The Afternoon of Petrushka

Ballet in two acts.
"Afternoon of a Faune" and "Petrushka", two of the most beautiful and inspired pieces of music ever written for dance.

In Roles: Karmen Puis, Aivar Kallaste, Takuya Sumitomo, Ilja Mironov, Silas Stubbs, Saori Nagata, Nashua Mironova, Hayley Blackburn, Mai Kageyama, Raminta Rudžionyte, Colin Thomas Maggs, Elias Girod, Vladimirs Latišonoks, Jonathan Ammerlaan, Anna Shircliff, Julia Litvinenko, Kristina Markevičiute, Janika Suurmets, Emily Hughes, Valentine Legat, Marta Marcelli, Rebecca Peters, Laura Quin, Alens Piskunovs, Sergi Terns Goma, Daniel Szybkowski, Anthony Maloney, Julia Kaškovskaja, Milena Tuominen, Rita Dolgihh, Rosamund Ford, Fenella Cook, Ruslan Stepanov, Matthew Jordan, Janek Savolainen, Vjatšeslav Ladoškin

Presented with one interval.
Running Time:

1:30

„„Afternoon of a Faune“ and „Petrushka“, two of the most beautiful and inspired pieces of music ever written for dance. Almost a century later, I would like to bring them back in their most essential form, as dances that touches on the ever important themes of identity and belonging.“

Pontus Lidberg

Petrushka is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky composed the music during the winter of 1910–11 for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. It was premièred in Paris at the Théâtre du Chatelet on June 13, 1911 under conductor Pierre Monteux, with choreography by Mikhail Fokine and sets by Alexandre Benois. The title role was danced by Vaslav Nijinsky. Petrushka is a story of a Russian traditional puppet, Petrushka, who is made of straw and with a bag of sawdust as his body, but who comes to life and develops emotions. The story superficially resembles that of Pinocchio, but perhaps has more in common with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Petrushka is a work that fuses music, ballet, choreography and history in perfect balance. It resembles Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork), but with a Russian approach.

The ballet L'après-midi d'un faune (or The Afternoon of a Faun) was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, and first performed in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on May 29, 1912. Nijinsky danced the main part himself. As its score it used the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy. Both the music and the ballet were inspired by the poem L'après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé.