Boris Asafyev's ballet Flames of Paris will be broadcast live from the Bolshoi Theatre on March 4, 2018 at 4 p.m at the Praha Cinema in Warsaw.
Flames of Paris is a full-length ballet in four acts, choreographed by Vasily Vainonen to music by Boris Asafyev based on songs of the French Revolution. The libretto by Nicolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev was adapted from a book by Felix Gras. It was premiered at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad on 7 November 1932. The Bolshoi Ballet premiered the full work on 6 July 1933 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The original production and choreography was reconstructed in 2008 by Alexei Ratmansky.
The Flames of Paris is a so-called "revolutionary" ballet which takes as its subject the French Revolution, including in its scenario the storming of the Tuileries Palace by the Marceliers and their victorious march on Paris. The plot is taken from the book of Felix Gras Les Marceliers. Although its setting is eighteenth-century France, it is a perfect illustration of Soviet ballet in the 1920s and 1930s, during which time there was a determined effort to find subjects in world history which reflected the more immediate situation in the Soviet Union, and to show that the October Revolution was part of more universal movements and historical events.
Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.
More information at: http://www.kinopraha.pl