Guillem Reviews RB ‘Lilac Garden’ reviews all RB reviews Jim's Guillem website

Caroline, about to enter into a marriage of convenience, tenders a farewell evening garden party to precede her wedding. Among the guests are the man she really loves and the woman who, unknown to her, is her fiancé's discarded mistress. Quick meetings and interrupted confidences culminate with Caroline leaving on the arm of her betrothed, never having satisfied her desperate longings for the final kiss.

The Royal Ballet's revival in 1968 of Antony Tudor's earlier production for Ballet Rambert was danced by Svetlana Beriosova and Donald MacLeary. It is reported that "sadly it failed to achieve the intensity necessary for its theme". So what, then, were Sylvie Guillem and Jonathan Cope to make of it? I have heard it said that this ballet is somehow "too English" to be suitable for Guillem. What rubbish! Sylvie Guillem can bring her individual interpretation to Tudor's choreography and Ernest Chausson's music as well as any one. And since when has the yearning to be with the one you want to be with, rather than the one you are expected to be with, failed to transcend any national or cultural boundaries? One definition of art is that it takes you beyond yourself, it makes you experience the feelings of others, and Sylvie Guillem does that most exquisitely.

Her attempts to snatch a few moments together with her true love are so sensitively portrayed, each little glance over the shoulder towards him so engorged with pathos. And finally, on the arm of her intended, she gestures a wave to each of the guests, saving the last for her lover, throwing one more glance back over her shoulder as she exits on the arm of her fiancé. I had to try hard to stop myself yelling out a stricken "WAAAAH!"

Guillem's artistry never fails to astonish me. No fireworks here - no whizzing fouettés, no leggy extensions, no breathtaking slow-motion developpés: it is sometimes what she is not doing that can convey so much feeling, such grace, subtelty, fluency, control and absolute command of the stage, the audience and even, one feels, the orchestra. I wish I could see it again.