© Margaret Willis Gallery - Vladimir Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova, 50 Years at the Bolshoi Ballet Photographs from the personal archive of Vladimir Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova. A Perfect Partnership A Personal Tribute to Vasiliev and Maximova by Margaret Willis recent Bolshoi reviews more Margaret Willis reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

The evening was a celebration of good taste and joyful remembrances and the final curtain saw a stage filled with baskets and bouquets of flowers, forming a colourful carpet around the two honoured guests as they took their bows before a cheering audience. Friends and fans gathered from around the world, each declaring that they wouldn´t have missed this opportunity to congratulate Volodia and Katia, and show both of them what their dancing has meant personally to each visitor.

The street outside the theatre which is next door to the still-enshrouded Bolshoi, thronged with hopefuls asking for 'lichny billeti' - spare tickets. Inside, the theatre bulged at the seams as people crowded into the auditorium and film crews set up their strategically-situated equipment throughout the stalls area. And woe betide any late arrival as they would find their seat 'securely' occupied.

Katia and Volodia sat in the 'Royal box' and on arrival were welcomed with a standing ovation of rhythmic clapping. Katia wore a black sequined pant suit that sparkled in the light. Tiny and fragile now, she looked happy despite the gruelling demands of rehearsals during the four day celebration (leading up to the gala were performances each night of 'their' ballets - Don Quixote, Nutcracker, Giselle, Anyuta, the latter two being Vasiliev productions). Vasiliev, his hair back to the expected blonde after being grey the night before when he took the role of the father in the performance of Anyuta, was cheerful and humble in his black velvet jacket and apple green scarf. With a wave of acknowledgement, he encouraged us all to sit down and start watching.

The programme started with old archive black and white films of their own great moments where they individually spun, leapt, turned - all at dizzying speeds. All but one work in the first half were Vasiliev´s own creations, starting with his Classical Pas de Deux to music by Torelli. It is a fluid classroom work with pure uncluttered steps and danced beautifully by Paris Opera's Myriam Ould Braham and Emmanuel Thibault - she with a strong English style and he with lightness and beautiful feet. Next a quick clip of Vasiliev as the bumpkin character, Ivanushka, in Radunsky's The Little Humpbacked Horse and then danced nowhere nearly as well by a beaming and well-meaning Morihiro Ivata. Rachmaninov´s Elegy, one of Vasiliev's white unitard duets, seen at a time where such garments were unusual on the Bolshoi stage, was performed with great beauty and grace by the Bolshoi's Marianna Ryzhkina and Rome Opera Ballet´s Giuseppe Picone. Fragments of a biography changed the tempo and style to South American rhythms and saw Galina Stepanenko and Alessio Carbone (Paris Opera) performing tangos with panache and style.

One of my favourite ballets by Vasiliev was Makbet(Macbeth) created in 1980 in which he retold the Shakespearean play with great innovative drama and interesting quirks. His witches were men on pointe with faces on the backs of their bandaged heads, and the court women wore high Kabuki-style stacked heels. Vasiliev was obviously excellent in the original production but so was his choice for second cast. A very young Viktor Barykin took the lead and achieved great success. Later his dancing career brought him briefly to the UK where he joined London City Ballet for three years and he is now back at the Bolshoi coaching and rehearsing. For the gala, he was Vasiliev's right-hand man, organising, supervising and rehearsing the guest stars, a task which he took on with with patience and kindness. The adagio from this ballet didn´t disappoint after all the years that have passed since I last saw it. Svetlana Zakharova, clad in scarlet unitard and matching flowing dress, and Andrei Uvarov in a grey silk cloak intertwined around each other with dramatic refinement - her long legs shooting up to make red arcs in the air before grabbing Macbeth crab-like round his middle whenever he relived his murderous deed.

Vasiliev made a new work for the gala, Alter Ego, to the first movement of Mozart´s 40th Symphony. Here Nikolai Tsiskaridze and his young protoege Artem Ovcharenko darted, flew, spun on and off the stage in exhilerating style, the younger skimming the floor with great lightness and the older showing his fleet, high jetes.

The first half closed with a scene from the opera La Traviata for which Vasiliev choregraphed the dancing scenes. While soloists and chorus sang, gypsies swirled and tossed their heads, one a transvestite who removed two tennis balls from his bodice at the end of his dance, the other soloist a toreador who revealed long dark curls at her bow, Igor Tsvirko and Irina Zibrova.

There was one more piece by Vasiliev in the second half, Nocturne, danced elegantly by Anna Nikulina and Vitali Biktimirov. Then they paid tribute to choreographers who forged their careers.

Both Vasiliev and Maximova were great admirers of Kasyan Goleizovsky and danced many of his innovative works. Apart from screen clips of their most famous moments, we saw Narcissus, Goleizovsky's answer to L'après-midi d'un faune, for it's angular leaps and sudden stops which were well-executed by Denis Medvedev, offering the right amount of lightness and self interest. And his Mazurka, to Scriabin's music, brought back memories of a young Katia, pertly flirting and flitting delicately in her diaphanous pleated skirt. Anastasia Goryacheva performed it beautifully.

Tom Schilling's Match is a comic duet which takes place on the tennis court with music recalling the hitting of balls. Ruslan Skvortsov made a handsome tournament winner greeting the applause of the crowds and aware of his popularity and beauty. His opponent was an animated, highly-strung female player brilliantly performed by Natalia Osipova whose facial expressions told her every thought, and her cutting leaps showed she was determined to beat the man. Which she did.

Vladimir Derevianko, long-time one of Vasiliev's friends and proteges and now director in Florence, performed his signature gala piece, Paganini, which was the creation of Leonid Lavrovsky and Vasiliev. He showed, as in the Liepa gala in London earlier this year, that he still possesses a prodigious talent for leaping and turning and here he was accompanied by one of his own dancers, Candida Sorrentino who proved herself a lovely youthful and lyrical Muse.

Chabukiani was a great influence on Vasiliev´s style and in a variation from Laurencia, Andrei Bolotin was elegant and strong. Dmitri Bryantsev, former director of the Stanislavsky Ballet, and whose murder shocked the ballet world in recent years, created Ballade of a Hussar for the Bolshoi in which Katia danced and we saw the farewell duet performed by Ksenia Kern and Alexander Vodopetov. And then a real treat. Uliana Lopatkina came down for the Mariinsky to perform Saint-Saens The Swan - it brought the house down.

So to the final piece which was perhaps the only disappointment. Billed in the programme as Spartacus with Ivan Vasiliev and company, it turned out to be the adagio which was none the less beautifully executed, but the boyish Ivan only had the opportunity to show his strength in the high overhead lifts and we never saw even one of his now famous leaps. The unsung heroine of the weekend, Marianna Ryzhkina, who had made an excellent debut as Anyuta on Sunday night, was Phrygia and danced with real feeling and lyricism.

And then there were the multiple curtain calls for all the dancers and the two stars came on stage and thanked each and everyone personally. They had also made a thank-you clip of all the famous faces who had been part of their dancing lives which was shown, giving some poignant memories. The applause was thunderous and continued on stage after the audience had left and at the reception across the street which went on until the wee hours. But not too late, as both stars had regular work schedules the next day awaiting them. "Nado rabotat", said Katia, "we must work."