Russia’s Bolshoi, shunned in West, heads to Beijing for first tour since COVID

MOSCOW (Reuters): Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet, grounded by COVID-19 and then shunned in the West since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, returns to international touring next week for the first time since the pandemic with a trip to Beijing.

Its dancers hope this will herald a return to the global stage for the crown jewel of Russian culture, which toured the world even in the most tense days of the Cold War.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that China is one of a few countries that support and continue to cooperate with us,” the ballet’s artistic director, Makhar Vaziev, said in an interview with Reuters in the theatre last week.

“I believe that we will perform again (in the West), and others will come to (Russia) to perform. It’s necessary and priceless,” he told Reuters.

The theatre, founded in 1776 by Empress Catherine the Great, will showcase excerpts of some of its best-known ballet works in two gala performances in Beijing, followed by a three-day staging of the 19th century ballet “Don Quixote”. Some 300 costumes and set designs have been sent ahead to China.

“I’m very pleased that we’ll finally have a guest performance abroad. We’re looking forward to it,” Principal Dancer Elizaveta Kokoreva told Reuters in between rehearsals.

Last February, the day after Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine, London’s Royal Opera House called off the Bolshoi’s planned post-pandemic return for a residency scheduled for that summer. Cancellations in other Western cities followed.

Vladimir Urin, the Bolshoi’s director, said in April that he was saddened by the loss of what had been regular creative cooperation with Western theatre companies and artists. An Italian principal dancer quit the company and left Russia shortly after the Ukraine conflict began.

The theatre this year cancelled two shows by directors who had spoken out against the conflict.

The ballet will travel to the Belarusian capital Minsk in November, and to Oman in January 2024.