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| | Arts Calendar / October 12 / Ballet |
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 Ballet in three acts to music by Aram Khachaturyan. Libretto by Yuri Grigorovich after the novel of the same name by Raffaello Giovagnolli, ideas from the scenario by Nikolai Volkov used. 185 min (with two intervals). Choreographer: Yuri Grigorovich. Designer: Simon Virsaladze. Music Director: Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. Spartacus was premiered by the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1956, and its revised form was debuted in 1968 by the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. Khachaturian later adapted what would become his most famous ballet as a group of suites for orchestra, and, although the ballet remained a part of the Bolshoi’s repertoire, the suites provide the more familiar version. “I thought of Spartacus,” noted Khachaturian, "as a monumental fresco describing the mighty avalanche of the antique rebellion of slaves on behalf of human rights…. When I composed the score of the ballet and tried to capture the atmosphere of ancient Rome in order to bring to life the images of the remote past, I never ceased to feel the spiritual affinity of Spartacus to our own time."
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