Turkiye Hosts ‘Russian Hamlet’ Ballet by Eifman at Opera Festival
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Yasmin Alta
- . June 4, 2025
- . Update: June 4, 2025 7:21 pm
The 15th International Istanbul Opera Festival has brought an amazing performance of Boris Eifman’s “Russian Hamlet” to the world stage, presented at the Ataturk Cultural Center by the distinguished Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg. A marriage of storytelling wrapped with drama and expressive gestures, “Russian Hamlet” is inspired by the life of Russian Emperor Paul I, the son of Catherine the Great. While “Russian Hamlet” compares itself to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Eifman is more interested in strife, isolation, and internal struggles and constructs of Paul I. The audience was spellbound, and “Russian Hamlet” robbed a great deal of breath due to the dramatic staging, active music by Beethoven and Mahler and colour that filled the dancers and their cartwheels, long allegros and deep lunges across the stage.
With psychological aspirations, choreographer Boris Eifman’s language consists of uneasy movements and emotional depth that presents the gothic tragedy of Paul I in human form of dance. It is an amazing act of cultural exchange and Russian ballet artistry to engage such a status of cultural importance, on a Turkish stage. The festival, an event organized by the Turkish State Opera and Ballet, continues to connect performance arts between conventions, in global theatrical traditions as a sole tenor outstage of exchange.
