© Douglas Robertson BOB 'Parade' reviews BOB 'Three-Cornered Hat' reviews BOB 'Icarus' reviews BOB 'Prodigal Son' reviews all 'Prodigal Son' reviews Jude in reviews Yebra in reviews recent Bordeaux Opera reviews more Jeffery Taylor reviews Web version held on Ballet.co by kind permission of Jeffery Taylor and the Sunday Express Express Website

During an evening stated as 3 hours ten minutes long, but extending a good fifteen minutes more, BOB performs three works designed by Picasso and, thrown in at the end apparently because it gives Jude at 50 a chance to get back on the boards in the title role, one designed by Georges Rouault, The Prodigal Son.

The first two, Parade (1917) and The Three Cornered Hat (1919), both choreographed by Leonide Massine, look ravishing with Picasso's gorgeously realised front cloths, sets and costumes. The Royal Ballet Sinfonia plays, as usual, with passion but the ballets are a flop. The production values are the best money can buy, but Jude has clearly forgotten rule number 1, dance is only as good as its dancers.
 

In Parade, a highly stylised conceit of pantomime characters imitating ordinary folk, the dancers are understated - cool not characterised. And dull. The Three Cornered Hat is one of Picasso's most perfect stage creations, from the hot, orange-loving Spanish beauties of the front cloth to the background of burning Andalucian hills highlighting his palette for the costumes in flat greens and russets and dull blues and reds. Manuel de Falla's music throbs with heavy rhythms and tooth tingling climaxes if only someone had told the dancers. Éric Frédéric and Stephanie Roublot as the Miller and his Wife, the love interest in this rustic romp of pretend outrage at mischievous flirting, and the rest of the cast grasp the concept of Spanish gypsy dance as thoroughly as the French understand the British bus queue.

Guest artist Igor Yebra tried his best to imitate charismatic dancer/choreographer, Serge Lifar as Icarus (1935), embodying man's ambition that will always go too far and which the gods will never forgive. Picasso dressed him in classical white against a shimmering yellow sun backcloth and his looks and adequate technique made him watchable but never believable.
 

As the Prodigal in George Balanchine's The Prodigal Son (1929), Jude eerily resembled Nureyev, his mentor. Mind you, the dramatic cheese cutter cheekbones from his Vietnamese blood, the light rapid runs and the extravagant facial and hand gestures were a welcome relief from the negativity of the rest of the company. But the disturbing question remains long after the curtain finally falls, why does Jude allow this strange contrast in performance values between himself and his dancers to exist in the first place? Ignorance or design? And on the evidence of everyone's own eyes, Jude did Picasso, and his own performance proud, but left his dancers floundering.