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Bolshoi BalletJuly 2004 London, Covent Garden by Graham Watts |
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Just over the road from the Bolshoi Theatre, in the direction of Red Square, sits an enormous building. Occupying a whole block, the Hotel Moscva is a monolithic representation of the soviet ideal. Layer upon layer of identical floors, each one the size of any ordinary hotel, with uniform furnishings and each floor hosting hundreds of rooms which all seem to be the same. But amidst this uniformity, every so often one door that looks just like any other opens out into a suite of luxurious grandeur.
‘Spartacus’ shares the same creative principles as the architecture of the Hotel Moscva. It is the dance equivalent of a massive, immovable, solidly uniform block of concrete. It is big, bold, brash, layered with repetitive choreography (just like those identical rooms) but every now and then one seemingly repetitive sequence opens out into a new and exotic dimension. It is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics expressed through dance, lionising the heroic revolutionary (whilst recognising that the State wins out in the end) in a ballet that was choreographed by a Russian to music composed by an Armenian from Georgia and danced at its premiere by a Latvian surrounded by Russians. Ironically, it is the role danced by the Latvian (Maris Liepa’s Crassus) that comes out on top!
 © John Ross British audiences have always taken this ‘Spartacus’ to their hearts since it first appeared in 1969 and it hasn’t been back for a good few years. So it was an astute piece of programming to follow the controversial ‘Romeo & Juliet’ with a ballet that was bound to fill the House and receive a rapturously enthusiastic reception. It did not fail on either count. A Lady seated next to me, who had seen the Bolshoi on every previous visit since 1956, said that the performance had restored her faith in the Company after the “dreadful aberration” she had seen earlier in the week! The difference in the Company’s own view of the experimental compared to the staple classic was that where a young member of the corps took the male lead in ‘R & J’, the four leads here were all established Company Principals. Notably, Denis Savin (Romeo) and Victor Alekhin (Lord Capulet) were back in their more familiar spear-carrying roles.
‘Spartacus’ is a ballet that needs a big man to carry the lead role with its explosive choreography. The popular belief is that no-one has been able to fill the boots vacated by Vladimir Vasiliev (on whom Grigorovich created the role) and then Irek Mukhamedov who was its lead exponent throughout the 1980s. Dmitri Belogolovtsev is not as powerfully built as either of these role models but he accomplishes the dozens of mighty leaps and trademark lifts with effortless ease. There was an early stumble on a downstage landing from a first scene tours en l’air but after that it was a near perfect display of virtuoso dancing. Belogolovtsev’s interpretation favours Vasiliev’s inspired dreamer rather more than Mukhamedov’s heroic champion. Although one instinctively remembers Belogolovtsev’s many dramatic sequences, such as the coupé jetés en tournant, the tours á la seconde, the diverse tours en l’air (particularly the repeating theme in fifth position) and the extraordinary one-arm lifts, it is in the reflective, introspective monologues that he is at his, very moving, best.
 © I Zakharkin The first, third and fourth monologues counterbalance his differing enslavements: in the beginning he is bound by chains in captivity but after he has led the revolt, it is the red cape that binds him to the new captor of responsibility and leadership – the melancholy is much the same. Both his and Phrygia’s captivity is represented by the small circuit of turns that they perform in their opening monologues. Belogolovtsev has already appeared in this Summer season as Basilio and the Evil Genius in ‘Swan Lake’ and he was in London earlier this year dancing with Nina Ananiashvili’s Moscow Dance Theatre at Sadler’s Wells. He certainly makes for an heroic Spartacus, perhaps not yet ready to step into those boots but certainly not far off.
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Galina Stepanenko was perfect in every way as Aegina, very reminiscent of Sian Phillips’ lasciviously evil Livia from the great tv adaptation of ‘I Claudius’. Her own two monologues contained the best steps in the ballet and she danced them beautifully, a performance only marred by dreadfully squeaky and crackly pointe shoes. In the scene leading from her Act III monologue to a solo from Phrygia, when she exits the Gladiator’s tent, the juxtaposition between the noisy and silent pointe shoes of both dancers was very evident! Anna Antonicheva was a dutiful, supportive and unshowy Phrygia: her own monologue at the end of Act I, Scene II was danced with a perfectly expressed melancholic dignity.
 © I Zakharkin It is impossible to conclude a review of ‘Spartacus’ without reference to Arum Khachaturian’s wonderful score, which was superbly played by the Bolshoi Orchestra. The so-called ‘love theme’ which appears in each Act and to which the central Spartacus/Phrygia pas de deux is danced is certainly one of the most beautiful passages of ballet music from the twentieth century. It was the theme my wife and I chose for our wedding march, many years ago, shortly after Khachaturian’s death and so I am understandably biased! There is a lot of repetitive choreography in a ballet that could be sub-titled ‘Dancing with swords’, but there is also a very strong narrative developed uniquely through the psychological exploration of the nine monologues, explosive virtuoso dancing and vibrant artistic tableau which punctuate the ballet – the death of Spartacus as if crucified by the Roman centurions’ spears is a permanently haunting image.
When in Moscow, I stay at the Hotel Moscva (it’s handy for the Bolshoi). Like most of the British ballet-going public, when I want to watch the Bolshoi at its best, performing a ballet that almost no other Company can offer, I would choose Spartacus. You have just one more day in which to do the same or miss it for a few more years!
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