It will lift the spirits'

One of the "most English of ballets" will be performed for the first time in the National Opera house in Kyiv after a boycott of the classic Russian repertoire, including Swan Lake and the Nutcracker.

- Daniel Boffey

Sir Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, a celebrated romantic comedy, will be performed to a sell-out audience on Thursday after Ukraine turned away from the works of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

The production, which will be performed for at least five years in Kyiv, was made possible by fundraising in London by the former Ukrainian star of the Royal Ballet, Ivan Putrov, and the sculptor Antony Gormley. The ballet's owner, Jean-Pierre Gasquet, has waived his fee.

Originally a French ballet by Jean Dauberval, Ashton's choreography, first staged in 1960, turned La Fille mal gardée into one of the best-loved English ballets, featuring slap-stick humour, a Maypole and traditional folk dance.

The Ukrainian government has asked cultural institutions in the country and abroad to boycott productions by Russian composers and choreographers on the grounds that Vladimir Putin is seeking to use culture "as a weapon" and a justification for the war.

Nobuhiro Terada, the artistic director of ballet at the National Opera of Ukraine, said the issue was "sensitive" but that the turning point had come when dancers at the Donetsk Opera and Ballet theatre, in Russian-occupied Ukraine, performed the shape of a Z, a pro-war symbol, in the autumn of 2022.

He said: "After that, Putin claimed that Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, all of them, belong to the Russian world and Russian people.