The ballet about the poorly guarded daughter has remained a firm favourite with theatres for more than two centuries: La Fille mal gardée (The Wayward Daughter) was staged in Bordeaux for the first time only days before the storming of the Bastille. Choreography and music changed several times since that time but the ballet preserved the synopsis and that joyous and slightly provocative spirit of a rural comedy – a rare and always desired guest on a ballet stage.
The project of Marius Petipa’s ballets reconstruction launched by the Mariinsky Theatre reached a whole new level with the Ural Ballet’s La Fille mal gardée. The ballet master Sergey Vikharev restored the St. Petersburg version of the ballet choreography of 1885. However with Pavel Gershenzon – the project curator – they have undertaken an unexpected move by adding the “The Dance Studio” episode from an old ballet by August Bournonville La Conservatoire as a prologue and making the La Fille mal gardée ballet itself look as if in 1885 The Directorate of Imperial Theatres had ordered the design and decorations from Vincent Van Gogh.
