Intriguing drama
Giannandrea Pomo
Anastasia The Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House
The 1972 ballet Anastasia is one of the most intriguing expressions of Kenneth MacMillan's narrative abilities and, more particularly, of his still unparalleled use of different storytelling and dramatic devices. Unlike any of his other works, Anastasia stands out for the way the drama unfolds through the choreographic narration of events that are neither consequential nor strictly related to each other. The first two acts thus focus on two very different moments in the life of the Russian Imperial family on the eve of the October Revolution, while the third act portrays the inner torment of Anna Anderson, the woman believed by some to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia and the sole survivor of the Ekaterinburg massacre.
Such an intentionally fragmented structure is central to the ambiguity of the story. We cannot be sure whether the young girl we see in the first two acts is the mentally ill person who appears in the third act, even though the characters who surrounded the former reappear in the asylum where the latter is confined. In the end, it is entirely up to the viewer to decide what to believe.
This elusiveness also stems from two strategically deployed narrative devices. Firstly, the ballet has no final denouement. Anna Anderson remains alone, lost in both her nightmares and an even grimmer reality. Secondly, the first two acts are deprived by the choreographer of a proper protagonist. Although the young Grand Duchess is the link between one scene and another, in the first two acts the role of Anastasia is never pivotal in the way that other MacMillan heroines are from their first entrance on stage. Trapped in a complex web of social intrigues and political unrest, the young girl is merely a silent and hapless victim. As such, she does not have the same psychological make-up that MacMillan gave his Manon, Juliet or Maria Vetsera. Instead, Anna Anderson is a fully developed character. The depiction of her inner turmoil creates a strident, though effective, contrast with the more traditional choreography and narrative of the two previous acts. Set to music by Martinu (the two previous acts are set to Tchaikovslcy's music), the third act was the first to be composed — the ballet first saw the light as a one-act piece in Germany in 1967. But contrary to the opinion of some, the conspicuous 1972 additions have not detracted from the vibrant immediacy of the piece. On the contrary, the first two acts provide the viewer with valuable clues to a deep understanding of Anderson's tragedy.
The only reservations I have are in the second act, where there are far too many subplots to the detriment of the drama's fluidity. Tsar Nicholas's well-documented love affair with the ballerina Mathilde Kshessinska, for example, lacks clarity and looks fairly superfluous, even though it provides the pretext for the choreographically luscious `Kshessinska pas de deux'. Similarly, the portrayal of the revolutionaries — their discontent and their awakening — clashes with the overall refined choreographic and dramatic quality of the work. In 1972 the contrast between the misery of the people and the luxury of the court dancing the night away might have had a different impact on the viewers; today it looks predictable and stereotypical in the extreme.
Still, I would probably not have noticed these flaws had the performance I saw, the first in the Royal Ballet's current run of Anastasia, had a little more oomph. The outbreak of the October Revolution, for instance, went almost unnoticed, thus failing to heighten the little pathos there is in Act II. The dancing was not as first-class as it was in the recent performances of Mayerling, and the general acting was not that convincing either. The sole exceptions were the splendid Tsarina of Genesia Rosato, the powerful Rasputin of Irek Mukhamedov and, above all, Leanne Benjamin's breathtaking portrayal of both Anastasia and Anna Anderson. Few ballerinas can swap so easily between an utterly credible interpretation of a young girl and that of a mature, obsessed woman. And few dancers today are able to make one appreciate MacMillan's complex choreographic palette in the way that Benjamin does.
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