Performer: Alexei Repnikov

With Contrasts, the Mariinsky dancers are put under a multifaceted microscope. 

How does one condense a Tolstoy epic for the stage? In Anna Karenina, choreographer Alexei Ratmansky focuses on the three central characters, filleting the novel to its bare essentials. 

The Mariinsky dances Swan Lake beautifully, but the drama lacks characterisation. Performed at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, in Japan.

Nadezhda Batoeva , a younger generation ballerina at the mariinsky, excels as Cinderella, in an otherwise disapointing production, performed here at BAM , New York City.

The Mariinsky Theatre's Swan Lake is both entertaining and refreshing to watch . Reviewed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York.

It was clever programming to bookend the Mariinsky’s three-week London residency with two Prokofiev full-length ballets – starting with its classic, but dated, 1940 Romeo and Juliet, and ending with the contemporary chic of Alexei Ratmansky’s Cinderella.