#vainonen

You shared that Bulanova will debut as Queen of Snowflakes in nutcracker on the 23rd. However, from the videos I’ve seen, it doesn’t appear that there is a Queen/soloist in the Mariinsky snow scene. Can you shed some light on this?

I’ve been confused by conflicting versions of Mariinsky’s Nutcracker snow scene. It appears they used to perform the Simonov version (as recently as 2007), and now do Vainonen choreography. My, how different the 2 are! The Simonov snow scene is uniquely dark and menacing, and is more like contemporary ballet. Some love it and some have called it an abomination. On the other hand, I think the current snow is pretty bland, especially compared with the rest of the ballet. What are your thoughts?

Posting these two questions to gather as one kind of answers the other.

Basically, the Mariinsky has two different productions of “The Nutcracker”: the classical Vainonen version and a more modern adaptation by Mikhail Chemiakin.

I’m not gonna lie, I’ve only seen snippets of the latter and I prefer the original choreography, but I also very much like the idea of two productions co-existing in the repertoire. When a theatre is dedicated to both historical preservation and diversity, the audiences win big time.

Here’s a comparison of the “Snowstorm” in Chemiakin and Vainonen productions. The thing is, I strongly believe that this is the kind of thing you really need to see live to fully appreciate it.