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The breadth of the stage of the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, is about the only recommendation it provided for the 44-person Eifman troupe for the turgid, handsome production which their artistic director-choreographer Boris Eifman has fashioned from the history of the turbulent lineage of the Russian Romanov Dynasty. The back stage of this Bernard Maybeck-designed Arts Building of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition is just not conducive for easy production. That they performed handsomely is tribute to the esprit de corps of the ensemble and the obvious regard it holds for Eifman.

The company’s five performance run is its second San Francisco appearance. I missed their millennium debut because I was in New Orleans. Having read so many rave reviews, I wondered just whether Eifman could possibly live up to the reputation. Happily he does, and then some. How lucky we are! Eifman can weave a roaring good choreographic melodrama and his dancers support his story line with every thirty-second inch of their considerable line and training. With the San Francisco area possessing an estimated 70,000 Russian immigrants, it’s quite likely the company will make this a frequent touring stop. The opening, which I attended, was a fascinating array of Russians: greying aesthetes, middle aged entrepreneurs, and immigrant dancers from St. Petersburg.

Catherine the Great was Sophie, a 16-year-old princess from Anhalt-Zerbst, a minor German principality married off at 16 in 1745 to Peter Fedorovich, designated by Elizabeth as the heir to the throne and son to her sister, Anne, Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp. Peter was not known for his interest in Catherine and while she bore Paul in 1754, his paternity was questioned.

Peter ascended the throne in 1761, occupied himself with Prussian type uniforms and drilling practices, and attempted to introduce Roman Catholicism. He lasted less than seven months before the palace guards and Catherine engineered a coup in June, 1762, and Catherine became Empress of all the Russias, designating her son Paul as her heir. The German-Russian connection and love-hate-power struggle obviously predates Nicholas II and Alexandra. The conflicts of the two world wars to determine which bear is the strongest has long antecedents.

From such beginnings Paul had to wend his way amidst the intrigues of the Russian court. The storm and buffeting and its inroads on an impressionable psyche provided Boris Eifman with the material for his panorama of power, passion and paranoia.. Originally created for the Bolshoi Ballet, one can imagine the effect of the set, its vaulting dome with places for pausing, appearing and disappearing, as well as the frequent, highly effective use of drapery on that huge stage. Still on the comparative postage stamp stage in San Francisco, the overwhelming lofty dome, the grandiosity of unending yards of trains or veils, the single red velvet chair embroidered with a golden double-headed Romanov eagle, managed an impressive impact.

The Prologue gave us the conflict between Catherine and Peter. The Court Favorite collapsed Catherine’s many lovers into one symbolic figure and with Catherine stages the coup with the son as inadvertent witness to the murder. Even if you didn't read the scenario, you somehow grasp that little Paul will never enjoy the freedom to become his own person. If the press was ignorant, Encore Communications thoughtfully included Xeroxed commentary to provide a cogent outline.

Igor Markov, who danced Paul, was found in the next scene still in his mobile crib but attended by a number of fetching nursemaids in white caps and ruffled bottoms skirts, dancing around him with such animation I wondered if they initiated him sexually. This passage served to get him dressed in court costume ready to meet Mama, arriving with an incredibly long train, Court Favorite, danced by Albert Galichanin, nearby. Both he and Albert Rachinsky, Catherine’s husband Peter, have the longer craggy handsome faces while Markov is the epitome of the broad browed Russian with large eyes. All possessed elegant line, the silhouette courtesy of Vaganova training.

Yelena Kusmina was suitably commanding and emotional as Catherine. Long and lean, she reminded me of Suzanne Farrell rather than the plump aplomb seen in Catherine’s portraits. There was never any doubt about her ability to plot or connive, although I would imagine that the historical Catherine never resorted to birds of prey wings as port de bras. Kusmina manages to convey both Catherine’s grasp of command laced also with concern that her son be channeled into directions she found acceptable. The maternal twinges are clearly projected, intertwined with affairs of state.

Catherine/Kusmina presents Alina Solonskaya to Paul as his bride. Despite the forced arrangement she seems to make him happy. But Paul’s bride then forces him to try the throne for size. Catherine takes due note of this manipulation. So Catherine/ Kusmina sets her Favorite to the task of seducing the bride, making darned sure that Paul witnesses the process. The next step, obviously, is first the Bride, and then the Favorite, to meet the hapless fate of those who play with power at the bidding of a ruthless monarch. Those sweeping draperies really get a work out. Paul becomes increasingly aware of life’s fragility under such absolutism. Remaining only a few steps this side of Dostoevski’s Idiot, he still manages to impress his mother with his own awareness, which only makes for a total chasm between them.

This pitched conflict is rendered with fabulous extensions a la seconde, the splendid Kirov style attitudes, broad second positions en pointe, and a fair amount of Graham-like contractions with rivulets of anger, horror, revulsion and abject humiliation moving through the torsos of these remarkable dancers. Dressed in wonderful costumes of black, green and scarlet to burgundy, the visual impact is glorious as well as turgid..

In late March the company was due to premiere Don Quixote at City Center in New York, and I’ll bet Eifman has created something closer to Cervantes’s spirit. If they return to San Francisco in 2002 I can hardly wait.