Avant Christmas: Kirov Ballet featured in documentary filmed in St. Petersburg

The Detroit Film Theatre concludes its fall season in high-end style (we expect nothing less) with a series of films featuring world opera in cinema. A slightly and delightfully different presentation over two Sunday nights features the Kirov Ballet’s unique 2007 production of Tchaikovsky’s beloved The Nutcracker. The production was filmed at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, home of the Kirov Ballet Academy and The Nutcracker’s original stage when it debuted in 1892.

Mikhail Shemiakin, Russian émigré and world-renowned avant-garde artist and sculptor, has reinterpreted the historical ballet to capture and surprise a contemporary audience. Sophisticated and witty, Shemiakin’s original and wondrously unconventional interpretation differs in many ways from the traditional versions popular at Christmas, but is no less enchanting. In 2007, an exhibition of Shemiakin’s eye-popping costume and design sketches used in the staging of this production was presented in the private collections of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Conducted by Valery Gergiev. The film is 90 minutes in length.

Sunday, Dec. 27 at 2 p.m.; and Sunday, Jan. 3 at 2 p.m. The Detroit Film Theatre is in the Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Avenue, in Midtown Detroit’s Cultural Center. The DFT is accessed through the John R entrance.