Petroesjka / Die sieben Todsünden

Two brand-new choreographies of milestones of the 20th-century ballet repertoire in one evening: Igor Stravinsky's Petroesjka and Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's 'ballet chanté' Die sieben Todsünden. In Ella Rothschild's new choreography of Petroesjka, we swap the original urbane setting of Stravinsky's ballet for a wilderness in which we find a society adrift, lost in cruelty and brutality and refusing to face its mortality. A life-size donkey puppet takes the place of the anti-hero Petroesjka mentioned in the original script. But the human protagonist of Rothschild's new allegorical narrative, The Mortal, is also animated like a puppet by the dancers. The twilight zone between reality and dream, which characterises Petroesjka, is right up the Israeli choreographer's alley.

In Die sieben Todsünden, Anna, a young woman with a split personality, has to go out to earn money for her family. On her quest through seven American cities, she is each time hindered in her pursuit of profit by the lure of another mortal sin. Choreographer Jeroen Verbruggen provides an uniquely personal interpretation of this hybrid masterpiece in which dance and opera, the American Dream and social criticism go hand in hand. The music will be performed live by the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Symphony Orchestra, conducted by chief conductor Alejo Pérez.