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Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 22, 2007

ARLINGTON, TEXAS - Metropolitan Classical Ballet's 2007 - 2008 Season opens with a Fall Repertory program to be presented on October 29th at 8:00 PM at the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth.

The Fall Repertory Program will consist of three works: the return of the highly acclaimed Carmen Suite, staged by Alexander Vetrov featuring guest artist Marianna Ryzhkina, principal ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet in the title role, and two works by Paul Mejia, Album for the Young and Scriabin Sonata. Twenty-three year-old Russian born pianist Gleb Ivanov will play the piano accompaniment for the two ballets by Mr. Mejia.

Album for the Young, music by Lowell Liebermann, choreography by Paul Mejia, will open the evening. It premiered in 2006 to great acclaim by both audience and critics: Mejia's choreography was perfectly matched to the music: sweet and simple. Punch Shaw - The Star-Telegram.

The second work of the evening is the Scriabin Sonata, music by Alexander Scriabin, choreography by Paul Mejia. Set to Scriabin™s romantic Sonata No. 3 in F# minor, Op. 23. It is a passionate ballet choreographed for one ballerina, danced by principal Olga Pavlova, and four partners. It was first performed for the Company in 1999.

Photo by Marty Sohl

Carmen Suite, music by Georges Bizet, choreography by Alberto Alonso, staging by Alexander Vetrov, will close the evening. Both the arrangement and the choreography for Carmen Suite were created especially for the great Soviet ballerina, Maya Plisetskaya, former soloist with the Bolshoi Ballet Theatre. It premiered in 1967 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Guest dancer Marianna Ryzhkina will dance the title role.

Marianna Ryzhkina, principal ballerina with the Bolshoi since 1989, bears the prestigious title Honored Artist of Russia. She is the winner of the International Serge Lifar Competition of Ballet Artists in Kiev, Ukraine and of the International Competition of Ballet Artists in Osaka, Japan. She became the laureate of Etoiles Internationales de la Danse in Paris in 2002. Marianna is well known with Metropolitan Classical Ballet audiences having performed with the company a number of times.

Gleb Ivanov is well known as a virtuoso pianist in Russia, having played with the Moscow State Orchestra, at the Great Hall at the Moscow Conservatory, and at the Kremlin. He was mentored by and performed with the famous maestro Mstislav Rostropovich, and has performed in the Pushkin, Glinka and Scriabin Museums in Moscow. After winning many prestigious awards and prizes in Moscow and Kiev, Mr. Ivanov won the 2005 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in the US and was also awarded a grant from the Jack Romann Special Artists Fund of YCA. He won critical praise for his debut recitals at Carnegie's Zankel Hall in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which were presented by Young Concert Artists during the 2005-2006 season. He made his New York concerto debut in April 2007 with the Orchestra of St. Luke's at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center as part of YCA's annual Irene Diamond concert.

The Fall Repertory performance will come on the heels of a Metropolitan Classical Ballet performance of Carmen Suite and two other works the preceding weekend at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Center in Houston. The event is in commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of the Russian-American Diplomatic Relations, and is sponsored by the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Houston in co-operation with the Russian Cultural Center "Our Texas".

Programming, program order and casting for all productions is subject to change without notice.

Single ticket sales for the Fall Repertory production will be $10, $25, and $38 and are available by calling Bass Performance Hall Ticket Office at (817) 212-4280 or by calling Metropolitan Classical Ballet at (817) 275-0598, or online at www.mcballet.org. Group discounts are available.

Metropolitan Classical Ballet's 2007 / 2008 is made possible in part by its generous sponsors: American Airlines, The University of Texas at Arlington, and the law firm of Hill Gilstrap.

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Media Note: Further information about both the Fall Repertory and the Houston performances may be obtained by contacting Maria Kudyakova at (817) 465-4644. Information can also be found on Metropolitan Classical Ballet's website www.mcballet.org.

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