BALLET
IN London three companies run parallel and rival seasons.; with the Sadler's Wells getting a run-in for next week's New York open- ing by way of many performances of Cinderella. Nobody can bring quite so much tenderness and vivacity to the principal role as Margot Fonteyn and there is new pleasure in watching the way she has developed the subtle by-play of her First Act kitchen scene. Kenneth
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Macmillan, stepping literally into Robert HeIpmann's shoes as the larger Ugly Sister, gives a splendidly -controlled performance. If " dame comedy " has to be done by any but experienced panto- mimists, Macmillan and Ashton make a very satisfactory job of it.
Roland Petit's company at, the Stoll revived Carmen with Colette Marchand superseding Renee Jeanmaire in the title role ; this superior example of non-balletic ballet wears rather thin. Clave's waggonloads of decor still fussily obtrude on the few morsels of dancing and the whole thing begins to look like a super-Impression- istic Berlin production of the 1920s. Mlle. Marchand's dancing has suflered a sea-change in her passage through the film studios ; she lacks all the brilliant gaminerie that she used to show during her earlier association with this company.
Festival Ballet, at Royal Festival Hall, provided a shop-window for two stunning Hungarian dancers, recently migrated from Trans- curtainia, who danced with magnificently effortless style and technical completeness. Nora Kovach is lovely, steady, co-ordinated, and a born lyrical dancer, Istvan Rabovsky outspins and outjumps every other male dancer seen here during twenty-five years ; after some requisite polishing he will go on astounding us for a long time ... if we are still in the period when pluperfect technical execution is in
itself enough to look for in a ballet. A. V. C.
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