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The Invitation
Music: Matyas Seiber
Choreography: Sir Kenneth MacMillan
Set and Costumes: Nicholas Georgiadis
Restaging: Monica Park with Lynn Seymour
Lucia La Carra, Yuri Possokhov; Julia Adam; Vadim Solomankha; Anita Paciotti; Alica LuAn LewitzkeJulie Diana; Damian Smith; Rachel Rufer; Peter Brandenhoff; Anita Paciotti; Sara Sessions

The Kingdom of the Shades
Music: Ludwig Minkus
Production: Natalia Makarova
Assisted by: Sysan Jones
Tina Le Blanc; Roman RykineVanessa Zahorian,Lorena Feijoo, Yuan Yuan Tan; also Kristin Long and Muriel Maffre
alternative cast: Muriel Maffre, Pierre Francois Vilanoba, Vanessa Zahorian, Kristine Long, Yuan Yuan Tan

This was a highly anticipated program because of Makarovas involvement and staging, somewhat ironic since the full Bayadere which San Francisco Ballet will present for its 2001 spring season will be Rudolf Nureyevs production. For this one can speculate that the Nureyev Foundation may be supplying a healthy proportion of the production underwriting.

The music and the decor of The Invitation is pretty obvious, for me touched by the raucous, rather than the outraged. I was lucky to have seen Seymour and Gable in the original roles, and perhaps even Heaton and Doyle. Given the underwear ads and unbuttoned blouses in todays fashion advertising, fey intuitive young adolescents of late Victorian or early Edwardian England seem creatures from a life unbeknownst to the computerized, televised youth of today. For any of us over fifty, however, or for young individuals with carefully sequestered sensitivities, the behavior still strikes a nerve. MacMillans work, however dated, still provides some stellar opportunities for dramatic characterization, and the ballet does share kinship with Tudors Pillar of Fire in its overall configuration of repression, violent exposure to sexuality and the uneven outcome of carnal initiation.

Anita Paciottis widow is a court of no reprieve, so gracious, so unyielding. In Yuri Possokhov, one has a heel one relishes to hate, brooding and emotional and in Julia Adam a frustrated wife whose emotion has turned to a still correctness. It was an interesting contrast to see the same roles danced by Damian Smith and Rachel Rufer, for the emotional qualities were reversed. Rufer the warmer and Smith more still and contained, each giving a cultural quality to their portraits.

For the Youth Vadim Solamankha was paired with Lucia La Carra, an even toned casting on the lyric and rather grand scale. La Carras obvious physical agility and a flexible body which evokes memories of Audrey Hepburn while still being very much herself seems all too subliminally aware of what she is about, obviously pretty and provocative in a well-bred way.

Julia Diana and Peter Brandenhoff were equally well paired, their dramatic abilities succinctly conveying alternately the awkward, self-conscious qualities in physical growth and a sweet communication of two long-term intimates trembling on the threshold of adulthood and passion. Brandenhoffs business with his hands and his suit were entirely convincing and the flounces of Julia Diana made on realize how unconscious she is of cause and effect.

While both performances were excellent, as an ensemble the Diana/Brandenhoff/Smith/Rufer cast with Sara Sessions as the Governess possessed an unusual cohesion and unity. I later saw Stephen Legate opposite Diana and he too gave a tender rendering to the young man. But Brandenhoffs dramatic abilities provides him with pride of place, along with Julie Diana.

There is little I can expand upon regarding La Bayadere that ballet.co readers dont already know, except to talk about the quality of the corps de ballet in the production and individual soloists. I saw only Tina La Blanc and Muriel Maffre as Nikiya and Roman Rykine and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba as Solor. My first exposure came from the Royal Ballet and I saw the full-length production of American Ballet Theatre when Makarova first staged it. In 1995 I saw four performances of the full-length Bayadere be the Korean National Ballet Company, staged by Marina Kondratieva, when it was directed by Hae Shik Kim. Two or three of the Korean soloists were then in training with the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballet Schools and Tatiana Choi of the Stanislavsky Ballet danced the role of Gamzatti..

I think it hard for the average American dancer to project themselves into a mysterious, mystique nineteenth century atmosphere, bred by an aristocratic, elite atmosphere in a country frozen seven to eight months a year. There is also little quibble about the benchmark it means for a non-Russian company to essay its remarkable display of ensemble. The company received its first leg up when Irina Jacobson coached the corps de ballet in Swan Lake. My companion complained about the walk in the entree of the twenty four shades, feeling the steps were more like a laundromat than a hazy, opium induced vision. For the rest, though I saw one or two wobbles in arabesque en place, the deportment was impeccable and it was obvious it was ecole classique rather than ecole romantique. Natalia Makarova did an excellent job.

Given the crystalline nature of the major roles, and the demands for absolute classicism, Nikiya lacks space to convey the character possible in Swan Lake as Odette and ditto for Solor versus Siegfried. Bayadere is nearly two decades earlier. Given those limitations and drug-induced nature of the act itself, I felt Rykine and Vilanoba, still nursing a muscle injury, did very well. Of the two, Vilanoba conveys feeling with greater ease, by Rykine takes a back seat to no one in his command of a Russian approach to a classical assignment. Tina Le Blanc and Muriel Maffre are, of course, faced with the necessity of a totally different attack because of their physical size. Le Blanc reminds one that this was one of Matilde Kesschinskas most noted roles, and the brilliance of her chaines was undeniable, impeccably clear and aptly phrased. Maffre was clearly majestic.

The soloists were excellent throughout. Kristin Longs speed and brio invariably made the two differing variations she executed looked tossed off with ease. Yuan Yuan Tan and Muriel Maffre danced the third variation which lent itself to the amplitude of their line. Lorena Feijoo danced the second variation and Vanessa Zahorian the first one when I saw them, and both seemed quite at home with the technical demands.

With this most classical act in hand, it will be interesting to see what the company as a whole does with Nureyevs full length Bayadere. For sheer zest and dramatic conviction, San Francisco will have to go a ways to exceed the Koreans.