studying at Riga Ballet School and this spring participated in the Vienna International Ballet Experience with great success, representing Latvia. She won both the classical and neoclassical categories in her age group. Jury representative Aivars Leimanis gave the dancer a special prize – the opportunity to perform at the festival Ballet Stars in Jūrmala.
Visitors of the festival will also have the opportunity to see the latest productions of the Latvian National Ballet that have been created in the past season. Ballet principal soloists Elza Leimane and Viktors Seiko will perform a pas de deux from Frederick Ashton’s ballet The Wayward Daughter, with music by Louis-Joseph Ferdinand Hérold. The artists of the Latvian National Ballet will perform the passionate dance of the artistic widow Simone (interpreted by Andris Pudāns) in wooden slippers from The Wayward Daughter, as well as an excerpt from the joyful ballet The Jungle Book, in which Raimonds Martinovs’ choreography meets the original music by Kārlis Lācis.
The leading soloist of the Latvian National Ballet, Jolanta Lubēja, and soloist Kārlis Cīrulis will perform the immortal classic, a pas de deux from the ballet Don Quixote. Whereas ballet dancer Krista Štrausa will perform Elza Leimane’s choreography Blooming, with which she impressed audiences and judges alike in the Valentina Kozlova International Ballet Competition in New York in April this year.
Approximate duration: 2 hours 30 minutes
