Jimin Oh-Havenith's fourth album for audite is dedicated to works by Mussorgsky, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, three of the most famous Russian composers of the 19th and (early) 20th centuries. Planned long before Putin's Ukraine war, the release is now a beacon for the often damaged freedom of art.

A breath of fresh air is blowing over the Ural Opera Ballet with this new version of Paquita, halfway between tradition and modernity! A festive ballet recounting the thwarted loves of a gypsy and an officer, Paquita marked the debut of Marius Petipa in Saint Petersburg. But only the last scene of the ballet, the famous Grand pas Classique, remained in the companies’ repertoire. Thanks to a careful reconstruction, the Ural Opera Ballet finally revives the original version in three acts. The product of methodical research by expert Sergei Vikharev and former Principal Vyacheslav Samodurov, the choreography scrupulously recreates Petipa’s 1881 version, according to notes kept at the Harvard Theater Collection. The original score has been rearranged by the famous Saint Petersburg composer, Yuri Krasavin. But if this new production uses the original libretto of the ballet, it nonetheless transposes it in time. The result is a show of great relevance, which brings up to date the strong political and social substrate of the original plot by illustrating it with artistic references gleaned throughout the 20th century. A powerful theatrical experience, crowned with the jury’s special award of the ‘‘Golden Mask’’ in 2019.