From Sleeping Beaty

The world renowned St Petersburg ballet troupe is coming to Benidorm this weekend to perform two of the most famous classical masterpieces :
Swan Lake and
The Sleeping Beauty on the stage of Benidorm Palace.
They have been invited by the Department of Culture at Benidorm Town Hall. As the Casa de Cultura on the Avd Europa has not been completed they are using the facilities at Benidorm Palace, which has one of the largest stages in Europe.

Sundays Swan Lake at Benidorm Palace

I spoke with Vladimir, one of the press team, who told me that is is the 35 strong dance troupes 4th visit to Spain. They have successfully conducted more than 50 worldwide tours including much of Europe, Japan and America. After finishing on Monday night in Benidorm they are heading down to perform at Santa Polo in Alicante then south to Marbella and Cadiz before flying back to St Petersburg.

With soloist Natalia

I met one of the principal ballerinas, Natalia Potekhina during rehersals on Sunday afternoon. She told me that she enrolled at the ballet academy at the age of 8 and remained there till she was 18. She then started performing and it took 3 years before she was considered for principal positions as a soloist. The climate here makes it easier to work unlike the cold winters in Russia she said. She then asked me where she would be able to get some kaki fruit as she loves having discovered them in Spain  but they are very rarely available in Russia... I´ll see if I can find her some!

The famous St Petersburg troupe was founded in 1991 following the breakup of the then Soviet Union.The troupe are all graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy, the oldest ballet school in the world which was founded in 1738. The main mission of the ballet is to conserve the authentic choreography of the Kirov theatre.

Swan Lake

The dance troupe is so large that they have two groups performing simultaneously - one touring and one based in its home city of St Petersburg. They perform at one of three different venues: Imperial Hermitage Theatre, Aurora Palace and The Palace Theatre. The dancers can all be interchanged between troupes.

The soloists for the two performances here at Benidorm Palace are Natalia Potekhina, Natalia Rezakova and Yuri Mirov.
On Sunday 19th August they are performing Swan Lake and on Monday 20th August it is The Sleeping Beauty. Both performances are a late start at 22.00 (10pm - so get a siesta in during the afternoon).

Swan Lake

There are 3 ticket prices - 25€, 30€ & 35€ which for such a prestigious company is actually really cheap - in London you would pay double if not triple that. Doors open at 20.00 to enable you to relax, have a gossip and drink prior to the start of the performance.

To book tickets either call the Benidorm Palace box office on 965 851 660 or pop along any day after 10am - you will be able to see a plan of the floor and chose your seats if you do it in person.

They will continue touring and in October head to Argentina and Brasil and if you miss them this time they will be returning to Spain again from 3rd to 29th November .. performing The Nutcracker in Valencia on 3rd November. After that they will head to Holland during the month of December.