Danish delight
Giannandrea Poesio Napoli Divertissements/La Sylphide Royal Ballet Swan Lake BBC1 Johan Kobborg's staging of La Sylphide is one of the Royal Ballet's super hits. It is thus a good and glorious thing that it is back on stage. This time, too, the brief two-acter is aptly coupled with a short piece: Frederick Ashton's Rhapsody on some evenings and Kobborg's Napoli Divertissements on others. While the former foreshadows La Sylphide's tragic mood with its 20th-century dark, neoRomantic undertones, the latter is, in my view, a more pertinent coupling. After all, Napoli and La Sylphide are the two most internationally known works by the French-born August Bournonville, the dance-maker who in 19th-century Denmark developed a unique response to the dominating modes of French Romantic ballet. Kobborg's selection of dances from Napoli, including the ballet's final spirited tarantella, reveals a deep appreciation of the distinctive traits of Bournonville's style. The apparently pause-less flow of the danced action, the particular interaction between steps and musical accents, as well as more well-known Bournonvillean choreographic ideas, such as the low arms, the humming-bird-like quality of the footwork and the lack of technical disparities between genders, are perfectly highlighted by each pyrotechnical dance number. They can then be better appreciated in the more subdued choreographic layout of La Sylphide.
On the night I went, both ballets boasted stellar casts who gave impeccable renditions of the choreographic subtleties — undoubtedly thanks to Kobborg's personal knowledge of that style and excellent staging skills. Marianela Nunez, Steve McRae, Mara Galeazzi, Lauren Cuthbertson, Laura Morera, Belinda Hatley, Fernando Montano, Jose Martin and an equally superb number of soloists and corps de ballet artists brought to life the spirited essence of a ballet Bournonville created after having fallen in love with the south of Italy.
In La Sylphide, AlMa Cojocaru displayed the sensational interpretative and technical skills that make her one of the greatest interpreters of the Romantic repertoire — as could also be seen in the excellent BBC2 broadcast of Giselle on Boxing Day. Her rendition of the title role draws upon an attentive reading of the Romantic style, filtered through a contemporary approach that bestows immediacy, readability and, most of all, credibility. Next to her, Federico Bonelli, as the lovelorn James, stood out for his diamondlike technique and a truly elegant approach to the role. The Danish artist Sorella Englund was simply stunning as Madge, the creepy fortune-teller who embodies the Romantic notion of ineluctable fate, and Ricardo Cervera was equally superb as an unusually dashing Gum, James's rival.
On Sunday, BBC1 broadcast the first in a series of programmes devoted to Tchaikovsky's genius. A well-constructed documentary introduced viewers to the quintessential ballet of all times, Swan Lake. I only wish that Darcey Bussell's sparkling and pleasantly informal narration had been matched with historical accuracy. I am all for making ballet less elitist and more accessible than it normally is. But I do not think that an informal introduction ought to be a compendium of commonplaces and gross historical inaccuracies — particularly when some of the omitted information would have been entertaining for the lay viewer.
Alas, the historically and culturally marred documentary was but a prelude to a much more hair-raising broadcast of the ballet itself. What was presented in various publications as a special recording of the work, starring Uliana Lopatkina, one of the greatest contemporary interpreters, and the Kirov-Mariinsky Ballet (one of the best companies in the world), was in reality a brutally butchered televised version. I do appreciate the constraints of time and the need to make the rather complicated story accessible. But I cannot accept the need for spoken, explanatory summaries, which interrupted and hindered the flow of this masterwork and which replaced huge chunks of the choreography. Splendid sections such as the first act waltz, the dramatically vibrant finale of the first lakeside scene — which includes one of the most breathtaking solos for the ballerina — the dramaturgically significant dance of the six princesses in act three and many others were arbitrarily removed. Which is curious, given that numerous references to exactly those moments in the preceding documentary had been made by eminent speakers.
Someone could at least have had the decency to state that an abridged version of the immortal work was being broadcast. I cannot help cringing at the idea of what will be done to The Sleeping Beauty, soon to be broadcast as part of the same series. If this is the way the BBC intends to promote dance culture, would it not be better to stick to EastEnders and forget ballet altogether?
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