Choreographer Alexey Miroshnichenko, scenographer Andrey Voytenko and costume designer Tatiana Noginova presented a visual concept of a ballet night The Shostakovich Project which will be premiered on May 21, 2015 — the opening day of The International Diaghilev Festival. 

The Shostakovich Project consists of two one-act productions — an opera-ballet Orango and a ballet Hypothetically Murdered to the music of the greatest Russian composer who lived and worked during The Soviet period. As Alexey Miroshnichenko says, they will be some kind of «sketches about The Soviet past» with recognizable elements in the way of life and typical characters of those times. It is expected that A Man With A Brief Case, A Man In A Leather Raincoat, Student Girls In White Socks, An Ice-Cream Vender, A Man In A Gas-mask With A Dog and other characters will appear on a stage. The entire ballet company will take part in the production, plus more than 30 students of Choreography College will perform «retro-waltz». «Logically we follow the way of The Jester» [a ballet to music by Sergey Prokofiev in Perm ballet repertoire], — Alexey Miroshnichenko says meaning that with the help of neoclassical choreography and artistic compliances directors of The Shostakovich Project are trying to recreate the general style of the epoch.

In this case they have selected the works by Aleksandra Ekster, one of the first constructivists, as their visual and form patterns. It’s hard to imagine the full picture of Russian avant-garde in the first half of the twentieth century without her. Leaning on methods of Mrs. Ekster, scenographer Andrey Voitenko created a constructivist illusion of a stage space like it is used fully though he used only flat art methods.

Designer Tatiana Noginova also appealed to the documents of the epoch. «As long as Orango is the example of the farcical play, we work with the futuristic and art deco methods, collage costumes of different textures and colors. What is important here is a quick effect on the audience, —  she comments. — Hypothetically Murdered is pretty close to an everyday sketch which is disposed to the thorough examination of the life. Therefore we include cinematographic method: we reconstruct the epoch via details and clothing: costumes are tailored  with the use of templates and materials of those times. Costumes are monochrome, so it will help to mark out costumes  from the colorful stage with all its colors, dimensions and perspective».

These both Shostakovich’s compositions are virtu. For many years considered lost, the prologue to Orango was discovered in 2004 in the archives of the Glinka Museum. Shostakovich started to work at the score in 1932, when the entire world of science and art was keen on creation of the new experimental half-human-half-animal (Orango - orangutang).

Hypothetically Murdered was staged in Russia in 1931 at the Leningrad Music Hall with the participation of Leonid Utesov and Klavdia Shulzhenko and was first performed outside Russia in 2013 in Lucerne under the name of Der Fall YY.

Alexey Miroshnichenko, Tatiana Noginova and Andrey Voitenko worked together before when Miroshnichenko was in Mariinsky Theatre. In Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre Tatiana Noginova created costumes for ballets Hungarian Dances by Brahms, Daphnis et Chloé by Ravel, Variations on a Rococo Theme by Tchaikovsky, The Bluebird and Princess Florine by Adam. Andrey Voitenko worked at The Fountain of Bakhchisarai  by Asafief, Rubies by Stravinsky and Balanchine.