23 JULY 1954, Page 13

BALLET The Festival Ballet. (Royal Festival Hall.)

EVER since the premiere of La 'Esmeralda a week ago, I have been wondering what prompted Anton Dolin to make this particular choice. Was his reason the only legitimate one for a revival of any description —that the work in question is considered too fine, too interesting, to allow of its complete disappearance? Surely, in the case of La Esmeralda, Mr. Dolin would claim no such thing; surely his artistic judgement could not so far have deserted him as to allow him to place this mid-nineteenth-centilry ballet on such a le,vel. I rather suspect that the directors of the Festival Ballet company decided that a new full-programme ballet was needed to add to the repertoire, and that, as the problems of finding a choreographer, music and a new story were so formidable, they took the line of least resistance, and, faute de Anieux, -dug up this work from the archives of the Paris Opera libtary. In other words, the revival of La Esmeralda would appear to be but further evidence of the poverty of English ballet today.

Having decided upon a revival, it seems to me that almost any other choice might have met with happier results, because the music of Pugni must spell failure from the outset. It is so dull rhythmically, so lacking in light and shade that despite the dramatic possibilities of the story, M. Beriosov has been able to do little or nothing with it. The Festival Ballet company has some excellent dancers, but the odds were weighed too heavily against them, and on the opening • night, not one appeared to the best advant- age. Natalie Krassovska was suffering from a had attack- or net-yes Drubfrbiy

she felt III at case in the rol

temperament should have suggested passion and abandon, and whose death at the gallows for a blow she never struck, for a murder that was never committed, was rendered senseless by the lack of dramatic arrangement and the unacceptability of the story. Oleg Briansky and Belinda Wright, good artists though they are, were made to appear almost laughable by the caricatures that were their Costumes; and to some, the role of the lewd monk will appear offensive, for so delicate a subject needs to be treated with more sensitivity and seriousness than the general tenor of the ballet made possible. Whether Nora Kovach will be able to lift up La Esmeralda a little when she takes over the title role will only be known after this has gone to press. At any rate I do not envy her her herculean task.

LILLIAN BROWSE