4 OCTOBER 1969, Page 20

BALLET

Unfading Beauty

CLEMENT CRISP

I would like to think that you can't keep a good ballet down—though the loss of such treats as Macmillan's Le Bailer de la Fee. Norman Morrice's The Tribute and Ashton's Valses Nobles a Sentimentaks leads me to believe otherwise.- But there are other ways of committing balletic mayhem, not least the lumbering of a masterpiece 'like the Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty with its present decorative style. It returned to open the Covent Garden ballet season last week, and if it seemed as subfusc as ever, it was at least illuminated by a notable perform. ance from Dame Margot Fonteyn.

This great Aurora showed once again that she understands the role so completely that even with some dimming of her tech- nical lustre she can still dance it to magical effect. In her interpretation we see that grand authority which has always marked her reading; the whole of the first act is shaped with such sensitivity, the expression of the young girl's personality is so marvel- lously judged, that time stands still, and for an enchanted half-hour we see that Aurora we have adored for over twenty years.

I am not happy about the cuts that have shrivelled the second act hunting scene into a hurried picnic apparently menaced by wild boars, and even less happy about Nureyev's somewhat cavalier rendering of the Prince in this scene. He does this, of course, with all his usual dlan, but after watching Fonteyn's impeccable phrasing and her sense of rightness in placing accents and stresses to give light and breathing space to the choreography, Nureyev's account seems cursory and rather inelegant.

For a perfect reading of the Prince's role we had to wait until Anthony Dowell appeared in partnership with Antoinette Sibley. Dowell is now a classic dancer of the first rank ; he moves with complete elegance, every step clean and nobly placed. every phrase properly understood and executed. The interpretation seems abso- lutely convincing in its princely grace and style and it is excellently matched with Antoinette Sibley's. Miss Sibley is now offer- ing an Aurora of great bravura, and I for one am prepared to be bowled over by such exultant virtuosity. In the Rose Adagio Miss Sibley dispenses with the outstretched hand that her last suitor offers, one which is usually grasped by other ballerinas with all the eagerness of a drowning man presented with a straw. Not so Miss Sibley ; with a broad smile and rock steady balance she stays happily posed in attitude while the audij

rium holds its breath and then cheers its ad off.

It is a lovely daring moment. As a whole er interpretation seems at moments too orceful ; it is lacking in feminine caprice the first act solo when Aurora is almost rung with her suitors, but the total effect wonderfully assured. Hurrah for daring, r I. Hurrah also for Vergi Derman as the veliest of Lilac Fairies at an otherwise un- citing matinee of Beauty, and a free course n animal biology to whoever thought that billy-goat who featured in the Prologue the first night would be capable of provid- anything but a sharp butt in the tummy o the infant Aurora.