Photo: Cultureum

Review of the Performances from 6 June 2026 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg

Edvin Revazov’s ballet, 5 Seasons, to the music of Leon Gurvitch, celebrates its world premiere with two performances in the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie, to the delight of some 4,000 spectators. 5 Seasons combines great artistry with profound human relevance in a ballet that transcends time and creates space for peace and harmony.

Leon Gurvitch’s Score – Music Beyond Vivaldi

Three centuries after Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Leon Gurvitch expands the cycle of time with an imagined fifth season inspired by the human need for renewal and hope.

Three hundred years after Vivaldi published The Four Seasons, Leon Gurvitch presents his 5 Seasons, displaying a musical language that combines the classical and neoclassical, the baroque and the contemporary, enriched by folkloric Slavic undertones, and extends the cycles of time into a fifth realm created out of our human need for rebirth and hope.

Gurvitch’s fifth season is that of an Indian Summer, a period of light and energy in the aftermath of Autumn and as a precursor of Winter; this is an additional season, a perpetual gift.

Edvin Revazov responds to Gurvitch’s music with a beautifully choreographed ballet that translates the seasons into movement. While Vivaldi studded his musical score with references to specific animals, sounds of nature, and poetic verses, the musicians of the Leon Gurvitch Ensemble for 5 Seasons received their impetus from ballet.

Moments of Reflection

The recurring Silentium movements provide spaces of repose and contemplation, connecting the seasons through music, memory, and emotion.

The music soothes the soul with the various compositions entitled Silentium that envelop the movement from one season to the other. They offer periods of repose and reflection, both philosophical and emotional. Autumn, Indian Summer, Winter, Spring, and Summer capture the essence of the seasons and how they change with nature, but they are accompanied by other movements that call for human connection within these spaces.

Two pieces have a particularly interesting quality, Labyrinth and Kolyada. They both come in the second act: Labyrinth follows Spring, and Kolyada comes after Summer. While Labyrinth is energetic and full of suspense, Kolyada recalls caroling in Slavic winter traditions. Both of these compositions serve to foreshadow Autumn and Winter but already tint them with speckles of sunshine that continuously reappear throughout the seasons.

On the Soloists – An International Cast of Ballet Stars

Renowned dancers from leading European companies bring technical brilliance, expressive depth, and distinctive personalities to Revazov’s choreography.

5 Seasons was danced by world-renowned soloists from various European ballet companies, several distinguished guest performers, as well as by the Hamburger Kammerballett, an ensemble created by Edvin Revazov and Isabelle Rohlfs in 2022 to offer a place of refuge and continued creativity to six Ukrainian dancers who had to flee their home due to war.

From the Hamburg Ballet, Silvia Azzoni, Anna Laudere, Zeynep Demirel, Alexandre Riabko, and Florian Pohl were featured in magnificently choreographed pas de deux.

Silvia Azzoni and Alexandre Riabko created a frame for the ballet, and their dance sequences wove through each of the seasons and displayed timeless technique and grace. They were also entrusted to dance the fifth season, Indian Summer.

The tremendous strength and athleticism of Florian Pohl only complemented his elegance on stage and anchored the performance of a beautifully poised winter nymph, danced by Zeynep Demirel.

Anna Laudere was paired with the remarkably talented young dancer Alessandro-Lucia Frola from the Wiener Staatsballett. The two have already delivered stunning performances in John Neumeier’s The Lady of the Camellias, portraying the lightness of love through ethereal movement, with Laudere floating through the air like a feather in Frola’s arms.

In 5 Seasons, Laudere emerged from a flower formed by fellow dancers arranged around her as petals. The image was striking, yet it was her precise and delicate presence that brought the blossoming fully to life. The staging of the scene was both daring and beautifully executed: Laudere, at the centre, and Frola, as the first unfolding petal, were gently rotated on carefully placed fabric panels resembling flower petals. The circular motion underscored both the natural process of blooming and the passage of time that lies at the heart of the ballet.

