2 APRIL 1965, Page 17

U NDOUBTEDLY during its first and greatest period, from 1909 until

1914, it was pri- marily its exoticisms that won the Diaghilev Ballet its enormous following. Western audiences were comparatively uninterested in Les Sylphides, or Carnaval, positively looked down their noses at the revival of Giselle, and obviously only truly wanted Nubian slaves, Tartar hordes, odalisques and fauns. Exotica and erotica—with these Diaghilev never failed. But now that our tele- vision screens look out balefully over the world from Bangkok to Reykjavik, the exoticism of a few dancers has lost its appeal. And as for eroticism! well, this has become a far more specialised branch of the entertainment industry since Diaghilev.

To some extent, this change of public taste (or perhaps public need) accounts for the failure at Covent Garden of the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, the latest Diaghilev work to be reverently restored by the Royal Ballet. To some extent, but how much an extent? For not only have aspects of the ballet undeniably dated, the performance was also undeniably pallid. It was as though the snows of yesteryear were not only melting, but it had actually started to rain. With a stronger performance, the ballet would have stood a better chance, but given even the best per- formance, would it nowadays be acceptable?

What is wrong with the Royal Ballet's per- formance can be summed up in the one word— bloodless. The ballet is well danced technically, perhaps too well danced, but without any feeling of pent-up excitement, and abandon has ob- viously been abandoned. Curiously, both Festival Ballet and even the short-lived and modest Metro- politan Ballet, have given more authentic per- formances, in spirit if not in letter.

In fact, certainly not in letter, for this produc- tion by the Diaghilev regisseur, Serge Grigoriev, and his wife, Luibov Tchernicheva, has, helped by the original Roerich designs, the air, look and feel of a careful reconstruction. The com- plexities of Fokine's choreography, its remark- able circular finale, its use of mass groupings, remain academically completely admirable, but the final impression is lifeless. These dances no longer seem barbaric or even particularly ex- citing. Yet remembering, for example, the Tartar Dance in The Fountains of Bakhchisarai, I feel that the Russians might still be able to make this Fokine ballet live. Perhaps in support of this is Rudolf Nureyev as the Chief Polovtsian Warrior, lightweight yet game, pouncing through the air like a good-natured cat, who is magnificent while still mis-cast. He, incidentally, dances a choreo- graphic version of the role unknown in the west, and one wonders why and how. Given time, our British dancers may yet relax into Prince Igor, but I suspect it is not for us.

At the Covent Garden Gala which saw the first performance of this pious reassembly there was also a reconstruction of the sweetly vulgar pas de six from Chabukiani's Laurentia (with sickly, indeed almost dead, music), a brash piece of Soviet choreography brought from Russia with love by Mr. Nureyev, and danced with eloquent relish by himself and his colleagues.

Yet, apart from the welcome revival of Ash- ton's still beguiling Birthday Offering, most in- terest at the gala was aroused by Monotones. This is a new pas de trois by Ashton, set to Satie's Gymnopedies, which is lambently beauti- ful in itself, and might possibly Presage a new development in Ashton's choreography. It was slow and very deliberate. The three white-clad dancers convoluted around one another like moving sculpture, radiantly white and appar- ently existing on some astral plane where time and space had different measurements from the ones we know. It was oddly fascinating, and fas- cinatingly odd.