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Stars of the BolshoiApril 2001 London, Drury Lane by Jane Simpson |
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The committed ballet audience may argue the merits of the Kirov, the Paris Opera Ballet, or the Royal Ballet, but to the general public the best known classical company is still the Bolshoi. When it first appeared in London in 1956, people slept in the street for three nights to get tickets; those days are long gone, but the impresario Raymond Gubbay is relying on the still famous name to fill the Drury Lane Theatre for a 30-performance season. It's a gamble: for one thing, this isn't the whole Bolshoi company, but a group of a dozen or so leading dancers and a female corps de ballet; and the last time the Bolshoi tried something like this, in the Albert Hall a few years ago, they took a critical pasting which seriously damaged their reputation. Each of the three programmes on offer consists of one longer work followed by a series of short pieces. First up was Act 2 of Swan Lake. Once a staple of almost every company's repertory, it stands perfectly well on its own, and makes a good show piece for the corps de ballet as well as for the principal dancers. It's perhaps a pity that this production, by Yuri Grigorovich, starts with a scene for Prince Siegfried and the wicked Rothbart which can make no sense to someone who doesn't know the story - but that's soon over, and with the Swan Queen's entrance we're deep into the most familiar of all balletic images. Anna Antonicheva's dancing is clear, classical and lovely: with a stronger characterisation she could become an excellent Odette; her Siegfried, Andrei Uvarov, is a fine partner, though for my taste he's too lightweight for a romantic hero. Antonicheva also featured in a drifting adagio from Petipa's Raymonda to open the second half, this time partnered by Sergei Filin, who's undoubtedly one of the company's biggest stars. He didn't get much chance to show off here, but made up for it when he returned at the end of the evening in the famous Don Quixote pas de deux. He has enough style and elegance to keep this old favourite from degenerating into a circus piece, and a finely-honed technique to make it genuinely exciting. The big disappointment of the evening was his partner, Maria Alexandrova. Much applauded the last time the Bolshoi was here in full strength, she is technically very strong - she could turn fouettées for ever, it seemed - but short on charm and subtlety. Both these qualities were much more in evidence from the irresistible Nina Kaptsova, dancing the pas de deux from Nutcracker with Yan Godovsky - she's a delight to watch, her enjoyment of her dancing lighting up the stage. In Bournonville's Flower Festival pas de deux - stylistically a world away from the rest of the evening - Dmitry Gudanov's fast footwork and light jump outdid his partner's; it will be interesting to see him tackling one of Nijinsky's great roles in a later programme. Finally, a pas de deux form the second act of Giselle showed us Svetlana Lunkina, perhaps the best known of the women in this group, bringing even this brief extract to life with her delicate strength.
So, a programme full of interest for balletomanes - but how would it strike the new audiences Gubbay is hoping to attract? If I'd never been to the ballet before, I think I'd have found the succession of pas de deux in the second half rather bewildering. There's no historical or logical order to be seen, and the programme notes give little help, even if you have time to read them - they're rather academic and dry, giving no hint at the story of any of the ballets on show. The later programmes, especially the last one, feature more complete pieces and may turn out more cohesive; and from this sample, everyone should be able to find enough fine dancing to make the evening worthwhile.
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