Musical version of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to open in Moscow

Apart from some cuts – and the roller skates – producers say musical adaptation remains faithful to classic novel

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina features passionate love, abject misery and a hundred emotions in between. The epic romantic saga does not, traditionally, involve any roller-skating, but that will change when a new musical version hits the Moscow stage this autumn.

Anna Karenina the musical will open at the Moscow Operetta theatre in October, with specially written music and a new libretto. The producers say that although the whole of Tolstoy’s sprawling novel cannot fit into a two-hour show, they remain faithful to the text throughout. The cast will wear costumes that are “of the period, but with elements of haute couture”.

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