While the New Year holidays come to an end, the world’s best productions do not. This January TheatreHD prepared Belarusian viewers for meetings with Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Anna Netrebko and other world’s stage stars. The big screens of Centralny, Falcon Club Cinema Boutique, Silver Screen Velcom Cinema and Grodno’s Krasnaya Zvezda will show 14 productions of different genres that will touch everybody’s feelings.
The documentary biopic Nureyev opens the TheatreHD affiche in Centralny cinema. The film about phenomenal dancer with “incredible animal grace” will be shown on January 6. The life story of the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev who went beyond the fame of the ballet world and became a real pop idol of his generation is the focus of a bright and touching film from the BAFTA Awards nominees. The film traces his life period from the hard humiliating start and well-known escape to the West, which once shook the world, to long-term outstanding partnership with the Royal Ballet Prima Margot Fonteyn.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller switch roles once again on January 8. The classic story of Dr. Frankenstein became a Danny Boyle’s theatre triumph. With a help of playwright Nick Dear as the author of the Frankenstein’s adaptation, Boyle came up with a brilliant idea – alternating Cumberbatch and Lee Miller in the leading roles of the doctor and his creation. Boyle creates a unique stereo effect of scenic truth, canceling its uniqueness and restoring the natural diversity of points of view on the events and life itself. The suspenseful production of Frankenstein from the director of Trainspotting and The Beach awaits you in the Centralny cinema at 19:30.
The Bolshoi Theatre of Russia invites to watch The Nutcracker, a legendary ballet based on the famous Hoffmann story. The winter fairytale comes to life with the first bars of music and with the first snowflake flying over the stage. Girls in gala dresses, boys with sabers, wonderful toys of Drosselmeyer and finally the Christmas tree grows to the most beautiful music turning cynical adults into the children waiting for miracle. Exciting story of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King put into life by Yuri Grigorovich and Gennady Rozhdestvensky will be shown twice: in Falcon Club Cinema Boutique on January 9 and Krasnaya Zveda of Grodno on January 16.
In January two theatrical performances are available on live streaming. On Saturday, January 12 – Adriana Lecouvreur is in the co-production of the world theaters: Royal Opera House (London), Liceu Opera (Barcelona), Vienna State Opera, San-Francisco Opera and Paris National Opera. Anna Netrebko is playing the role of a great actress from the XVIII century who is in love with the hero-warrior Maurice, Count of Saxony, in one of the less bloody Francesco Cilea’s operas. The story of the Comédie-Française theater actress, among whose friends and lovers was Voltaire, will be shown in Centralny cinema. In the same place, but on January 20 you can see La Bayadere. Marius Petipa’s ballet is a love drama, which contains deathful rivalry, betrayal and perjury. The classical love triangle in a new Yury Grigorovich’s editing is becoming not only the cause for lethal passion, but also a reason for wondrous beauty of dancing.
Any new play of a British drama luminary Alan Bennett is always a great event. In January TheatreHD suggests to watch (or rewatch!) his Allelujah!. The plot develops in a geriatric ward of a Yorkshire hospital with a charactonym “Bethlehem”, which is going to be closed by an excessively active manager Colin. The Independent magazine reports, that the performance “somehow leaves you bobbing on a wave of happiness”, and The Guardian calls the production based on the Bennett’s play “sharp, funny and subversively political”. Creative cooperation of Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner is an ideal example of how a playwright has found his director once and for all. Their partnership lasts more than quarter of the century: Hytner became a director of all the following Bennett’s plays starting from a legendary The Madness of King George. On January 15 in Centralny cinema you can come and see the result of their creative tandem in Allelujah!.
On January 16 Falcon Club Boutique Cinema will show Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida production by Sonja Frisell. The love story unfolding on the background of war between Egypt and Ethiopia wonderfully combines enthusiastic pathos and affectionate sentimentality. Commissioned to Verdi by Khedive of Egypt, Aida was dedicated to the opening of the Suez Canal.The title role is performed by brilliant soprano Anna Netrebko. The part of noble Radames will be performed by Aleksandr Antonenko and Anita Rachvelishvili will perform as majestic and passionate Amneris.
On the January 22 two more productions await you at TheatreHD. On that day in the Centralny cinema Antony and Cleopatra production by Simon Godwin. Adept of true Performance who likes to work with eminent actors, he is often called a Spielberg of theatre for his masterful production. His new play became a benefit performance for two British superstars: Raplh Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo. Drama production of William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice will be shown the same evening at the Silver Screen Velcom Cinema. In the Jonathan Munby’s production Jonathan Pryce with his powerful gift of acting re-endows the complex character of Shylock with depth and duality. Duality is the key to Pryce’s performance: his Shylock combines the nature of both victim and petty domestic tyrant.
Another Globe theatre production could be seen at Silver Screen Velcom Cinema on January 14. The Winter’s Tale is the immortal Shakespeare’s tragicomedy about obsession and redemption. The first three acts behave like a convoluted drama with grotesque friendship, unreasonable jealousy, poisoning attempts, deaths and the Delphic Oracle, while the last two look like a touching pastoral full of late reconciliations, interclass marriages and animated statues. The production is starring Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh in the leading roles.
In January TheatreHD will present new art lecture series. Salvador Dali: In Search of Immortality is a journey into the life of the famous artist, his art and the love story of him and his muse, Gala. It begins in 1929, when Dali joins the surrealists movement and finishes with his death in 1989. The documentary about one of the key figures of the XX century cultural world will be shown on the 23 of January at the Falcon Club Boutique Cinema.
Troilus and Cressida, a tragedy about lovers separated by war, will be on screen of the Centralny cinema. This overlooked Shakespeare’s play could have been called Romeo and Juliet in decorations of the Trojan War, if not for the astonishing for the playwright’s epoch simultaneously tragical and comical nature of Achilles’, Ulysses’, Agamemnon’s and Ajax’s images. It is the legendary Trojans and Greeks and their human and often funny flaws and weaknesses that interest Gregory Doran – the director of this new production, who places this ancient narrative in the grim scenery of post-apocalyptic anti-utopia and adds trademark Shakespearean humor on top of all. You can see this production on January 29.
The month will end with magnificent production of the tragedy of King Lear and his daughters. This play created for the National Theatre Live is the last big Shakespearean role and benefit of Ian McKellen. This isn’t he first Lear for McKellen (he played the furious and eccentric monarch in the Royal Shakespeare Company play of 2007), but surely is the most touching and moving. Critics also admire the rapacious eroticism of Kirsty Bushell’s Regan, who adds fresh sharpness into the cocktail of characters’ motivations. King Lear is at the Centralny cinema on January 30.