MuzArts, production

Yuri Baranov, general producer
Ekaterina Matlashenko, executive producer
Irina Zibrova, supervising director
Timofey Ovsenni, head of international projects
Sergei Shevchenko, touring production manager, lighting designer
Anna Mogilevets, ballet master
Lyudmila Semenyaka, ballet master répétiteur

Programme:
Come un Respiro (Like a Breath)
Georg Friedrich Händel, music
Mauro Bigonzetti, choreographer
Roberto Zamorano, assistant choreographer
Helena de Medeiros, costume designer
Carlo Cerri, lighting designer
Cast: Svetlana Zakharova, Denis Savin, Artemy Belyakov, Mikhail Lobukhin, Anna Turazashvili, Elizaveta Kokoreva, Victoria Litvinova, Anna Grigorieva, Oxana Sharova, Anita Pudikova, Anna Zakaraya, Karim Abdullin, Kamil Yangurazov, Alexei Gaynutdinov, Anton Gaynutdinov, Ildar Gaynutdinov
***
Gabrielle Chanel
Ilya Demutsky, music
Alexei Frandetti, librettist and director
Yuri Possokhov, choreographer
House of Chanel (made by Virginie Viard), costume design
Maria Tregubova, set designer
Ilya Starilov, video designer
Ivan Vinogradov, lighting designer
Cast:
Gabrielle Chanel: Svetlana Zakharova
Chanel’s Sister / Aunt: Anna Turazashvili
Étienne Balsan: Mikhail Lobukhin
Arthur Capel: Artemy Belyakov
Perfumer: Denis Savin
Serge Lifar / Apollo / Golfer: Ildar Gaynutdinov

Internationally acclaimed prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova is famous for thrilling audiences and critics all over the world with her formidable technique and her sparkling dramatic interpretation of classical and contemporary roles. The winner of the second prize at the 1995 Vaganova-Prix international ballet competition in St Petersburg, at which she was the youngest contestant, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet in 2003. Zakharova returns to the Ljubljana Festival after an interval of five years, this time with the brand-new double bill Modanse,  produced by the rapidly growing production company MuzArts. She will be joined on stage by a cast of outstanding dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet, including Ildar Gaynutdinov, a star of contemporary dance. The performance will open with the ballet Come un respiro,  created for Zakharova by choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti and set to a series of piano compositions by Georg Friedrich Händel. Baroque elements are also present in the costumes, designed by Helena de Medeiros, and in the choreography itself. After the interval comes a dazzling homage to the legendary fashion designer Gabrielle (“Coco”) Chanel, the result of a collaboration between choreographer Yuri Possokhov, composer Ilya Demutsky and librettist and director Alexei Frandetti, featuring more than 80 costumes from Chanel’s fashion studio.

• Zakharova is a two-time winner of the Prix Benois de la Danse – in 2005 for Hyppolita/Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream  and in 2015 for Marguerite Gautier in The Lady of the Camellias  and Mekhmene-Banu in Légende d’amour
• after winning second prize at the Vaganova-PRIX international ballet competition in St Petersburg at the age of 15, she was accepted at the prestigious Vaganova Academy in St Petersburg, where she skipped the second year and enrolled directly in the final year, the first student to do so in the entire history of the academy
• Coco Chanel regularly collaborated with the most important artists and choreographers of the day, including Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes
• she also designed the costumes for the Ballets Russes productions Le train bleu  (1924) and Apollo  (1929)
• the one-act ballet Come un respiro  was created in 2009; today’s production, an arrangement of the original choreography, was first staged in 2017 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and performed by Svetlana Zahkarova and Roberto Bolle