© John Ross 'Chopiniana' reviews 'Les Sylphides' reviews 'Les Noces' reviews 'Scheherazade' reviews Tkachenko in reviews Korsuntsev in reviews recent Kirov reviews more Graham Watts reviews

In this year's homage to Diaghilev, the Mariinsky reprised Chopiniana and Scheherazade from their last visit to the Royal Opera House in 2001, replacing the Firebird with Les Noces to give a more interesting balance than two years ago.

Chopiniana is a ballet that was born in St Petersburg and is now nearing its Centenary (which will be due on 10 Feb 2007). It moved to Paris in 1909, under the new name of Les Sylphides, and has lived this double-life, with interchangeable names, ever since. It defies an obvious single label - it’s a ballet of mood, a white ballet, a choreographic suite. It is pure, simple and requires no introduction or context. It is ballet-for-ballet’s sake and, as performed by the Kirov, it is breathtakingly beautiful.

The 23 Sylphs were enchanting - I didn’t count them but I’m told that every Russian ‘Chopiniana’ slavishly follows Fokine’s specification of 23 sylphs, whereas many other productions of Les Sylphides make do with only 19 or even less. The opening and closing identical ‘blue’ tableaux enfolded a sublime performance by the Kirov’s Corps de ballet. They rippled as one. The different angles of their arms and bodies were almost imperceptible between dancers, but across the whole corps, the tapering gradients achieved a stunning effect.

The Sylphs framed the seven dances comprising the suite, performed by the four principals: Daria Sukhorukova (Mazurka), Yanna Selina (Waltz), Irina Golub (Prelude) and Igor Kolb (The Young Man/Poet). All were excellent, but Golub was outstanding. She dances with her eyes and lit up the stage with exquisite delicacy. I also liked Igor Kolb much more in Chopiniana than I had in earlier productions but the poet requires no expression and, this time, Kolb’s virtuoso performance wasn’t hampered by a lack of character.

Onto Les Noces. This is another ballet with an identity crisis. Conceived as her first piece of independent choreography for Diaghilev by Bronislava Nijinska in 1923, its 80 year lineage has taken two distinct paths. Oddly, enough the version in the Royal Ballet’s repertory is the one with the bluer blood. The Kirov’s production premiered at the Mariinsky only last month and has its roots in a reshaped choreography by Nijinska’s daughter (note: all of this is explained very expertly elsewhere in this thread by Brendan McCarthy) .

Les Noces is about a peasant wedding: the marriage of Fetis to Nastasia. It’s opera ballet’s parent of ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ Robert Gresgovic says that one translation of the Russian title for Stravinsky’s score suggests a meaning which says ‘All the women weep and all the men get drunk’! It’s a ballet which sets the ethnic ritual of a wedding in a Russian peasant context. The ballet takes place over 4 tableaux which deal with every aspect of the wedding ritual apart from the wedding itself.

The strength of Les Noces is greatly enhanced by Stravinsky’s songs, ranging from the early laments to portray the parents’ loss of their children to the joyous celebrations of the wedding feast. They were expertly performed by the choral and solo singers of the Kirov Opera and the orchestra of four pianos and percussion. The choir achieved an almost hypnotic effect at times and some of the deep bass notes were lower than the Royal Opera House’s Foundations.

A huge cast of 42 dancers held within it some intriguing references , such as the matchmakers for both the bride’s family and that of the groom (Its that Yentl again!). The main element of the ballet is the wedding feast, which takes place in a two-tiered space. An upper level where the wedding party’s ‘top table’ sit solemnly contemplating what has happened and what still has to come, whilst below the two groups of 16 friends of the bride and groom form two perfectly ordered triangles as a focal point for their celebrations. The pyramids break to allow the Best man and the chief Bridesmaid to escape from their apex to perform the ballet’s main solos. Other dancers follow but they return to reform the triangular groups in perfect symmetry.

The joy of the wedding feast gives way to twin-track action. On the upper level, the doors open to reveal just a glimpse of a bedstead, whilst on the lower level the 32 guests rearrange into the hierachical tableau from which the feast began. The ballet ends with action taking place to several rhythmic chimes. My only quibble with the whole performance was the lack of continuity with which the best man and his friends pulled the chimes from the air – sometimes they were all vaguely on the ‘C’ of chime but some of them false-started whilst others missed the chime altogether!

For a production that was reportedly seen to be under-rehearsed on Monday – I heard that the dress rehearsal was run through twice in its entirety – the Kirov pulled off a stunning performance this afternoon. Very effective in every respect. The dancers deserve no individual credit because it was very much a company success. The principal singers of the Kirov Opera – Mlada Khudoley (soprano), Nadezhda Serdiuk (mezzo-soprano), Andrei Ilyushnikov (tenor) and Ilya Bannick (bass) and the four pianists (Alexander and Maxim Mogilevsky, Svetlana Smolina and Julia Zaichina) thoroughly deserved the audience’s unrestrained praise.

The final ballet of the bill was Scheherazade. A thoroughly nasty little tale of entrapment, hedonism, betrayal , cold-blooded murder and suicide sweetened by Rimsky-Korsakov’s wonderful music – beautifully interpreted by the Mariinsky Orchestra under Mikhail Agrest’s expert direction – and the evocative scenery and costumes by the incomparable Leon Bakst.  

Tatiana Tkachenko was an absolute revelation as Zobeide. She arched and twisted into amazing shapes and her split jumps, with the rear leg arching upwards as the jete seemed to hold its breath, were gorgeous. She was a girl out to play whilst the Sultan was away and she oozed sex appeal from every pore.

It was a pity that the object of her desire, Daniil Korsuntsev as the Golden Slave, didn’t reciprocate. His virtuosity was fine and he span and jumped with aplomb but his facial expression played the ‘hard to get’ card to an absurd extreme! The long pdd between these two is a very under-rated dance, in my view, and really should be regarded as a classic pdd for the way in which Fokine’s choreography melds sensually into Rimsky-Korsakov’s sexy score.

So few main dancers have carried so many of the Kirov’s performances here in London and Tkachenko is one of them. Although officially still a member of the corps de ballet she has appeared in solo roles almost every other night since the season began. She only graduated from the Vaganova in 2000, and on this performance, she deserves to be on a fast track to the top!

In fact ‘every other night’ became twice a day for her and many others in the triple bill as injuries and withdrawals gradually merged the cast list for tonight’s performance with that of this afternoon. With 42 dancers there isn’t much scope for change in Les Noces but the Scheherazade cast was identical for both performances.

I hope the evening turned out to be at least as ‘grown-up’ as my near-perfect afternoon of 23 fairies, one wedding, an orgy and multiple murders!