Joffrey Ballet's Alberto Velazquez and Victoria Jaiani. Photography Cheryl Mann
Passion to move you
The story of Anna, whose life-destroying desire for the handsome and faithless Vronsky is palpable through a series of rapturous pas de deux.
5 Reasons you need to see Anna Karenina
Passion, scandal, not one but two love triangles, ecstasy, grief, hallucinations, tragedy: Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a rich subject for ballet, and Yuri Possokhov's new production does justice to the grand ambition of the novel. Here are five reasons why this is the must-see production of 2022.
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Published on
28 Jan 2022
Joffrey Ballet's Yoshihisa Arai and Nicole Ciapponi. Photography Cheryl Mann
Glamour and Grandeur
The costumes by veteran theatre designer Tom Pye capture the elegance of Imperial Russian society with luxurious fabrics and jewel tones.
Joffrey Ballet's Yoshihisa Arai. Photography Cheryl Mann
A ballet like a movie
Chicago's PBS station, WWTW, called Possokhov's Anna Karenina "A magnificent classical ballet in the guise of a great work of modern cinema." Pye's opulent yet minimal sets and projections by Finn Ross (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) - which include footage of the dancers taken backstage in real time - conjure ballrooms, bedrooms, a race track and that fateful train station, lending a filmic scale and atmosphere to this immersive piece of theatre.
Joffrey Ballet's Alberto Velazquez and Victoria Jaiani. Photography Cheryl Mann
The role of a lifetime
A very human heroine, Anna holds our sympathy even as she flounders into disaster. She adores, she suffers, she is torn between her life and the love of her life - no wonder actors from Greta Garbo to Vivien Leigh to Keira Knightly have been attracted to the role. We can't wait to see our brilliant dancers embody Anna.
Joffrey Ballet's Victoria Jaiani, Fabrice Calmels and artists of Joffrey Ballet. Photography Cheryl Mann
The Music
Teaming up with the Joffrey Ballet to co-produce Anna Karenina meant that the ballet could have specially commissioned music by multi-award-winning composer Ilya Demutsky. Inspired by Tolstoy, Demutsky has created a sweeping, textured score with all the scale and grandeur of his countrymen Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. A mezzo soprano will appear at key moments to amplify Anna's emotion through song.
