Svadebka (Les noces)

Choreographic scenes with singing and music to folk texts from the collection of Pyotr Kireevsky

Choreography by Jiří Kylián

First staged in 1982. This version was first performed in Perm in 2012. The 2022 revival

Stravinsky had the idea for a choral cantata to texts of Russian religious hymns in 1912, but did not really start work on the idea until 1914. Les noces, staged by Bronislava Nijinska, a choreographer with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, was a great success when it was first performed at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris in 1923. Stravinsky’s score has inspired subsequent generations of choreographers, but perhaps the most successful interpretation was that of Jiří Kylián, who staged Svadebka (Les noces) at the Nederlands Dans Theater in 1982.

The very news that Kylián, a living legend of contemporary dance, had let the Perm Theatre have his celebrated ballet caused a great sensation among critics and ballet-lovers, as the choreographer had not previously given anyone in Russia permission to perform Svadebka. Three factors determined the issue in favour of the Perm production: the Perm company’s high technical capability, the live performance of the music (at a time when Kylián himself used a recording), and the remarkable story of the origin and development of ballet in Perm, a closed industrial city during the Soviet period.

Performed with permission from Chester Music Limited