Evgeni Plushenko returns to St. Petersburg as the “Snow King”. Act IIby Florentina Tone
Be warned: there’s such a burst of colors, magic, innovations in Evgeni Plushenko’s “Snow King”, that, looking at the tons of wonderful pictures from the show, you’ll completely fall in love with it, wishing you’d been there, in St. Petersburg’s Ice Palace, in the first days of 2015. At the end of act I, we saw Gerda embarking into the greatest adventure of her life, in the quest of her friend Kai. The boy had decided to follow the Snow King into his icy realm – and the girl travels the world in order to find him. She’s helped by two ravens, she meets a prince and a princess, she’s being attacked by the bandits and receives good advice from a shaman, to finally reach Snow King’s palace and her friend, Kai, frozen and obeying the king. But the power of friendship prevails – and, in the end, the ice in Kai’s heart starts to melt and the King, defeated, comes back to his old (good) self…
Do follow us into the second act of “Snow King” in St. Petersburg and take notice that the cast of this particular show is absolutely amazing: Evgeni Plushenko plays the King, Irina Slutskaya is Gerda and Johnny Weir beautifully portrays Kai, while Tomas Verner completely dissolves into the role of a bandit, after being a dance teacher at the beginning of act II; the French Brian Joubert plays too a double role: the prince and, later in the show, the shaman giving good advice… Ready for the second part?
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Gerda continues her trip, while we’re witnessing Snow King’s efforts to completely subdue Kai – and this is definitely one of the key-moments of the story, with Evgeni Plushenko and Johnny Weir completely dissolving into their roles. In the end, Kai’s heart is frozen, the king has won........
The King orders his guards to attack the girl…...............
As in any story, the good prevails: the ice in Kai’s heart melts and he’s reunited with his friend. Defeated, the King himself becomes a good one.With Dima Bilan on the big screen, singing “When the ice melts”, the story ends triumphantly; and all the skaters are now on the ice.A happy Evgeni Plushenko receiving flowers and giving back smilesEvgeni Plushenko and his wife, Yana RudkovskayaAnd a touching moment to end with: on January 6th, the day he turned 2 years, Alexander (Sasha) Plushenko, the son of Evgeni and Yana Rudkovskaya, entered the rink along his father, to be congratulated by the entire audience…One thing is sure: "Snow King" is a feast for the eyes.... so, apart from the cast, hats off to the following:
Yana Rudkovskaya and Evgeni Finkelstein, general producers
Evgeni Plushenko, choreographer-art director
David Avdish, main choreographer
Nikita Mikhailov, choreographer
Ari Zakarian, ballet manager
Alexey Golubev, main stage director & movie clips director
Valery Paramonov, music composer
Igor Gulyaev, costume designer (fur for King, Kai and Gerda)
Galina Filatova, costumes