The 92-pho­to­graph ex­hi­bi­tion tells of the long es­tab­lished re­la­tion­ship be­tween the pho­tog­ra­pher and bal­let mas­ters of the Kirov The­atre. Valentin Perel­muter spent many years within bal­let com­mu­nity, en­joy­ing prac­ti­cally un­lim­ited op­por­tu­ni­ties for pho­tog­ra­phy. The ex­hi­bi­tion will be open 30th Oc­to­ber — 22nd No­vem­ber.

The bal­let troupe and pro­duc­tions of the Kirov Aca­d­e­mic The­atre of Opera and Bal­let, later the Mari­in­sky The­atre, was a unique phe­nom­e­non in Russ­ian cul­tural his­tory, which in 1977–1996 was un­ques­tion­ably linked with the name of its cre­ative di­rec­tor: Oleg Vino­gradov. Dur­ing Vino­gradov’s tenure the troupe be­came a pro­fes­sional col­lec­tive unit. The mon­u­men­tal pro­duc­tions by the bal­let mas­ter, char­ac­terised by a nu­anced chore­o­graphic lan­guage, mem­o­rable duets, vari­a­tions, as well as the lean physiques of the en­sem­ble be­came the call­ing card of the Kirov Bal­let, mak­ing it one of the main cul­tural brands of USSR. It was this pe­riod that gave rise to stars such as Galina Mezent­seva, Irina Kol­pakova, Tatyana Terekhova, Gabriela Kom­l­eva, Kon­stan­tin Za­k­lin­sky, Al­ty­nai Asyl­mu­ra­tova, Farukh Ruz­i­ma­tov and Yulia Makhalina.

The new chore­o­graphic lan­guage in­tro­duced by Oleg Vino­gradov re­quired a new, in­no­v­a­tive pho­to­graphic method of cap­tur­ing bal­let, and this was ex­actly what Valentin Perel­muter had to offer. The pho­tog­ra­pher strove to cap­ture bal­let in a bright and emo­tive fash­ion, which dis­played his clear pas­sion for the art­form. The unique at­mos­phere of the the­atre stim­u­lated him to search for a dis­tinc­tive vi­sual lan­guage and en­cour­aged ex­per­i­men­ta­tion. The ma­te­r­ial, shot dur­ing re­hearsals and pro­duc­tions, usu­ally in­volves the use of com­plex print­ing tech­niques, such as multi-ex­po­si­tion, mon­tage, crop­ping and com­bined print­ing. The unique por­trayal of the image in his pho­tog­ra­phy, which Perel­muter calls his “patent trait,” be­came an­other char­ac­ter­is­tic of the mas­ter’s pho­tographs, which sets his work apart from other bal­let pho­tog­ra­phers of the USSR.

The photo gallery of the stars of the Kirov Bal­let, cre­ated by Valentin Perel­muter, in­vites the viewer to once again be im­mersed in the at­mos­phere of the leg­endary epoch of Leningrad bal­let be­tween 1970 and 1990. The pho­tographs and slideshow once again bring to life fa­mous pro­duc­tions of the Kirov The­atr, such as In­fanta, Les Syl­phides, Ray­monda, Sleep­ing Beauty, La Syl­phide, Giselle, La Bayadère, Swan Lake, The Knight in Pan­ther’s Skin, Don Quixote and Notre Dame de Paris.

Perel­muter, in­vited to the troupe in 1977 by Vino­gradov, spent twenty years cre­at­ing a recog­nis­able vi­sual brand — the of­fi­cial image of the Kirov Bal­let — in­clud­ing pho­to­shoots for fa­mous tours to Japan (1979), France (1983) and USA and Canada (1992). Perel­muter’s works were shown at ex­hi­bi­tions of bal­let pho­tog­ra­phy in Leningrad and Lon­don. Pho­tographs by Valentin Perel­muter were fea­tured in printed media, ded­i­cated to the art of bal­let, such as “Balet Molodykh” (“Bal­let of the Young,” 1979), “Leningrad­sky Balet 1917–1987” (Len­i­grad Bal­let 1917–1987, 1988), “Zvy­ozdy, Ko­to­ryye Ne Gas­nut” (Stars that Never Fade, 2018), and to bal­let star, such as “Irina Kol­pakova” (1982, 1984) and “Nikita Dol­gushin” (1985).

Orig­i­nal pho­tographs by Valentin Perel­muter are held in the col­lec­tions of the Saint Pe­ters­burg Mu­seum of The­ater and Music and State Mu­seum and Ex­hi­bi­tion Cen­ter ROSPHOTO.