In 2017 the premiere of three-act ballet Paquita by Yury one-act ballet Presentiment of Spring was created by Yury Smekalov on demand of the Mariinsky Theatre in 2010 and since then is constantly on stage. Smekalov opened the ballet festival Mariinsky. The choreographer turned to the score of Edouard Deldevez, but he reconsidered the music written for the Parisian Paquita of the 1846th that had already sounded at the Mariinsky Theater in the ballet of Marius Petipa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The order of pieces was changed, some of them got a new orchestration, and the composition of Deldevez was added with the fragments from the works of Minkus and Drigo. Yury Smekalov wrote a new libretto on the plot of Cervantes's short story La Gitanilla (The Little Gypsy Girl). In the choreography of the new ballet, he strove to keep the stylistics of Petipa's performances as in interweaving of dance scenes with pantomime, in using not only the classical language, but also a character dance. The main purpose of the project was to combine the dances composed by Smekalov with the famous Grand pas of Marius Petipa.

The parade of classical dance, demonstrating the skill and virtuosity of the artists, and solemnly crowning the action of an old Petipa’s performance, took an honorable place in the new ballet. Yury Burlaka, a specialist in the ballet antiquity, was in charge of the historical reconstruction of the nineteenth century choreography. Yury Smekalov perfectly fitted the diamond that we inherited from the past into a modern setting. There are many dances in the new Paquita such as virtuosic variations of soloists, spectacular corps de ballet ensembles, and even playful skits. The audience loved the performance with bright decorations of Andrey Sevbo and costumes of Elena Zaitseva, it firmly entered the repertoire of the Mariinsky Theater. Moreover, the first performer of the title role Viktoria Tereshkina was awarded the Highest Theater Award of Saint Petersburg «Golden Soffit».