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In 1870 the Director of the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Stepan Gedeonov, conceived the idea of an Opera-Ballet with music by members of that Russian musical power-house, known as Moguchaya Kuchka or The Mighty Five: Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Borodin. Marius Petipa was to provide the choreography to music by Ludwig Minkus. The scenario, with a libretto by Viktor Krylov, was everything in words, which The Mighty Five were investigating with their music - an exploration of the folk traditions of a pre-Christian, pagan Russia and a rejection of the prevailing German academic style. Set in the world of the Elb Slavs, where the Goddess of Evil, Morena, was in conflict with Radegast, the God of Fertility, the story told of the Princess Mlada, murdered by her love-rival, Princess Voislava, on the eve of her wedding to Prince Yaromir and whose soul returns to reveal the truth to him and ultimately save him in death. The project floundered and each composer took his music and used it elsewhere (Mussorgsky took part of Act 3 and used it as the definitive version of his Night on Bare Mountain). In 1879 Petipa and Minkus created a pure ballet version for the then people's ballerina, Evgenia Sokolova (and this version was later revised, in 1896, for Mathilde Kschessinska the Mariinsky's Prima Ballerina Assoluta), but it was in 1889, having watched Wagner's Ring Cycle, that Rimsky-Korsakov had cause to re-look at Krylov's libretto and was encouraged to return to his draft score. This he did, and by 1890 he had completed his four act Opera-Ballet, Mlada, an exotic, fantastical musical vision.

Thereafter, it lay on a shelf until the postponement of Tchaikovsky's Iolanthe/Nutcracker double bill from the 1891-92 season at the Imperial Theatre left a gaping hole in the repertory. Mlada was premiered in its place and Lev Ivanov and Enrico Cecchetti provided the choreography and Maria Petipa, then a leading mime artist (though in her memoirs Ekaterina Vazem somewhat scathingly suggests she was " in no way outstanding…she waved her arms in the air and stamped on one spot" ) danced the role of Princess Mlada. It was not considered a success and was packed away rarely to be seen again, receiving occasional concert performances from Michael Tilson-Thomas, a great champion of the work, until 1988 when Alexander Lazarev, visionary Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Theatre, presented a fully staged Mlada, as part of an on-going re-discovery of Russian artistic heritage, which was preserved on video in 1991 and is now released on DVD.

Sadly, the Ivanov/Cecchetti choreography was lost and as a result the Bolshoi invited a former Soloist and the founding Artistic Director of the Kremlin Ballet, Andrei Petrov, to fill the gap. He provided work-a-day choreography made luminous solely by the presence of that dance siren, Nina Ananiashvilli as the Princess Mlada. She sculpts her body into the most ravishing shapes, her long, long limbs seem to be ever pining for the lover whom she has lost; her legs seem never to end and are matched in their expanse by the wide, mournful hollows of her eyes which fix her face with the most intense of expressions. There is a wonderful liquidity of movement, making full use of her gorgeous port de bras, which rises above the conventionality of the choreography and somehow makes it seem to matter.

Cover of the Bolshoi Mlada DVD
© Warner Music Vision

There is also choreography for a witch, played with superb bravura by the Bolshoi's inimitable character artist Yuliana Malkhasyants (whom some will remember as a sensational Gypsy Dancer in Don Quixote when the Bolshoi visited London in the summer of 2004), eyes ablaze with dance fire and utterly commanding of the stage. Folk Dances (over-) populate the Bolshoi's massive stage - dancers swirling along, fleet (yet flat) of foot - but sadly the direction for video, by Barrie Gavin, is totally unsympathetic to the dance shapes, focusing on close-ups of the singers rather than wide angle shots required to capture the corps dancing. It is this which highlights one of the great problems of the Opera-Ballet genre, for there in that hyphen exists an almost un-traversable cavern of artistic dichotomy - asking a singer to dance is even worse than asking a dancer to sing.

Such movements as the singers are required to make could hardly be described as dance and as a rule they stand and sing out to the audience in the greatest of Russian operatic traditions, (which even yet is un-tainted by the naturalism of Maria Callas and Franco Zeffirelli). Maria Gavrilova has a steely brilliance to her voice as the Princess Voislava, a part which requires all cylinders to be on, though a part which also seems to be hampered by a headpiece resembling the glacé cherry decoration on a Fortnum & Mason fruit cake. Oleg Kulko as Prince Yaromir fights his way through a thankless role and comes out pretty much on top. There is also a large part for a vast chorus comprising goblins, dwarfs, maidens, soldiers, fishmongers, High-Priests and peasants variously hobbling and galumphing across the stage. The Bolshoi's legendary Chorus sings with an equally vast sound, yet it also reveals delicate chamber-like moments, so soft and gentle in their beauty. Lazarev himself conducts a sublime account of the colourful, fragrant score which makes wonderful use of woodwind - oboes, clarinets and panpipes evoke the mystique of the Act 3 Egyptian vision (music later used by Fokine in his 1909 ballet, Cleopatre) and the Bolshoi's resident designer Valery Levental creates ever-changing colourful back-drops reminiscent of Bakst. There is no credited director as such and at times the production suffers from what seems like a lack of direction: actors, singers, dancers run across the stage without a real awareness of why.

Nevertheless, this is fascinating DVD: fascinating for those who wish to see the artistry of a Prima Ballerina still in her prime and fascinating to those with an interested in the joint development of the ballet and the opera in Imperial Russia. It is also a piece which is unlikely to be mounted without the vast resources of a company such as the Bolshoi and as Mlada has now fallen from their repertoire, this recording could be the only opportunity you get to see it in all its glory.