JWM - Volume 2, Issue 1 - (Page 50)

A Victory Dance 0 Best Bids arts Welcome Back, Bolshoi The world’s oldest ballet and opera company re-opens after six years and $750m of renovations. Was it worth the wait? By H e i d i m i t c H e l l THE THIRD ACT The renovation of the Bolshoi Theater only took twice as long as the one back in 1853, when the theater suffered from the second of two fires (and then a 1941 firebombing, during World War II). J WM MAGAZINE 50 j w m a r r i o t t. c o m © 2011 Damir Yusupov/Bolshoi TheaTer orget the scandals swirling around the world’s biggest ballet company. Forget that the renovation of the early-19th-century building has gone over by three years and unknown multiples of its budget. Forget it, because when you walk into the glimmering, echoing cultural center, you might actually believe it was all worth it. These hallowed halls, after all, showcase precisely what three-quarters of a billion dollars in restoration capital can buy. When the Bolshoi Theater re-opened on october 28—with every head of state still vying for a seat at prime minister vladimir putin’s table in attendance—the Bolshoi F surpassed any ballet or opera in beauty and expense since it debuted under prince peter urusov in 1776. “The main stage is like a home not only for the Bolshoi company but, in a sense, for all russian people,” says anatoly iksanov, director general of the Bolshoi Ballet & opera. To commemorate the rebirth, iksanov chose the michail Glinka opera “ruslan and lyudmila,” first performed in 1842. “We thought it only natural to start our new life with this masterpiece, widely considered to be the first russian opera.” if this debut didn’t put moscow—notorious these days for egregious displays of wealth—back in the cultural spotlight, nothing will. russian president Dmitri medvedev himself is betting on it. When construction faltered and funds went missing in 2009, the president took on a supervising role. Failed acoustics were fixed, the cracks in the walls resurfaced and the romanov coat of arms reinstated (in place of the ubiquitous, and now derided, soviet hammer and sickle). on october 28, the world’s power brokers filed into the red silk-lined imperator hall, steps from the spot where Nicholas ii was coronated. The tsar’s box was filled with medvedev and his mentors, and as the original 1805 curtain lifted, the new gilded era of the russian arts began. or so the country hopes. @ http://www.JWMARRIOTT.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JWM - Volume 2, Issue 1

JWM - Volume 2, Issue 1
Contents
Contributors
Editor's Letter
JW Experts
Distinctive Products, People, Ideas & Style
The Pop-Up Chef
Spa-nthropology
Welcome Back, Bolshoi
The Portal
Behind the Scenes
From Pour to Pair
Space, Redefined
Greatest Show on Earth
JW Experience
My Passion

JWM - Volume 2, Issue 1