Acclaimed Ukrainian Ballet Company to Perform Romeo & Juliet and Swan Lake this January in Chicago

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THE NATIONAL BALLET THEATRE OF ODESSA BRINGS BALLET MASTERPIECES 

“SWAN LAKE” AND “ROMEO & JULIET” TO TOWN

Acclaimed Ukrainian Ballet Company To Perform “Romeo & Juliet” at Harris Theater for Music and Dance, January 19, 2020 and “Swan Lake” at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, January 21, 2020

The National Ballet Theatre of Odessa, is proud to announce two performances coming to Chicagoland in January 2020.  Featuring 55 of Ukraine’s top performers, “Romeo & Juliet” will be performed at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St. in Chicago, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020 at 3 p.m., and “Swan Lake” will be performed at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020 at 7:30 p.m.. “Romeo & Juliet” tickets are $55 - $85 , and are available by calling the box office at 312-334-7777 or through www.harristheaterchicago.org. “Swan Lake” tickets are $38 - $68 and are available by calling 847-673-6300 or by visiting www.northshorecenter.org.

“Romeo & Juliet” is a ballet performed in two acts, set to the music of composer Sergei Prokofiev, choreographed by Michael Lavrovsky, directed by Elena Baranovskaya and produced by Garri Sevoian. The fullscale production is based on the WIlliam Shakespeare’s tragedy of the two doomed young lovers. The principal dancers are Olena Dobrianska as “Juliet” and Sergii Dotsenko as “Romeo.”

“Swan Lake” is a ballet performed in four acts, with one intermission, also set to the music of composer Prokofiev. The script is based on the scenario by Vladimir Begichev and Vasiliy Geltser, directed by Elena Baranovskaya, and choreographed by Marius Petipa, Alexander Gorsky, Lev Ivanov, Konstantin Sergeyev and Yuri Grigorovich. The story follows a young prince as he tries to free the beautiful swan maiden from an evil spell.

ABOUT NATIONAL BALLET THEATRE OF ODESSA, UKRAINE

The year 1923 was a milestone in the history of the Odessa City Theater when its Ballet Company staged an in-house production of “Swan Lake”for the very first time.The press called it "the first attempt to create a real ballet performance in the history of the City Theater.” The ballet was staged by the ballet master Robert Balanotti. “Swan Lake” was followed by “The Little Humpbacked Horse,” “Coppelia”and “Le Corsaire.” In 1926, Kasyan Goleizovsky came to Odessa. His groundbreaking approach to choreography had an immense effect on the future of the Odessa ballet troupe. His ballets “Joseph the Beautiful” and “In the Sunlight”, but foremost the breathtaking “Polovetsian Dances” from the A. Borodin opera Prince Igor, which attained international fame, immediately won the hearts and minds of the Odessa audience. By the end of the 20s and into the 30s, the repertoire of the Theater grew rapidly and had new ballet productions to show for it: “La Carmagnole” by the Odessa composer Femilidi, as well as classical ballets “Don Quixote” and “Giselle.”

ABOUT NADEZHDA BABICH, Director of the Nation Ballet Theatre of Odessa

Nadezhda Babich graduated from the Kyiv State Institute of Culture in 1980, having obtained a qualification of a librarian-bibliographer. Nadezhda Babich has served as director to the National Ballet Theatre of Odessa since 2010, after serving as deputy headand then head of the Department of Culture and Tourism at the Odessa Regional Administration. Babich has served as artistic director in many successful opera and ballet productions, including Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” “The Mystery of the Vienna Woods" to the music of J. Strauss and G.Mahler and on a grand scale, she  placed in two International Arts Festivals in Odessa: Opera 2012 and Opera 2013