Dance
La Bayadere; Swan Lake (Royal Ballet, Coliseum)
Number crunching
Giannandrea Poesio
Within the ballet world, the number 32 is a special one. In Swan Lake, the evil black swan dazzles the typically gullible ballet hero with 32 fouettees — quick turns on one point while the 'free' leg performs circular 'whipping' movements from and to the supporting leg — a virtuoso feat creat- ed in 1893 by the Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani. In La Bayadere, 32 corps de ballet ladies, representing the spirits of dead tem- ple dancers and known in the trade as the `shades', enter one by one performing the same sequence 32 times, thus creating a mesmerising effect that should visually reproduce the flock of angels portrayed by Gustav Dore in one of his prints for Dante's Commedia — which inspired the choreographer Marius Petipa.
Curiously, while the interpolated fouet- tees have become a sacrosanct feature of the 19th-century repertoire, the artistic and historical significance of the 32 shades has been seldom respected. Consequently, few people dare to tinker with the black swan's technicalities — in order not to upset those balletomanes whose greatest and, alas, only fun is to count each fouettee — whereas the poor shades have often been mistreated.
Yet, Petipa's choreographic invention is far more representative of 19th-century balletic canons than that absurd display of physical resistance and technical skill. Evi- dence of this historical and artistic injustice could be seen last week at the Coliseum, where the Royal Ballet performed the two works in question as opening items of its summer season.
I have already reviewed both Natalia Makarova's production of La Bayadere and Anthony Dowell's version of Swan Lake, and there is no need to list again the histor- ical flaws that, in my opinion, vitiate both productions. All that is worth saying here is that Makarova's La Bayadere suffers from a contradictory approach to the 19th-century text. The arbitrary riddance of many 19th- century choreographic numbers clashes with the even more arbitrary and terribly phoney-looking re-creation of the long lost last act. Moreover, what is the point of hav- ing a crumbling temple once the ballet has been purged of all the other theatrical effects — elephant included — it is famous for? What is more worrying, though, is that the 'shades' have been decimated for no artistic or dramatic reason whatsoever. Although 24 is still a large number of dancers, they do not quite create the same .hypnotic effect obtained when the original 32 descend one by one down the slope at the back of the stage.
Similarly, Dowell's Swan Lake is a curi- ous mixture of mothball-scented philologi- cal reconstruction and bits and bobs stemming from that cauldron of interpola- tions scholars generally refer to as 'perfor- mance tradition'. Its contradictions, however, are less choreographically harm- ful — and therefore more acceptable than those in Makarova's La Bayadere.
Nowadays, however, few people seem to bother about these stylistic and choreo- graphic problems and both works were greeted with some enthusiasm. It's a pity that, much as I wanted to, I found it diffi- cult to share such a positive reaction. While I do acknowledge that the company has excellent artists such as Darcey Bussell, Belinda Hatley, Sarah Wildor, Sarah Gal- lie, Igor Zelensky, Irek Mukhamedov, Bruce Samson and William Trevitt — to name the ones who really struck me last week — I cannot help having serious reser- vations about the corps de ballet.
Clockwork co-ordination, pure symme- try, stylistic unity and full awareness of what team work means in ballet terms namely to have all legs raised at the same height, regardless of the technical potential of some individuals — are fundamental prerequisites of choreographic works such as the ones mentioned above. I am afraid that what I saw was far from being a fault- less application of these golden rules.
Physical unity seems to have become a problem too. I do not know whether this kind of remark is politically correct, but then the art of ballet and the ballet's aes- thetics were never meant to be. A good corps de ballet does not need to be a bunch of anorexics or clones, but it must at least have some uniformity. The company is suf- fering, of course, from being homeless, but that excuses those flaws only in part. To be homeless, for instance, has little to do with the lack of conviction shown by the corps de ballet in some of the most significance moments. A shame, for that is another essential prerequisite for a first-class rendi- tion of the 19th-century repertoire. And, at the same time, it is the only way to make those swans credible and to evoke the true magic of the 'shades', whether they are 24 or 32.
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