ANNA KARENINA

Leo Tolstoy's (1832-1919) classic novel has inspired countless films, TV adaptations, at least 8 operas and 5 ballets, including Plisetskaya's for the Bolshoi (1972), Boris Eifman's (2005), Estonian National Ballet (2000) and Royal Danish Ballet (2004) - generally using Rodion Shchedrin's 1972 Bolshoi score - apart from Prokovsky's Tchaikovsky version, which has been widely performed since its 1979 Australian Ballet premiere: Milwaukee, Tulsa, Louisville, Scottish and Royal Winnipeg Ballet companies, among others.

Now recognised as a major work of realism, Tolstoy's novel was dismissed on publication as "a trifling romance of high life" despite the good opinions of Dostoevsky ("flawless as a work of art") and Nabokov ("the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style").

Mr Prokovsky has sought to follow Tolstoy's plot and characters faithfully, charting the ill-fated and adulterous affair between Anna and Vronsky through an effectively theatrical three-act story-ballet, displaying a true sensitivity for the novelist's themes, style and range. The ballet deploys its resources skilfully to convey the Russian seasons, from the Act II Winter (with skating, children's snowman and snowball fight), to the sunlit garden scene of flawed family contentment, and the warmer pastoral scenes on Vronsky's estate, where the peasants celebrate harvest, life and renewal. Scope is given, too, to the corps de ballet, in set pieces like the Ballroom scene's grand waltz.

Apart from the larger picture, and the ballet's reflection of the Russian setting and passing seasons, Mr Prokovsky characterises the novel's protagonists convincingly and intimately, with the repeated adagio turn from Anna and Vornsky's first pas de deux (to which Anna returns at key emotional points in the story) and in the contrasting duets of the happily-married Kitty and Levin.

Especially powerful is the framing of the ballet within the image of the great steam-train, which emerges at the opening to disgorge Anna, only to reappear and reclaim her at the end. This image precisely reflects Tolstoy's use of the train, a theme that recurs constantly throughout the novel, from the children's playing with a toy train, to Anna's nightmare, her first meeting with Vronsky and the early railway accident, right through to the end.

©Tim Tubbs