ARTS
Petipa's Beauty awakes
Robert Greskovic on the Kirov Ballet's newly researched Sleeping Beauty Earlier in this decade of surprising occurrences within Russia, the tricolour Russian flag began flying atop Kremlin spires where the Soviet Union's scarlet and gold, hammer and sickle banner had previ- ously flown for what seemed like an eterni- ty. Now, perhaps even more surprisingly, at least to those who watch world culture as eagerly as world politics, Russia's august Kirov Ballet has put on stage a production of The Sleeping Beauty that aims to expunge all the 'improvements' made by Soviet bal- let masters and to reclaim its 1890 origins by way of records currently housed in the United States.- The resulting, four-hour spectacle had its premiere on 30 April in St Petersburg before opening the troupe's recent two-week season at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
The restaging was based on research of Marius Petipa's original choreography, and has the following credit: `Sergei Vikharev based on the Stepanov notations in the Sergeyev Collection of Harvard University.' The `ballet-feerie' in a prologue and three acts, plus apotheosis, has a score by Tchaikovsky to a libretto based on the fairy- tales of Charles Perrault. Vikharev's stag- ing came about at the behest of Makhar Vaziev, the company's current director; it displaces a succession of previous Soviet productions. All of the earlier Kirov stag- ings, despite their sundry emendations and modernisations', came with confident claims to being essentially Petipa's work.
Now comes Vaziev's Kirov, calling a halt to the former Soviet ballet's bluff notion that it was a world unto itself, utterly self- sufficient and in no way beholden to sources outside its inner sanctums. The all- Balanchine quadruple bill, which Vaziev chose as the climax to the Kirov's New York stint, proved unprecedented and sur- prising in its way, but the re-thought Beauty remained in a category all its own regard- ing the unexpected. The records which Vikharev studied were those maintained by Nicholas Sergeyev, the former imperial bal- let master who slipped the documents out of Soviet Russia in 1918 before making his name in Western Europe, primarily in Eng- land, where he recreated a sizeable reper- tory of Petipa ballets. (England's Mona Inglesby, to whom Sergeyev left his note- books, sold the collection to Boston's Har- vard University in 1969.) Now, precisely 50 years after Ninette de Valois's Sadler's Wells (now Royal) Ballet wowed New York with a production of The Sleeping Beauty mounted according to Sergeyev's notes, the Kirov arrived with its own rendering from the same sources. I didn't see those 1949 performances, but I have seen that production and its `descen- dants' since the late 1960s, and, without taking away from the wonders of the Sergeyev staging that de Valois and her longtime, genius right hand Frederick Ash- ton enriched with their own savvy touches, it is still fair to say that the Kirov's newly researched Sleeping Beauty will become the flagship of all Petipa Beautys hence.
To be sure, the Kirov's use of American- held archives was only part of the big undertaking. A crucial part of the project mined sources long held in Petersburg itself, namely those documenting the bal- let's many sets and many more costumes. The original scenic designers numbered five, and their work has been scrupulously recaptured now by Andrei Voitenko. The original costume scheme was devised by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Intendant of the Impe- rial Theatres, who also helped work out the ballet's libretto; Elena Zaitseva judiciously oversaw the 'translation' of Vsevolozhsky's 19th-century fairytale aesthetic for 20th- century ballet physiques.
Unfortunately, not every aspect of the Kirov's lovingly detailed work could be shown in New York. The ballet's legendary panorama, the artfully unspooled length of scenery engineered and painted to depict the journey of the prince to the castle of the sleeping princess, could not readily be transferred from the Maryinsky to the Met, and had to be left in Russia. Similarly, though the large number of personnel on stage, including child performers, outdid every other production of Beauty previously shown in the States, the fullness of forces was curtailed a bit on tour, particularly with regard to children. But, even in the face of such 'nips and tucks', a notable grandeur remained.
The Prologue, presenting Princess Auro- ra's Christening, unfolds in outline as we've come to know it, only much more lushly, with more elaborate pageantry. The resolu- tion of the wondrously choreographed pas de six, in which the good fairies present individual gifts, climaxed by individual solo dances, to the Princess, is eye-filling, first from geometrically swelling forces and finally in elaborate tableau. The last act, a parade and dance showcase for numerous fairytale characters, celebrates the nuptials of the awakened Princess and the pure- hearted prince who broke the spell that held her captive. It all ends with a glorious apotheosis that spreads out like a sunrise refracted on the foam in wave after wave of an incoming tide.
Still, as any balletgoer will tell you, with- out a remarkable ballerina, a woman forti- fied by far more than her company's hopeful regard, to illuminate a role as cen- tral and commanding as that of the Princess Aurora, Beauty is no more than a pretty show. Led by the extraordinarily tal- ented Svetlana Zakharova and Diana Vish- neva, who danced Aurora on the first and second nights, respectively, the Kirov's Beauty lived precisely up to its name. Zakharova has an exquisitely fine-boned physique, which she can work to look as sorrowing as a weeping willow or as ecstat- ic as a day-lily saluting the sun. Vishneva is a goddess of an athlete, projecting a radi- ance that is both beguiling and potent.
Other Kirov Beauty dancers also made much of their roles. Notably the sly and powerful Igor Zelensky who was a golden Prince Desire. A shimmering Dania Pavlenko made much of the Lilac Fairy and her blissful dancing and beneficent miming. Anton Korsakov, a mere slip of an 18-year- old, innocently worked wonders with the legend-bound role of the Blue Bird.
As of now, the weakness in the grand tapestry of this 19th-century ballet specta- cle is the pantomime. Though the new stag- ing allows for all the mime that Petipa and Tchaikovsky included, something previous Soviet versions excised as embarrassingly old-fashioned, the artists given the tasks of performing the mime passages haven't found the old values that made this art as musically vivid as that of academic dancing. Islom Baimuradov was especially inconse- quential as the vengeful fairy, Carabosse. And even in the case of those artists who were memorable, Vladimir Ponomarev as the King, for instance, their expressiveness remained more post-silent-movie acting than formal gesture given its full musical measure.
The bill of Balanchine ballets, which brought back to Petersburg the works of its great expatriate, amounted to little more than a worthy start for these dancers work- ing to acquaint themselves with Balan- chine's advanced ways for making ballet a fully-fledged 20th-century endeavour. But, especially being offered in New York City, Balanchine's adopted home-town, their efforts were marvellously moving. At this rate, the Kirov's dancers will one day dance Balanchine as their very own heritage, and that will be different from the way Balan- chine's own New York City Ballet dancers performed for him. Balanchine reworked Petipa to suit his new vision; the Kirov is now primed to refract Balanchine through its Petipa prism and remarry the two aes- thetics on their side of the world.
Robert Greskovic writes about dance for the Wall Street Journal; his book Ballet: A Complete Guide (1.30) will be published by Robert Hale on 30 November.
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