The Bolshoi Ballet
What: The Bolshoi Ballet and The Bolshoi Orchestra
Where: The Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center
When: July I8-July 30,2005.
It was dazzling, exciting, riveting dance by a company that brought tradition, superb dancers and the unsurpassable advantage all having been trained in the same Vaganova curriculum. The dancers, without exception, possess long, lean legs, articulate feet, beautiful placement and port de bras, and were schooled and rehearsed within an inch of their limits. The Bolshoi Ballet, long the rival of the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg, projected larger-than-stage interpret-ations, in the past, with exaggerated gestures, extended tempos and macho male dancers. But no more. It has entered the 21st century though the vision of its new director, Aleksei Ratmansky, who has brought their classics into an era of new elegance in tasteful, yet exciting interpretations from their posturing past. The dancers have the additional advantage of having an individual coach. For them, dance begins after the technique has been mastered, the talent acknowledged, and the growth to artistry through examination and discussion of the detail of the character to be performed is constantly polished and evaluated. This is a tremendous contin-uance of the learning process that our dancers have only in limited supply.
Gleaned from the huge repertoire of the company, the Bolshoi presented, for this engagement, four full-length, blockbusters: "Don Quixote," and "Spartacus," as well as North American premieres of "The Bright Stream," and "The Pharaoh's Daughter." In celebration of the 400th anniversary of Spanish author Cervantes, who lived a tortured existence, but became famous for his "Don" ("Man from La Mancha" as a musical), it has survived many versions as a ballet, including one by George Balanchine, recently restaged by Suzanne Farrell in Canada. "DQ" made its Bolshoi debut in Moscow in 1869, choreographed by Marius Petipa, was reworked at a later time by Alexander Gorsky (a Stanislavski enthusiast) and finally by Alexei Fadayechev. This version contains glorious character dances as only the Bolshoi can perform them in correct form, seduction, style and excitement.
Yuri Grigorovich's 1968 staging of "Spartacus," is a vehicle for the male dancers to display their prodigious techniques and exuberant interpretation of rebellion against the Roman Emperor Crassus. Spartacus is the slave-gladiator, who led the pack in what the Cold War era delighted to promote, rebellion. Unfortunately the movie-music score by Aram Khachaturian has been played ad nauseam and one wishes it had been written by Prokofiev. Nonetheless, it is one of the Bolshoi's blockbusters.
Director Ratmansky revived "The Bright Stream," with his new choreography for a first-in- America presentation of the comic ballet. Its consequences at the first performance in 1936 were anything by comic. Set in a Soviet collective farm, it was attacked and suppressed by Soviet authorities as not being representative of Socialist reality. Composer Shostakovich, to our loss, never wrote another ballet after that; Fyodor Lopukhov was fired as director of The Bolshoi Ballet and the scenario writer, Adrian Piotrovsky disappeared into a Stalinist gulag. It is however, a spoof of sorts, as it gurgles along. Director Ratmansky, born in Leningrad and a graduate of the Moscow School performed in Kiev, was a principal dancer in Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet and performed in many other companies, where he also staged or choreographed many works. He is a 36-year old new director, alert to new trends, while preserving the legacy, and open to other dance disciplines. He was a judge at the recent New York International Ballet Competition.
This season, the first American view of "The Pharaoh's Daughter" was as a lavish production reconstructed by Pierre Lacotte, from the 1862 creation by Marius Petipa, to the music by Cesare Pugni. The work tells of the dream of a young Englishman, who elopes with the daughter of a Pharaoh. Dream on. The great ballerina Anna Pavlova danced the role of the daughter in the Gorsky, 1905 version. It was just what the Moscow audience wanted at that time: exoticism, romanticism, drama and virtuoso dancing. It was an extravaganza, lavishly costumed in an overwhelmingly believable set. Ah, fantasies have always attracted audiences from the Hollywood era of "Orientalia" to today's Disney adventures.
The dancers were so magnificent, it is only by personal choice that some can be singled out: Young and beautiful Svetlana Zakharovsky (Kiev, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy and joined the Kirov before her Bolshoi career), was a joyous Kitri in "DQ;" out of the blue perfection of the corps de ballet in Act II, soared a sprite soloist, who floated over the stage, Natalie Osipova; ballerinas Maria Alexandrov and Anna Antonicheva were unforgettable; soloist Svetlana Lunkina (coached by Ekaterina Maximova) became a principal at an announcement during a performance; Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Dmitri Bologolovtsec held up the male contingent. But it is the corps that is astounishing.
A word about bringing the entire orchestra and conductor of the Bolshoi, Alexander V edemikov. From the first note, the orchestra was a burst of energetic sound, verve and a vital component of the production. The dancers, comfortable in knowing what the tempos will be, relaxed into mus-ical and dynamic phrasing. The orchestra, as part of the production along with the huge cast of dancers, provided the highest level of artistry.
The Bolshoi Ballet productions can be seen on disc. We await the next visit.