Ballet
The Girls to Watch
By CLIVE BARNES NOWADAYS Covent Garden rarely has the chance to'put its gala face towards the World, and the off-stage spectacle pre- sented for the Shah of Persia made an intriguing and, for all its tastelessness, even impres- sive sight. With the white shirts —all beautifully stuffed—of the Diplomatic Corps ranged round a Grand Tier that was in its grandest mood, Beefeaters on sturdily inconse- quential point-duty in the aisles, and diamonds winking knowingly on all sides, this bean-feast for Top People must have presented the Shahanshah with a slice of British life which, if not typical, was at least gracious. The Crush Bar—which had been put out of bounds—was apparently decked out as a Persian pavilion, the specially constructed Royal Box had also been given a subtly, blue- and-orange Persian flavour with papier-mâché peacocks and all, while even the orange pro- grammes, scattered with embossed gold stars, were supposedly in the shape of a Persian leaf and looked like flattened, distorted rugger balls.
The whole programme—for the most part re- ceived by the Grand Tier with stoic impassivity —proved blandly inoffensive and was excitingly danced by the Royal Ballet at peak form. The evening's main dish was flanked on each side by an isolated act of Coppelia and Cinderella, the first notable for the panther-like athleticism of David Blair, the second for the bounce of Alexander Grant and the limpid purity of Svetlana Beriosova. The main dish itself, Frederick Ashton's Les Rendezvous, was a soufflé impeccably prepared by choreographer and dancers, yet served up on a dirty plate by the management.
Les Rendezvous had its first performance back in 1933, when itt marked Ashton's debut as a choreographer with the then Vic-Wells Ballet. That it has had to wait till now for this produc- tion of an enlarged version is partly a reflection of the British tendency to dismiss guiltily as mere frivolity any ballet that tells no story or grinds no axe. This was dancing for the sake of dancing.
The ballet concerns itself—loosely and with the barest minimum of characterisation—with young people supposedly meeting in a park. The revival is ravishingly well danced by the large corps de ballet, who bound across the stage in great wide-spanned leaps, and go spinning through the choreographer's hoops with that par- ticular mixture of athleticism, grace and animal vitality that is one of the classic ballet's noblest joys. The leading roles are given with impudent zest by Nadia Nerina and Brian Shaw. Nerina, a technical wonder and an undervalued treasure in our national company, flies through the ballet like a flamboyant bird of paradise. Shaw, supple and fluent, with a technique disguised by tech- nique, makes her an elegant suitor.
But all these brave new dancers have been stabbed in the back by a desperately inadequate production. The hopelessly inappropriate ball- room setting has been handed down from the Opera Company's unwanted La Traviata- Thrift, Horatio!—and the costumes, newly de- signed by William Chappell, combine poisonous greens, sky blue and pale yellows, and are cut with fussy chic and chain-store taste. An ade- quate production for Les Rendezvous would have cost at most £3,000. Ironically enough, con- sidering the pains taken by the Foreign Office, this gala was, in fact, almost overshadowed by the Covent Garden debut the night before of an unknown twenty-year-old Canadian dancer in Swan Lake. Lynn Seymour has recently been dancing Odette/Odile in Australia with the tour- ing branch of the Royal Ballet, and now on its return to England she was given this chance to show her paces in London. From her first en- trance, swooping in with the untroubled dignity of a young Russian, she instantly showed that rare ballerina quality, recognisable but elusive.
Her round face and neat body are classically perfect—except for a neck too short for those ideal ballerina proportions, which hardly any ballerina ever fulfils. Technically she is still a little immature. Her lack of stamina—chiefly noticeable in her solos—finds her flagging and 'forcing at the end of a series of turns. Her dancing is pliant and free, at times even undisciplined, but her whole body is used with a still-diffident eloquence, and her lyrical phrasing of the music shows a natural intelligence. Even at this early stage there is an individuality about her movements that sets her apart from her fellows. She was immensely helped by the partnering of Donald MacLeary, equally young and only a little more experienced, whose acting, however, was gauche and altogether too soft even for nineteenth-century ballet roman- ticism. But his copy-book partnering—including high, effortless lifts in the Bolshoi style—and virile, controlled dancing also mark him out as a hope whiter than most.
The Royal Ballet has had less luck with its second young aspirant ballerina from the Aus- tralian tour, Susan Alexander, who was shown off at a later performance in Coppelia. Physically she has much the same qualities as Seymour, even to the short neck. Her dancing is, in a limited sense, technically superior to the Canadian girl's, but she chops her steps up in a way, that destroys fluency. Her acting went little further than a display of sham petulance and the gushing fly- catcher grin of a deb. It was Antoinette Sibley who swiped the evening's honours with a sweetly pure solo in the last act. She and Seymour are the girls to watch for in the future.
Common to both these performances of Swan Lake and Coppelia was the conducting of John Lanchbery, Musical Director of the Royal Ballet's touring section, but an all too rare visitor to Covent Garden. After hearing so many ballet conductors obviously on the wrong route, it was a pleasure to hear the orchestra playing so well and to see the dancers responding so naturally.
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