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Bolshoi BalletAugust 2007 London, Coliseum by San L |
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As posted on our Postings pages... (When two casts are mentioned, the order is afternoon then evening) Ballet heroes and heroines are not always terribly sympathetic characters. In La Bayadère Nikiya is a bit of a hypocrite while Solor, in status a ‘noble warrior’, is morally anything but. In this Le Corsaire Medora is a rather clueless dizzy thing, while Conrad is really rather unpleasant, drunkenly forcing himself upon Medora and not showing very many redeeming qualities elsewhere: he can’t even fight off the palace guards, and this is a ballet, mind you. But then it’s never about the story in ballets. This production is lavishly costumed (the Odalisques’ tutus particularly colourful and the Jardin Animé tutus wonderfully soft and airy) – however, while sets are mostly fine, some painted cloths are rather too simplistic for the production as a whole. That said, the Russians certainly do colour in a big way and everything looked lovely. Neither performance went entirely smoothly: in the afternoon there was trouble with the gauzy curtain in the pirates’ cave and in the evening there was a delay in raising the frontcloth for the pirate scene. In both I thought there might have been a few dodgy lighting cues. Medora's shout in her Pirate Dance did not come off terribly well, but then nobody understood it. But this was not very distracting. I did not find the ballet overlong at all, though I have a soft spot for anything involving tutus. The Jardin Animé looked stunning. The choreography was fine, and the Pas d’Eventails worked well. Svetlana Lunkina was a sweetly girlish Medora: her large, expressive eyes paid dividends in conveying her gloom but also in the comedic scenes, in which they sparkled with mischief. Technically she was very elegantly understated – secure throughout, perhaps lacking the brio which the ballet needs. Svetlana Zakharova does not lack brio. She was a lustier Medora all round, but her comedy was not quite as funny as Lunkina’s. Technically she was nearly flawless, with very clean pirouettes and only one tutu-flipping penchée. Her grand manner and movement suited the ballet well. Sergei Filin and Denis Matvienko were vigorous Conrads, though with little dancing to do. Matvienko’s choreography was flashier, but Filin performed his more solidly. Their characterisations were pretty similar: what can you do with pirates, really? I much prefer this version of Gulnare to other productions’. She is brighter, funnier and more likeable. Anastasia Yatsenko was rather enchantingly witty and sparkling, while Ekaterina Shipulina was bitchier but no less warm and jolly. Both danced impeccably of course, Shipulina just having the edge in pirouettes and lyricism, Yatsenko in speed.
The Odalisques of Olga Stebletsova, Anna Nikulina and Anna Leonova were very strong, Stebletsova moving with lightness and speed, Nikulina standing out for her very articulate dancing and Leonova for her gracious manner, unfazed by a slight mistake in the evening.
 © John Ross
The character roles were well done. Alexei Loparevich’s Pasha was fine but blown off the stage by the gloriously haughty antics of Irina Zibrova as his Sultana. Andrei Merkuriev and Vitaly Biktimirov made appropriately villainous Birbantos. The pirate children danced fairly well but to be honest I found their choreography very annoying. Children do not tend to come off well in ballet, either being cloying or terribly politically incorrect. The usually wonderful Bolshoi orchestra sounded a little scrappy in the afternoon, especially at the beginning of movements. They were better in the evening - Pavel Klinichev conducted both performances.
If Le Corsaire was not quite as boisterous as it could and should have been, it certainly provided a great classical ballet fix, and who better to do that than the Bolshoi?
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