Ballet
Elusive Makarova
Ko in Y OUng A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke. There were times, however, in her Covent Garden debut as Giselle when Natalia Makarova defied the accuracy of this unchivalrous Kiplingesque observation. Particularly in her first meeting with Albrecht in the graveside glade of Act 2, she moved like a wraith, with all the lightness of a Passing Cloud. The stage around her in the curtain calls looked like Floral Hall in its days of abundance, and she has since been hailed in the public prints as
unrivalled' and 'a genius.'
She is not the most beautiful of prima ballerinas. The most noticeable feature of her oval face is her astonishingly large and prominent set of teeth, and her body is so thinly fleshed that she can only be described as knobbly. Sometimes the lighting unflatteringly creates the illusion that her limbs are really a series of joints tied together with rope.
Considering her diminutive stature and frailty, her strength as a dancer is amazing. She remains, however, an elusive personality. When she fled the Kirov troupe in London in 1970, she managed to disappear without trace for days. The world in general is little the wiser about her motivations and character now. As a press interviewee, she is an expert in saying nothing. Sadly I find her dancing similarly uncommunicative.
I particularly do not like her in Giselle where her Act 1 interpretation seems at variance with what the ballet-makers intended. I believe that she prepares for performances in this role by listening to other music, like, for example, Bach's violin and oboe concerto. She certainly does not have much sympathy for Adam. Having slowed Lanchbery and the orchestra to a grindingly halting pace, she still managed to drag languidly behind — showing great virtuosity in technique, no doubt, but little regard for the ballet.
It strained one's credulity that this Giselle's mother should come out of their cottage with dire warnings about headstrong, frolicsome dancing, and Giselle's giddy spell, in this context of extremely varied paces, became an unintelligible incident. This was not an innocent village maiden who thought she had found Prince Charming in a peasant: it was a sophisticated, calculatingly flirtatious woman of the world who might, one felt, have recognised Loys for his true worth, and only gone mad with frustration at having her scheme to seduce him wrecked by Bathilde.
Act 2 was better, because Makarova does have a spiritual, ethereal quality of lightness which suits this transmogrification. She also has a Russian daring, which makes, for example, her inductory spin when Myrtha lifts her veil a breathtaking experience. It was a performance with star quality, but charged with scant emotion and no romantic feeling. Dowell made a splendid Albrecht, Drew a convincing Hilarion, and Bergsma gave a good account of Myrtha in a contrasting style which went uncomfortably alongside that of the guest artist.
Because of accident and her American commitments, a televised extract from Swan Lake with Nureyev had hitherto been our only‘chance to see Makarova in Britain since the Kirov tour from which she abruptly dissociated herself. When that was filmed she had been threatened with assassination, and her performance, understandably, was shaky. There was none of that on Tuesday night, when she had the more stolid support of Donald MacLeary and danced the steps with faultless precision. Tchaikovsky Miss Makarova does find sufficiently profound, but her interpretation retains a quality of surrealist aloofness qualifying the passionate, romantic involvement at which Covent Garden's dancers usually aim.
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