Dance
Heaven at last
Deirdre McMahon
London is so starved of good classical dancing and the seat prices for the Kirov's current London season are so steep that I can understand why some people get so upset at the kind of audiences these events attract. One learns to live with it; still, I was stupefied when a suit in the row in front of me began to read a book entitled How to Bluff Your Way in Ballet. What gems of erudition, one wondered, would he stun the office with next day?
During its London visit, the Kirov is presenting some of the choicest items from its matchless classical repertory. With memories of the Bolshoi's coarse, muti- lated productions last year still lingering in the mind, the Kirov is balm to the spirit.
It is a necessary balm as this has been one of the most dismal dance seasons I can remember — dull, wretched dancing in dull, wretched productions. When the Kirov corps waltzed on stage with their garlands in the Jardin Animd scene of Le Corsaire, I felt myself thawing out. For sheer aristocratic style, this corps is incom- parable, and it has been wonderful in everything so far. Le Corsaire remains a garrulous farrago of a ballet but it is danced with great panache.
'Majesty, there is a growing consensus that you aren't wearing any clothes. How do you react to that?' As Clement Crisp observed in the Finan- cial Times last week, Swan Lake has long since ceased to be a ballet. It is, rather, a fantasy about how ballet companies see themselves. At worst it can be a miserable fraud, at its best it is a thrilling study in the lyric possibilities of classical dancing. Only the Kirov understands Swan Lake thus and this is why its production works so well. That said, some of the performances I saw were distinctly listless, particularly at soloist level. These days the Kirov seems to spend most of the season touring, which can't be good for the dancers. The Act I pas de trois suffered most: the dancing lacked fluency and Andrei Garbuz was simply not up to the male role.
At principal level the performances were equally variable. Olga Chenchikova has a formidable technique shown at its best in Act III, but projects a rather hard, compla- cent stage personality. She overpowered her Siegfried, Makharbek Vaziyev. Lyubov Kunakova, who can often look rather homely in roles like the Lilac Fairy and as Gulnara in Le Corsaire, was an unexpectedly glamorous Odette-Odile. I also admired the generosity she showed towards her young partner, the 20-year-old Igor Zelensky, who was making his debut. Zelensky, tall and blond, is one of nature's princes, tender, ardent, shyly solicitous of his partner. The way he looks at his ballerina reminded me of Peter Martins, one of ballet's greatest partners. His move- ment has a big, springy quality especially noticeable in his jumps and he has a beautiful plie. It was a wonderfully touching performance which aroused the protective instincts of every woman in the audience. There were whispers of 'Isn't he adorable' and 'Isn't he sweet'. He certainly is.
Considering the variable quality of the soloist roles in Swan Lake I was curious to see what The Sleeping Beauty would be like, particularly since in the video re- corded some years ago, the standard of the fairy variations in the Prologue and the Act III divertissements was not particularly high. The phrasing can be pedestrian and this mars the finesse and delicacy of Petipa's footwork. Where the Kirov excels is in plastique. The Russian choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov once wrote that the foundation of the choreography of The Sleeping Beauty was openness. Petipa's choreography is a pitiless lens. It reveals every line of the dancer's body, there can be no fudging or blurring of any kind.
Altynai Assylmuratova's Aurora was the most beautiful I have ever seen. Her rich, lustrous movement did honour to Petipa. Two years ago I wrote that in Swan Lake she was the only dancer who sustained the dance as drama right the way through, and this is equally true of The Sleeping Beauty. She illuminates parts of the ballet that other dancers don't bother about, like the Vision scene, where her allure radiated across the stage. In Act III her smiling, happy Aurora made the grand pas de deux with the admirable Zaklinsky a statement of love and passion. Heaven.
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