The director, Dmitry Belyanushkin, will tell us how this fairy tale took on real features.

Our project united three completely different composers, and also different eras, styles, different fairy tales. Since Andersen isn’t really compatible with Pushkin’s fairy tales or the popular world of The Fables of the Vixen, we needed to find a link between all the works, a certain common basis. This is how the setting was born — the fair. This is a world where everything is possible. This is an element that unites the most diverse genres and theatres. There is a puppet theatre next to the tent where they sell pancakes. A few meters away, someone is singing, people are dancing very close by, while elsewhere, a chained bear is wandering around…

All these works are built into a kind of story about the artist and the time in which they live. Prokofiev’s The Ugly Duckling is a story of a personality development. Stravinsky’s Fable is a dialogue between an artist and temptation. And The Tale of the Priest and His Workman Balda is a story about an artist in its purest form. Alexander Pravednikov even specially composed episodes that are not in Pushkin, for example, the conversation between the artist Balda and the sea. This is a story about the confrontation between creativity and a rigid view of the world.

The play will feature an important leading theme — a fox tail. This image runs through all the stories, each of them features sly, cunning eyes, each one is somehow connected with bragging, insincerity and the desire to derive advantage. This is another adult side of our play. Fairy tales are generally a multi-layered genre, everyone will find meaning in them – both adults and children.

A significant role is played by the character artists, who will appear as fairground buffoons. They are dramatic actors, dancers, puppeteers, and even prop masters and stage technicians. Before the audience’s eyes, they will prepare the street theatre for the performance. The choir is also entrusted with a far from secondary role. It acts as a narrator of events (for example, in The Tale of the Priest and His Workman Balda).

The soloists of the Chamber Stage, who play the leading roles, also act as narrators. Of course, they take part in the action, but not as actively as the extras. The singers provide the effective intonation, and the extras — its plastic expression.

The ballet component of the performance also combines different genres: contemporary, hip-hop, breakdance, classical ballet and plastique theatre. Everything depends on the situation in which the characters find themselves. For instance, at the beginning of the performance, the Ugly Duckling’s movements are broken and angular. However, after his transformation into a swan, the real classical ballet begins — with its beautiful plasticity of arms and a completely different presentation of the body.

Actors and puppets perform side by side. There is no specially conceived opposition of “living versus non-living” here — that would be too simple. For example, the roles of the Ugly Duckling and Balda are played by actors, and the characters of the poultry yard and the priest with his wife are puppets. We specially made such puppets so that the puppeteer would also be visible to the audience. After all, the actor who controls the puppet, plays out its reactions and feelings together with it. We see their attitude towards it and other characters. In addition (and any puppeteer will confirm this), each puppet is animated by the person who works with it.

A curious space has been devised that gives the feeling of a spontaneous theatre. Literally before the eyes of the viewer, they are making the finishing touches, repairing something and bringing in remaining props. Our costumes and scenery are not at all up to scratch: on the contrary, there is a feeling that the theatre is being created from scrap materials, and the puppets have not left the stage for several decades. Our theatre is simple, in the good sense of the word, the same as it could have been a hundred or two hundred years ago.

But let’s not forget the most important thing — this performance is musical. It contains wonderful music, conveyed to the listeners by our orchestra under the direction of Alexey Vereshchagin. We have also planned one significant musical innovation: Prokofiev’s The Ugly Duckling will be performed in an orchestral version — as opposed to the piano accompaniment that was at the premiere.

This performance is aimed at the most grateful and responsive audience — children. However, parents should not be disregarded: they will have a wonderful opportunity to plunge into the world of childhood, fairs, celebrations, and to get a charge of positive emotions, which are often so needed. Isn’t it nice to sometimes forget about the importance of being serious, and to become a child at least for an hour and a half? And, perhaps, even become a little younger at heart.

The premiere series will take place on the 17th, 18th, 19th (14:00 and 18:00) and 20th (14:00) of October on the Chamber Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.