Frola proved not only a dancer of exceptional technical refinement but also an attentive and generous partner whose support allowed Laudere’s interpretation to shine all the more brightly.

Hyo-Jung Kang and Jun Xia from the Semperoper Ballet interpreted Summer and were given choreography rich in soaring jumps and demanding physicality, befitting their considerable experience and accomplished mastery of the art of ballet.

From the Teatro alla Scala, Martina Arduino and Marco Agostino portrayed Autumn, bringing their remarkable stagecraft to the Elbphilharmonie and leaving the audience yearning for more.

On the Hamburger Kammerballett – An Ensemble Forged Through Adversity

Founded as a refuge for Ukrainian dancers displaced by war, the Hamburger Kammerballett stands at the emotional heart of the production.

At the centre of this production was the Hamburger Kammerballett with the accomplished Ukrainian dancers: Veronika Hordina, Alisa Nikitina, Viktoriia Miroshyna, Nataliia Hurska, Vladyslav Bondar, and Valery Lyubenko. Their ensemble pieces were celebrated by the audience for their technical precision and beauty of interpretation. Particularly inspirational were the performances to the various parts of 5 Dances in Old Style. Their artistic range and versatility came through in the piece entitled Non-Citizens.

The Hamburger Kammerballett is an ensemble born out of the tragedy of war, yet in 5 Seasons its dancers became ambassadors of peace, giving form to this imagined fifth season in which renewal remains possible and hope endures.

On ResiDance – A New Home for Artistic Exchange

A permanent home in Hamburg’s Oberhafen promises new opportunities for creativity, collaboration, and international dialogue through dance.

It is heartening to know that the Hamburger Kammerballett will soon have a permanent home through ResiDance, a new cultural initiative by Yohan Stegli, Isabelle Rohlfs, and Edvin Revazov. Located in Hamburg’s Oberhafen district, the space will serve not only as a rehearsal and performance venue for the Hamburger Kammerballett but also as a centre for international artistic exchange, fostering dialogue through movement, creativity, and shared experience.

On Revazov’s Artistic Vision – Living Memories on Stage

Revazov’s choreography invites audiences to experience moments that feel like memories in the very act of being created.

Edvin Revazov set out to create “moments that feel like memories as they are being lived.” His intent is quite the opposite of Proust’s moment bien heureux, where we bite into a madeleine and experience a moment of epiphany, of the past suddenly flooding over into the present. Edvin Revazov and the delightful dancers of the Hamburger Kammerballett draw the audience into the snapshots, visions, and tableaux they create on stage and capture a shared mind’s eye through instances of intense emotional connectedness.

The ensemble pieces were greatly supported by Azul Ardizzone, Melissa Koivuaho, Yun Lin, and Emiliano Torres from the Hamburg Ballet, as well as by the guest performers Ricardo Urbina and Nicolas Gläsmann, who each individually contributed to the overall success of the ballet.

Also to be named individually are the musicians of the Leon Gurvitch Ensemble: Dana Anka, Marina Kotelevskaya, Maurice Pascal Rodin, Andre Böttcher, Verena Shigabutdinova, Mariana Gnativ, Anatoly Maslai, Stanislava Korotkova, Emilia Lomakova, Eloy Medina, and Daniel Huber. Their work has been delighting Hamburg audiences for some time now, and their performances in 5 Seasons, with Leon Gurvitch as conductor, once again rose to the highest artistic standard.

A Shared Journey Through Time

A ballet of beauty, hope, and collective imagination brings together artists and audiences in a rare moment of unity.

5 Seasons is a remarkable new ballet that invited its audience to journey alongside the dancers through the turning of the seasons and the cycles of human experience. Revazov and Gurvitch drew into the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie not only Hamburg’s devoted cultural public, but visitors from around the world, audience members young and old, and ballet lovers of every background. The unity expressed on stage resonated throughout the hall, transforming nearly 4,000 spectators into participants in a shared experience. In a time often marked by division, 5 Seasons offered something increasingly rare: an evening of beauty, hope, and collective imagination.