| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 16, 2001 |
Chinese Leaders Watch Russian Bolshoi Ballet |
 More than 140 dancers from the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet (MBB), headed by world-renowned choreographer Yuri Nikolayevich Grigorovich, presented Tchaikovsky's masterpiece "Swan Lake" Thursday evening in Beijing. Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Vice-Premier Li Lanqing, along with an audience of more than 2,000 Beijingers, watched Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.
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Jiang meets Russian artists
Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Vice-Premier Li Lanqing, along with an audience of more than 2,000 Beijingers, watched Tchaikovsky 's masterpiece "Swan Lake" staged by the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet (MBB) Thursday evening. Jiang's welcome Before the performance, Jiang met with the Russian dancers.
Extending his welcome, Jiang said that the MBB enjoys fame not only in Russia, but also in China and the world at large.
He noted that Sino-Russian cultural exchanges have a long history, and such exchanges are conducive to enhancing the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. The performance and MBB This evening's performance of "Swan Lake" is a new version of the dance first choreographed by world-renowned choreographer Yuri Grigorovich in 1969 and re-rehearsed in 2000, and has been acclaimed as the best suited to Tchaikovsky's original music.
The performance, warmly welcomed by the audience, was taken as high-quality art entertainment and a manifestation of the Russian people's friendship towards the Chinese people.
The MBB, highest representative of Russian art, boasts a history of 225 years. It visited China in 1959 when China was marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.
The ballet "Swan Lake" premiered in 1877 at the MBB.
Ballet Stages More than 140 dancers from the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet (MBB), headed by world-renowned choreographer Yuri Nikolayevich Grigorovich, presented Tchaikovsky's masterpiece "Swan Lake" Thursday evening in Beijing.
The MBB first performed for a Chinese audience in 1959 during the 10th anniversary celebrations of the People's Republic.
The famed musical score was presented by the Symphony Orchestra of the China Central Ballet, under the baton of Russian conductor Paul Sorokin.
According to the organizer, China Performing Arts Agency, tonight's staging of "Swan Lake" was the version originally choreographed by Grigorovich in 1969 and revised in 2000. The new ballet has been widely acclaimed as best suited to Tchaikovsky's music.
Grigorovich adopted a tragic ending of the story, in which lovers Prince Siegefried and Odette cannot escape a gloomy fate at the hands of the Evil Genius and his daughter Odile.
At its founding in 1776, the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet was ranked among the largest theaters in the world and represented Russia's predominance in the art of dance. The theater premiered Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" in 1877, marking a new era of combining ballet with symphony music.
Grigorovich was named director of the MBB in 1964, and presented 11 ballets for the company, including "The Stone Flower" and "The Nutcracker", which won him international renown.
Russian dancer Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, who taught the first generation of Chinese ballet artists, once said Grigorovich's "Swan Lake" is a "modern-day classical masterpiece."
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