Maria Khoreva - ballet Paquita - Interview (Choreography Yuri Smekalov) [Ludwig Minkus]

I think she is very clever, freedom-loving, confident and cheerful

the ballet "Paquita" was for me the first big ballet I prepared this season

At first, I must say I thought it would be difficult for me to deal with it

from the acting point of view, because my heroine is a gypsy, she is free,

cheerful, playful and very lively. As soon as I began to get acquainted with the novel itself

and in general with the choreographic text of the ballet, I realized that

I like the character so much - the girl herself! I like Paquita so much

in the original - Presiosa, I like Cervantes' novel "Gypsy",

I like the choreography - it was such a pleasure for me to work on this role

choreographer Yuri Smekalov and my coaches created such an atmosphere of happiness that

the work was really nice and I had great fun.

It was in October, when I danced this role for the first time, but now it's probably

even more interesting to dive once more into this role. To search for things

which Paquita and I have in common,

what I would like to say to the audience, maybe to share some story

Indeed, I consider this ballet to be one of the best and certainly one of

my most beloved ones to dance on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater and its brilliance and joy

which is trickling out of it, it is very, very valuable and very appealing to us, the artists,

and I think the viewers too. It seems to me that when I first saw the ballet "Paquita" live,

This was exactly this production a few years ago, the premiere

at the Mariinsky Theater. If I'm not mistaken, it must have been the dress rehearsal

We were invited to see it as students of Vaganova Ballet Academy.

and I remember how I was immediately

struck and got very interested. As far as I know, most parts of Paquita (this

was a 3-act ballet, didn't survive through the time

the original version has not been preserved, only Marius Petipa's

grandpa from the third act has survived. I think that I watched a lot of videos on the Internet because

that this is one of the main classical ballets and such a milestone in

the history of ballet and Petipa's choreography Petipa is certainly very beautiful. When I

was told that I would perform this role, I did not believe it at first

I thought it could not be true, that it was too much happiness... There're a lot of

dances, a lot of pantomime, a lot of acting moments in this role and so much

interaction with other dancers... I was just very pleased to dance

in the moment and it is hard to describe the feeling when you can act out thу story

, when you can find yourself in the skin of your character

and become Paquita for three hours while the performance is going on...

and it's very nice