Hope’s Insights on Anna Karenina

The North American premiere of Christian Spuck’s Anna Karenina is upon us and not only am I certain it will be hugely successful with our audiences, it will also become a significant addition to our repertoire of full evening works.

Anna Karenina is an ideal first foray into Christian’s theatrical imagination, offering a vivid, cinematic landscape for the complex characters, themes and events in Tolstoy’s novel. Every detail is highly considered, as we follow Anna through her passionate affair with Vronsky and persecution by society, leading to her tragic end.

The severity of Anna’s consequences, compared with Vronsky’s relative freedom, made a lasting impression on Christian when he first encountered the story as a teenager. That sense of injustice drives this production, which premiered with Ballet Zürich in 2014 and features opulent period costumes by Emma Ryott, minimalist sets by Christian and Jörg Zielinski, and ominous film footage of trains by Tieni Burkhalter that foreshadow Anna’s fate.

The score for Anna Karenina is the perfect landscape for the intricate storytelling. Christian curated the music over nearly two years to follow the extremes of Anna’s experience, choosing a range of composers to evoke the depths of her passion, the anguish of her downfall and the complex layers of her wider world.

Discovering a character and telling a story is a gift for any dancer and ours have certainly risen to this challenge. Working with Christian for the first time, they have brought his vision to life while also imparting their own ideas to this unforgettable story of morality, passion and society.

I can’t wait to share it with you.

Warmly,

Hope Muir, Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director

Anna Karenina is onstage June 13 – 21

Top Photo: Hope Muir. Photo by Karolina Kuras.