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English National BalletJanuary 2006 London, Coliseum by Ian Palmer |
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Further viewing of ENB's beautiful staging of The Sleeping Beauty confirms this as craftsmanship of the highest order: a payment of dutiful homage to Petipa and Tchaikovsky. For Sleeping Beauty is a homage in itself, to dance and to the Sun King, during whose reign the foundations of ballet were built. The music of the apotheosis tells us - the brass marking out the theme of Vivre Henri IV (the founder of the Bourbon Dynasty and Louis XIV's grandfather) and in the original 1890 staging the final backdrop revealed Apollo crowned in glory. Although Kenneth Macmillan's staging does not make these references explicit, Nicholas Georgiadis' costumes seem to hint at these historical allusions. Louis' extravagant sense of fashion is marked by the extravagant costumes and perruques of King Florestan XXIV. But the most intriguing allusion is that concerning the evil fairy Carabosse, for here Georgiadis has dressed her as the Elizabeth I of Hilliard's "Ermine Portrait". The Fairy Queen herself. Here is the embodiment of perfidious Albion and Protestant heresy. Here is the enemy of Catholic France and it is a bold statement indeed to be making on any English stage. Greg Horsman delivered a most imperious Carabosse at the Saturday matinee - queenly in manner and stature it did not suffer from the pantomime bluster which other interpretations have offered. Elena Glurdjidze's Princess Aurora was a gem. Ravishing in her phrasing and luscious in her movement she exemplifies her Vaganova training with a restrained aristocratic proportion. It is perhaps the latter which proves to be her slight un-doing in the Rose Adagio, for of course here we have a tradition that a ballerina should raise her arms to fifth position during the balances in attitude. Such movement looks entirely foreign to her dance vocabulary and I was hoping, against hope, that she would not deign to raise her arms thus. Alas, it was not to be and the arms went up along with the proverbial sore thumb. I wish she would re-consider this, for it jars in an otherwise radiant performance, one in which she charts the journey from young innocent to glorious bride so exquisitely. The other main event was Maria Kochetkova's truly delightful Princess Florine. If you are able, do try to get hold of a copy of the recently released DVD Markova, la Legende in which you can see Markova herself coaching this role to a young dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet. Having been taught the role by Lubov Egorova she explains that the Princess, who is trapped in the tower, is learning how to fly so that she may escape with the Bluebird whom she loves. The fluttering of Florine's hands should therefore be distinctly different from the fluttering of the Bluebird's. Kochetkova so brilliantly captures this story in her lovely and musical interpretation, listening to Bluebird, attempting to copy his movement and finally escaping with him. She is so touching in her interpretative gift. Her Bluebird was a sensational Pedro Lapetra. Sadly, the rest of the company appeared not to be quite on such form. The Fairy Variations were distinctly un-musical (with the exception of (yes you have guessed it!) Maria Kochetkova's Fairy of the Woodland Glade) and one sensed a rather wobbly corps in the Vision scene. However, it had been all-change on the conductor front and the most responsive Martin West had been replaced by Nigel Gaynor who seemed to have some difficulty in keeping the beast together, so my generous heart suggests that this may have been the cause.
A full house at the matinee suggests that we have taken this production to our hearts - and rightly so. If I had to change one thing it would be to invest some of the money, currently expended in the pumping out of mountains of dry ice, into a the acquisition of a few more lights.
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