Joffrey Ballet is the co-commissioner for a new dance work based on Tolstoy’s classic novel premiering next year.

The Australian Ballet is partnering with American company Joffrey Ballet to adapt Tolstoy’s classic novel Anna Karenina for the stage. The production will premiere in Chicago in October 2018, though Australians will have to wait until 2020, when the ballet will be staged as part of the AB’s season for that year.

The production is a joint initiative of AB Artistic Director David McAllister and Joffrey Ballet Artistic Director Ashley Wheater. “Ashley and I performed together on the Australian stage as dancers in the 80s and I have followed his wonderful career as a dancer and now Artistic Director of Joffrey Ballet. Since becoming the Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet we have kept in touch and talked about how we could work together once more. This is the perfect project and I think it will be really exciting to work with Ashley again and stage this exciting co-production for our Australian audiences,” said McAllister.

Russian choreographer Yuri Possokhov has been commissioned to choreograph the ballet, based on Tolstoy’s tragic tale about doomed, forbidden love set in Imperial Russia. “It has been...