Overview
- Staatsballett Berlin presented Kirill Serebrennikow and Yuri Possokhov’s production at the Deutsche Oper on Saturday, earning standing ovations.
- This marks the work’s first staging outside Russia, with all 12 Berlin performances sold out before the premiere.
- Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre dropped the ballet in 2023, citing enforcement of a law that bans so-called propaganda of non-traditional values signed by Vladimir Putin.
- Serebrennikow left Russia after denouncing the war in Ukraine and alleging political persecution, and he mounted the piece in Germany.
- The legislation has spurred wider cultural self-censorship in Russia, with publishers and bookstores pulling titles even as homosexuality itself remains legal.