CHARISMATIC ARMENIAN PRINCE POWERS FEROCIOUS ‘NUTCRACKER’ ON TV
Bloomberg
Dec 17 2008
Interview by Stephen West
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — When the dancer Davit Karapetyan makes his
entrance in San Francisco Ballet’s production of "Nutcracker" (airing
on PBS tonight at 8 p.m. New York time), he can hardly see a thing.
Bearing down on his muscular shoulders is an 8-pound head piece made
of molded plastic, mesh and fake fur on a wire frame.
"Oh my god, it’s pretty heavy, it’s huge," Karapetyan said with a laugh
over a lunch of grilled fish near the company’s rehearsal hall. "The
visibility is very little. You can barely see."
Karapetyan must wear the mask — complete with nut-cracking teeth,
tapered military hat and flame-red beard — during the first act’s
pitched battle between the toy soldiers, led by Karapetyan’s Nutcracker
Prince, and an opposing army of mice, led by the fierce Mouse King,
who sports an ermine-trimmed purple velvet frock coat, gold crown,
sharp claws and long, lethal- looking teeth on his own head-like mask.
Both armies are made up of child dancers, which presents its own
challenge, Karapetyan said.
"There’s lots of lights, and a lot of kids running from this side to
the other," he explained. "And at the same time you have this sword,
and when you start fighting you have to be careful. You don’t want
to hit anybody."
Sugar Plum Fairy
Karapetyan gets to show more of himself when he dances with the
Sugar Plum Fairy (portrayed by his real-life girlfriend, Vanessa
Zahorian) and in the second act’s elegant Grand Pas de Deux with
Maria Kochetkova.
The production, choreographed by the company’s artistic director,
Helgi Tomasson, was first performed in 2004. It features more than 170
lavish costumes designed by Martin Pakledinaz and an imaginative set
by Michael Yeargan that starts with a toy shop and the parlor of a San
Francisco Victorian house and morphs into the dreamlike settings of
the second act, with its Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Russian dances.
Karapetyan, 27, joined the company four years ago from the Zurich
Ballet. Growing up in Yerevan, Armenia, he didn’t start out to be a
dancer. Out of costume he looks like a college student in blue jeans,
gray sweater and jogging shoes.
Family of Dancers
"When I was young, I never liked ballet," he said. "All my family
are professional dancers — my father, my mother, my sister, she
has her own school in Armenia. They started in ballet but changed
to Armenian folk dancing because they could travel and they had a
good choreographer.
"So I did sports — martial arts, swimming, diving, all kinds of
sports. I was lucky. I was a very active boy."
His parents’ attempts to interest him in dance finally paid off when
he was 12.
"They told me one more time to go to the school, for folk dancing. I
liked it. And then I started watching the ballet classes and I saw
these guys doing all of these amazing jumps and turns. I starting
trying to do whatever they were doing."
Switching to ballet was "the hardest thing I ever did," he
recalled. "After two years I went to a competition in St. Petersburg
and didn’t win anything, but it opened my eyes. I came back a different
person. I worked harder and I started to get leading roles."
By 16, he was off to dance school in Zurich, where he joined the
professional ballet company a year later.
Looking for Change
After six years in Switzerland, he was ready for a more challenging
repertory. In 2004, he traveled to San Francisco for a four-day visit.
"Helgi saw me and offered me a contract for 2005," he recalled.
In San Francisco, besides the Nutcracker Prince, Karapetyan now takes
such leading-man roles as Prince Siegfried in "Swan Lake" and Prince
Desire in "The Sleeping Beauty," both choreographed by Tomasson. He
has also earned acclaim for his work in such modern ballets as George
Balanchine’s "Divertimento No. 15" and Jerome Robbins’s "Fancy Free."
"San Francisco was a big change," he said. "I was rehearsing in about
five ballets, working with different partners. It was tough for the
first couple of weeks, catching up with them."
Since coming to America, he’s taken up photography and, lately,
acting classes. To relax, Karapetyan heads to nearby Napa Valley
to decompress.
"It’s my favorite place," he said, "because it reminds me of Europe
and I like the wine."
Karapetyan next performs live in "Nutcracker" tomorrow night at
San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave. The
production runs through Dec. 28. Information: +1-415-865-2000;
(Stephe n West writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are
his own.)
To contact the writer on the story: Stephen West in San Francisco
at [email protected].
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
