Flames of Paris

Flames of Paris
Natalia Osipova in an extract from Flames of Paris, at the reopening gala of the Bolshoi Theatre, 2011
Choreographer	Vasily Vainonen
Music	Boris Asafyev
Based on	a book by Felix Gras
Premiere	7 November 1932 Kirov Theatre, Leningrad
Characters	Mireille de Poitiers Jérôme Jeanne Thérèse Mistral Louis XVI Marie-Antoinette
Setting	French Revolution

Flames of Paris (Russian: Пла́мя Пари́жа) is a full-length ballet in four acts, choreographed by Vasily Vainonen to music by Boris Asafyev based on songs of the French Revolution. The libretto by Nicolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev was adapted from a book by Felix Gras. It was premiered at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad on 7 November 1932, with Natalia Dudinskaya as Mireille de Poitiers, Vakhtang Chabukiani as Jérôme, Olga Jordan as Jeanne, Nina Anisimova as Thérèse, and Konstantin Sergeyev as Mistral. The conductor was Yuri Fayer.

The Bolshoi Ballet premiered the full work on 6 July 1933 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, with Aleksey Yermolayev (Jérôme), Anastasia Abramova (Jeanne), Nadezhda Kapustina (Thérèse) and Marina Semenova (Mireille de Poitiers).

The original production and choreography was reconstructed in 2008 by Alexei Ratmansky for the Bolshoi Ballet and is available on DVD with Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova.

The Flames of Paris is a so-called "revolutionary" ballet which takes as its subject the French Revolution, including in its scenario the storming of the Tuileries Palace by the Marseillais and their victorious march on Paris. The plot is taken from the book of Felix Gras Les Marceliers.