STAGE AND SCREEN The Ballet
Russian Ballet at Covent Garden DE Bits' es Russian ballet season at Covent Garden is now in full swing. For a time both opera and ballet were occupying the theatre. It is easy to imagine that the first two nights of ballet must have been given under considerable difficulties, especially since Dc Basil's company now numbers no fewer than sixty-eight dancers, an increase of seventeen since last year. But if difficulties were suggested on the first night, the second performance at once answered the question whether or not the might of the company had been main- tained. The truth is that even if, for the moment, we leave additions to the repertoire out of account—the revival of Scheherexade, for example—the Russian ballet has come back to us with surprising new gifts added to the old.
One of the rewards reaped by the Russian ballet enthusiast is this : that the dancers in whom he takes an interest improve, develop, evolve out of all knowledge : and herein, too, lies the first secret of Russian ballet's perennial strength. Thus, even on the first night it was obvious that Toumanova had come back an artist of a more enduring calibre. Last year we admired her beauty, her gymnastic; and her verve : she had partly fulfilled her promise, but as a classical dancer she left a great deal to be desired. Today she gives in Aurora's Wedding an exquisite performance of the fifth variation and of the pas de deux. No longer does she over- stress her movement. She has attained a serenity required of the ballerina. Perhaps one qualification should be made to this announcement, a criticism that applies to several other of the young dancers as well as to Toumanova. When expressing the classical style she has not as yet learned to compose with ease the beauty of her face. As for the Baronova of this year, I feel that we must surrender unconditionally to Mr. Arnold Haskell who has now for some time proclaimed her promise to be unrivalled. Baronova's performance in the second part of Presages was always astonishing. Her present performance demands the equally useless epithet, " miraculous." But indeed it is hard to credit the degree of perfection that she shows when, for instance, emerging from a pirouette upon the point she flings her arms wide. This second part of Presages, then, is even more impressive than heretofore. Lechine also is in good form. I hope that he will take up again those transverse leaps, that lightning passage across the stage in the fourth part (an entry of im- portance to the choreographic structure) which so far he has omitted.
' Of the men, Jasinsky, Petroff, Guerard and Shab2levsky have greatly developed. Shabelevsky's performance, as the chief of the Polovtsi bowinen, was the outstanding feature in the Prince Igor dances. When the curtain rose on the se- cond act of this opera we regretted that the Russian ballet's famous Roerich set had not been used. But as the act proceeded, an act to which the ballet serves as the climax, we saw that the choice of another Roerich set had been a wise one. For it would have been incongruous to have seen and heard singers of German, to haVe witnessed an almost Tristan-like and dilatory anguish, amid a set so long associated with the swift fierceness of the Prince Igor dances. It must be admitted that the effect of the ballet was hampered by the singers. This, I feel, need not have been so. The chorus Were ranged, almost in choir formation, on three sides' of the stage. Except for their costumes, we might have sup- posed that they were giving an oratorio. Such an inter- ference with the effect of the ballet was cruel, especially since the voices issuing from three sides must have made it exceed- ingly difficult for the dancers to hear the orchestra. Those who recall the famons production of this opera before the War say that in those dayS the chorus was an effective addition to the ballet since, rather than standing, they were strewn in a manner suitable to a bacchanal, on the outlying portions of a vaster stage. Another solution is that of De Basil who, at the gala performance of ballet last year, intro- dueed a chorus for Prince Igor. This chorui sang from the wings.
ADRIAN STOKES.
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