In October 1981, during a brief trip to Saint Petersburg, known at the time as Leningrad, in the former USSR, I had the good fortune of seeing a performance of the Kirov Ballet’s production of “ Notre-Dame de Paris,” an interpretation of Victor Hugo’s, “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.” The production was choreographed by Roland Petit with costume design by Yves Saint-Laurent.
Since it was my only opportunity to see the ballet, the challenge was to photograph the essence of the performance without disturbing the audience. I quietly snapped off a limited number of frames from my seat in the packed Mariinsky Theatre, using a hand-held 35 mm camera, shooting with TRI-X film.
This is the first time these photographs have been seen. ” A NIGHT AT THE KIROV, LENINGRAD, 1981, ” can be viewed on my website, http://www.georgeromanation.com.
George Romanation 