Yolanda Correa and Joel Carreno in Onegin

Yolanda Correa and Joel Carreno in Onegin, music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, choreography by John Cranko. Benois de la Danse 2015 laureates Gala concert. Shot on 26th of May 2015 in The Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.

 

Yolanda Correa is a Soloist with Norwegian National Ballet. Yolanda was born in Holgin in Cuba. She studied at the Art Vocacional School of Holgin and National School of Ballet in Havana, and won the Contest Meetings of Ballet Academies in 1999. Before she joined the Norwegian National Ballet in autumn 2010, Yolanda was a soloist with Cuba’s National Ballet with which she has toured the world. With the Norwegian National Ballet she has danced a number of principal parts.

Yoël Carreño is dancer with Norwegian National Ballet. He was born in Havana, Cuba. He studied at the Elemental Ballet School and National School of Ballet i Havana. As a student, on several occasions between 1996 and 1998 he achieved good results in the International Contest Meetings of Ballet Academies. Yoël Carreño was a soloist with Cuba’s National Ballet before he joined the Norwegian National Ballet in autumn 2010 He has also appeared as a guest performer with a number of companies.

John Cyril Cranko (1927 – 1973) was a choreographer with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (which later became the Royal Ballet) and the Stuttgart Ballet. Cranko was born in South Africa and received his early ballet training in Cape Town under the leading South African ballet teacher and director, Dulcie Howes, of the University of Cape Town Ballet School. He then moved to London, studying with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in 1946 and dancing his first role with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1947. In 1960, Cranko directed the first production of Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Prosecuted for homosexual activity, Cranko left the UK and in 1961 was appointed director of the Stuttgart Ballett. Among his following choreographies were Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare in 1962, set to music by Prokofiev, Onegin in 1965, an adaptation of the verse novel Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, set to music by Tchaikovsky, The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare in 1969, Brouillards in 1970, Carmen in 1971 (music by Wolfgang Fortner and Wilfried Steinbrenner) and Spuren (Traces) in 1973. Cranko’s work was a major contribution to the international success of German ballet beginning with a guest performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1969. At Stuttgart, Cranko invited Kenneth MacMillan to work with the company, for whom MacMillan created four ballets in Cranko’s lifetime and a fifth, Requiem, as a tribute after Cranko’s death. At Cranko’s instigation the company established its own ballet school in 1971; it was renamed the John Cranko Schule in his honour in 1974. His assistant and choreologist Georgette Tsinguirides preserved his works in Benesh Movement Notation. Cranko choked to death after suffering an allergic reaction to a sleeping pill he took during a transatlantic flight to Dublin returning from a successful tour in the United States. /shortened from Wikipedia/

Onegin was choreographed by John Cranko in 1965, an adaptation of the verse novel Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, set to music by Tchaikovsky (mainly The Seasons), orchestrated by Kurt-Heinz Stolze.

Photos by Jack Devant Ballet Photography with kind permission of the Benois de la Danse and Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, special thanks to Nina Kudriavtseva-Loory, Regina Nikiforova and Denis Savchenko.