Dance
The Diaghilev Legacy (Royal Ballet)
Triumphant return
Giannandrea Poesio
There is little doubt that the works pre- miered by the legendary Ballets Russes during the 20 years of their existence (1909-1929) have provided subsequent gen- erations of ballet companies with an ideal repertoire of manageable high art titles. I have lost count of the many tributes to Diaghilev I have seen in the 30-odd years I have spent in the ballet world. This is a pity because, as Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon pointed out in their hilarious murder mys- tery A Bullet in the Ballet, there is more to these works than meets the eye. Lured by the apparently fuss-free stage- ability of short one-act works such as P.etrushka, Le Spectre de la Rose or La Bou- tique Fantasque, most dance companies have often overlooked the demanding stylistic and artistic intricacies of such bal- lets. Fortunately, this is not true of the Royal Ballet's The Diaghilev Legacy pro- gramme. Excellent dancing and stunning stylistic accuracy allow a rarely experienced deep appreciation of the intrinsic qualities of four Ballets Russes hits, showing, at the same time, how much contemporary ballet trends still owe to those creations.
It was great to see Bronislava Nijinska's 1924 Les Biches back on stage at the Royal Opera House, for her choreographic canons, epitomised by the contrast between modern, mid-Twenties movements and typ- ically ballet ones, can be seen as the histor- ical antecedents of some distinctive choreographic features of Frederick Ash- ton's s oeuvre. Mara Galeaz7i gave one of e most enticing and technically breath- taking renditions of the Girl in Blue I have ever seen, while Darcey Bussell sailed with refined humour and impeccable stylistic aplomb through the choreographic demands of the Hostess's role.
Nijinska's work, however, is not the only prodigal ballet making its long-awaited return to the Royal Ballet's repertoire. The evening ends triumphantly with Michel Fokine's The Firebird (1910), which used to be one of the company's battle-horses. In between the Nijinska and the Fokine bal- lets, two philologically restored ballets by Vaslav Nijinsky, L'Apres-midi d'un faun (1912) and Jeux (1913), form the core of the programme. Based on Nijinsky's own choreographic notes, the restored version of the former is the splendid outcome of the painstaking research of eminent dance scholars Ann Hutchinson Guest and Clau- dia Jeschke. Yet, it is anything but an unearthed relic or a dead museum piece. By restoring it to Nijinsky's own concep- tion, Hutchinson Guest and Jeschke have managed to reconfer on it its long-lost the- atrical drive and to show the full extent of its amazing modernity. Similarly, Millicent Hodson's and Kenneth Archer's recon- struction of Jeux reveals Nijinsky's unique artistic eclecticism and, in particular, his unique response to the artistic beliefs pro- moted by some of his contemporaries, such as the Bloomsbury group.
All in all this is a magnificent evening, enhanced by Andrea Quinn's conducting.
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