With the Ballet of Moscow en route to Taiwan to trot out the island's umpteenth production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker and Prokofiev's Cinderella, the question is, who cares? The answer, suprisingly, is quite a few people, as tickets for the island-wide tour are enjoying brisk sales.
It is surely a blessing that Russia's most fabled dance companies come every year to demonstrate world-class ballet to the nation's legions of dance fans. Like the doctors of Medicins sans Frontiers, they faithfully tour the world to innoculate countries like Taiwan against cultural ignorance of classical dance. However, it is a pity -- and perhaps one of the reasons why classical ballet in Taiwan has never enjoyed the same popularity as modern dance -- that the troupe feels required to endlessly stage productions of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, as if no other classical ballets existed.
Taiwan saw two different Russian ballet troupes tour the island in March and September of 2001 with productions of Swan Lake, both brought by Russian dancer and choreographer Sergei Bobrov. The previous year, Swan Lake and The Nutcracke were put on ice, literally, by the St. Petersburg State Ballet on Ice. And local audiences were treated to a long-overdue send-up of the classics in March last year when the Russian Festival Men's Ballet performed The Comedic Legend of Swan Lake while poncing around in tutus and horrifyingly over-applied make-up.
What's different about the coming production? In truth, not much, unless you're a die-hard fan of classical ballet. The Ballet of Moscow, formerly the Russian Festival Ballet, was formed in 1990 by Russia's leading dancer, Timour Fayziev. It was stocked with many of Russia's premier ballet soloists and blessed by the legendary Rudoph Nureyev, who chose the troupe for what would be his final tour of Europe.
Fayziev himself is making a return to Taiwan, having come in July of 2001 with another dance troupe he formed, the Russian Royal Children's Ballet. The group charmed audiences with productions of Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid, a welcome respite from classical Russian drudgery.
Perhaps it was the warm reception Fayziev's previous tour received that is fueling ticket sales for this current tour, or perhaps there are few-to-no other choices for local dance afficianadoes. Either way, if you can't get enough of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, you'd better soon call for tickets. Not to worry, though, if you miss this tour, as there'll likely be another within the year.
Performance notes:
Swan Lake: Saturday, Jan. 4, 2:30pm and 7:30pm, at Taipei National Concert Hall; Sunday, Jan. 12, 2:30pm, at Taichung's Chungshan Hall (
The Nutcracker: Tonight, Jan. 3, 7:30pm, at Taipei National Concert Hall; Tuesday, Jan. 7, 7:30, at Kaohsiung City's Chide Hall (
Cinderella: Sunday, Jan. 5, 2:30pm, at Taipei's National Concert Hall; Thursday, Jan. 9, 7:30pm, at Hsinchuang City Cultural Arts Center (新莊市立藝術中心); Saturday, Jan. 11, 7:30pm, at Hsinchu County Culture Center (新竹縣立藝術中心).
Tickets cost between NT$300 and NT$1,600 and are available at the venues.
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