Ballet
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the Lake
Robin Young
The Festival Ballet seem to have assured themselves three weeks of well-sold pertormances at the Festival Hall with a tourist trapping schedule of undiluted Swan Lake. Undiluted, at least in the sense that they are not doing anything else while they are there — but the fussily untidy production does detract somewhat from the classic's qualities.
Stage space at the Festival Hall is notoriously short, but this production is much given to unnecessary and stage-consuming detail. In Act 1, for instance, an animal-skin rug is produced with a flourish and unrolled at the Prince's feet. A stool is produced. Later the rug is arranged over the stool. Then the whole lot is carried off in a debris-clearing exercise in which quite a number of the dancers seem to be doubling as Joe Lyons nippies. No one walks on the rug, or sits on the stool. So why bother?
The production has the dramatic consistency of an amateurish junket, which finally collapses to pure whey in the climax to Act 4 as. the lights go out and everyone shuffles to position for the 'apotheosis.'
Nonetheless both company and orchestra tackle their tasks with a vigour and enthusiasm which win the applause. The company is, literally, at full stretch — to the extent that they even had to draft their rawest recruit, fresh from the ballet school and her successful audition, on to the stage at less than three hours' notice before she had even officially joined. Having only been able to mark the czardas through once with her colleagues, the fact that she did not show up like a sore thumb at her unlooked-for debut is perhaps both a compliment to her and a less flattering commentary on the general standard of ensemble work prevailing.
In all, the company will be fielding six Siegfrieds and six Odette/Odiles. The premier pair, beyond challenge, are Samtsova and Prokovsky — who look good in anything, and are seldom less than,.marvellous. The guests are Patrice Bart, a Prince with more bounce and aristocracy than most of Festival's own, and Eva Evdokimova who is well-suited to her dual role only in the sense that she offers the only convincing explanation of why Siegfried doesn't use his crossbow and shoot her on sight: she is so thin she would make a damnably dismal dinner.
Schaufuss dances well but is plainly too short for the job of partnering her. He would be happier, surely, with the acceptable Kessler. Margot Miklosy, a performer whose personality shines as brightly as her teeth, is excellent in Coppelia or Nutcracker: it is difficult to take her seriously in this. Others are yet to come.
At the Roundhouse the Korean National Dance Company — a crack squad of fifty or so recruited from the best of the country's many troupes — is an improvement on the precocious Little Angels, who were the hit, you will remember, of a Royal Variety Show. Great energy, vivid colours, catchy movements, and a lot of unforced charm.
Neither so folksy, nor so skilled, are the ' Jamaican National Dance Theatre at Sadler's Wells. Their failures range from the '1'4 merely tedious to the downright embarrassing. The company is really not good fl enough to merit London appearances 18 (though this is their second). When they' tackle near-classical choreography to music by Bach they land in deep trouble, and v. even a climactic religious festival which they present could surely be bettered for excitement at any •of the larger Penteiow
costal churches. &IR
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