Harlequinade

Oringinally Les Millions D’Arlequin, Harlequinade was Marius Petipa’s last successfull ballet, premiering at the exquisite little Hermitage Theater (and not the Maryinsky Theater) in 1900. The evening long Harlequinade was a two-act recreation of the hightlights of the commedia dell’arte. Harlequin and Columbine, Pierrot and Pierette, buffoons and fairies are all present in a rollicking ballet filled with antics, magic, transformations, and romance.

This ballet provided the inspiration for Michel Fokine’s Carnaval; Anna Pavlova later toured in a ballet called Les Coquetteries de Columbine. George Balanchine choreographed his own Harlequinade in 1965, expressing the frivolity of Imperial Russian Society.

The Trockadero offers this highlight or “pas d’action” from the ballet, staged by Elena Kunikova, ballerina of the Maly Opera Ballet of St. Petersburg.