CONTEMPORARY ARTS
BALLET Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. (Stoll.)
THE theme of John Taras 's Piege de Lumiere as an extremely interesting one, and the ballet is the weightiest work which the Company has yet presented this season. Its oPening scene, in the escaped convicts' imp, is most telling : and splendid use has been made of the company's strongest feature—its male dancers. From there on it has not been quite so successfully realised, and one finds such astonishing lapses of taste as the butterflies' costumes, and the Polies Bergeres tableau upon which the curtain rises in the third scene. The com- pany, as a whole, excels at turns, and it is a Pity that the choreographer has so ex- ploited this quality as rather to minimise its effect. What enormous demands he has Made upon his leading dancers, and how amazing it is that Hightower, Skouratoff and Golovine stand up with such apparent ease to the tremendous strain of their roles. Of Ski bine 's ballets, I like The Grey Angel Most of all Poetic and tender in mood—as also is Annabel Lee—it seems more truly to express its creator's personality than the Jerky and often incomprehensible Idylle. Both Marjorie Tallchicf and Skibine have developed considerably since their last visit : to her beautiful legs, line and easy certainty of execution, Tallchief has now added a delicate warmth of feeling. It is impossible to resist drawing a com- parison between the de Cuevas La Sylphide and that, still so fresh in our minds, of the Danes. For some reason difficult to define, the former, though full of excellent things, lacks the magic and much of the charm that so delighted us in the latter production. The Danish boys and girls were dressed in near-authentic Scottish garb, thus stressing the contrast between the bonnie Effie and the ethereal Sylphide ; also their colours appeared rich and sonorous against the greyness of Scottish stone instead of wishy- Washy as those of Daycle. And was Rosella Hightower just a trifle too arch, not quite !emote enough ? I cannot put my finger on it, but this La Sylphide doesn't quite come off.
LILLIAN BROWSE
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