Joffrey Ballet’s ‘Anna Karenina’ a Masterful Homage to an Epic Novel
By Kyle MacMillan, Chicago Sun-Times
Love and loss, violence and betrayal suffuse Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” — one of the great novels of the 19th century.
The Joffrey Ballet presented the world premiere Wednesday evening of Russian-born choreographer Yuri Possokhov’s new adaptation of this tragic tale — a sweeping, cinematic and sometimes heart-pounding take with unfailingly superb dancing throughout.
Aptly mirroring the seemingly back-and-forth, bifurcated tenor of our time, this admirably ambitious production smartly and nearly seamlessly modulates in look, choreography and affect between past and present, naturalism and abstraction.