DLT space, the main fashion department store of St. Petersburg and official partner for XVIII season of Dance Open festival, is pleased to announce a public talk — interesting for everyone who loves mystifying stories.

This year Dance Open affiche announces two ballets associated with the writer and composer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, famous for his obscure fairytales where the cozy family atmosphere is shattered with a mysterious horror. However, Hoffman’s fairytales are frequently interpreted in much more delightful way. And two Hoffman’s ballets, the Delibes’s Coppélia and Tchaikovsky’s the Nutcracker very little remain of true Hoffman’s language.

During all the 20th century choreographers tried to return depth and ambiguity of the literature source to these ballets. It was a real challenge for both musical scores which were arranged in absolute different way: their authors pursued other goals when they undertook to retell these famous fairytales.

Bogdan Korolyok, a ballet critic and assistant of the artistic director of Ural Opera Ballet (Ekaterinburg), offers his view and comments on this theme.