When the Train Departs from Tolstoy
Theater Days in Abu Dhabi Presents “The Train Arrives In…” at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental
There are works of literature so thoroughly absorbed into the cultural imagination that any new interpretation carries the weight of expectation before a single curtain rises. Anna Karenina is among them. Tolstoy's novel has endured not because it narrates a story of adultery and consequence, but because it maps, with almost unbearable precision, the inner geography of a woman caught between the self she inhabits and the self she desires. It is a study in irresolvable tension, and it has always been more suited to the body than to language.
"The Train Arrives In…", presented under the Theatre Days in Abu Dhabi programme at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, understands this instinctively. The production does not attempt a retelling. It moves inward instead, stripping away narrative event to concentrate on the emotional architecture of Anna's conflict: the pull of passion against the weight of duty, the claims of love in collision with those of motherhood. Staged in a chamber format designed for intimacy rather than spectacle, movement becomes the primary language of the work, supported by a scenography so deliberately minimal that nothing distracts from what the body communicates.
The two artists at the centre of the production bring to it a combined experience that shapes its particular sensibility. Vladislav Lantratov has spent his career at the Bolshoi Theatre, where he holds the title of Principal Dancer, a position earned through a repertoire of exceptional range and technical demand. Daria Pavlenko, formerly Prima Ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre, has since extended her practice through a sustained collaboration with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, immersing herself in a movement tradition built on psychological exposure and the radical honesty of the human form in space. Where classical Russian ballet prizes precision and elevation, the Bausch tradition works through vulnerability and introspection. The meeting of these two approaches, embodied in these two performers, gives the production a layered quality that neither tradition could achieve independently, and it is this tension between discipline and openness that makes Anna, as a figure, so available to their interpretation.
It is worth noting what Theatre Days in Abu Dhabi has been quietly building: a programme that treats the city not as a stop on a touring circuit but as a genuine destination for international performing arts, one where premieres and exclusive productions find a home rather than a waypoint. Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental provides a setting in which architecture and atmosphere become part of the meaning of an evening rather than its backdrop.
The question Tolstoy's novel leaves deliberately unanswered, and that this production inherits without flinching, is whether Anna's tragedy lies in the choices she makes or in the condition that makes those choices impossible. Choreography, of all artistic forms, is perhaps best suited to holding that question open, allowing it to resonate in the body of the viewer long after the performance ends.
Event Details
"The Train Arrives In…"
Theatre Days in Abu Dhabi
Venue: Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi
Date: Wednesday, 29 April
Doors Open: 19:00
Performance Starts: 20:00
Tickets: From AED 175, available via Platinumlist
Guests are advised to arrive early to allow for an unhurried seating experience.
