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To the marvelous strains of Glazunov's third-act processional, Ponomarev presided over a défilé of character dancers, Raymonda's friends, and finally Raymonda herself, in the person of Uliana Lopatkina, attended by Danila Korsuntsev's Jean de Brienne. As she descended the steps of the Kirov's cardboard castle, she might as well have been Athena descending from Olympus; in her shining white tutu she was that glorious. Her entrance was only the culmination of a thrill which started for me with the entrance of the first dancers, the ones who'd dance the mazurka. I don't think there are dancers on the face of the earth who can walk as beautifully as Russians. Seeing again such proudly raised chests, calmly upright carriage, faces angled as one at such perfect, haughty angles, well, I was in heaven. Each element of every step was hypnotically perfect, none more so than the presentation of the foot: leg brushing straight forward from the hip, turned out to present curve of the foot in its shining white boot, ball of the foot touching the stage first in a relaxed demi-pointe, then the weight comes down on the heel, turning the foot out ever-so-slightly more — a little bit of poetry repeated countlessly, as entrancing as the arabesques penchés, later that evening, of the Shades in La Bayadere. I've tried to describe a few parts of this Russian walk, yet it's how these dancers, with their years of training, sublime each into an organic, understated whole. We see the glitter of a diamond before we study its facets, and with the Kirov men and women, I was dazzled by the simplicity they made of that ever-so-complicated walk.

It was a treat, one among that evening's multitude, both grand and subtle, that I felt like it must have been my birthday, or Halloween, or Christmas. That I could observe these riches at close hand in the cozy walls of City Center, rather than in the Met's cavern, only made each more special, as if I was sharing in a secret. So through that brief défilé my excitement only grew, with the entrance of the czardas dancers, then Raymonda's classical friends in their tutus and tights, all echoing that glorious walk and filling the stage with perfection. Lopatkina's entrance was indeed glorious, but appearing last, she seemed the living embodiment of all that exquisite training. I was as awestruck as I've ever been at the theater, and they hadn't even started dancing.

The stage emptied, and on came the Mazurka dancers, resplendent in white kid boots, jackets strapped like capes down their backs, the leads in piebald black and white. Over the years, I've seen many mazurkas on ballet stages, but nothing like this joyful tribute to flirtation. All those bits usually seem quaint — the many ways one might rise on half-toe and click together one's heels, the striking of that signature pose, one hand behind one's head, the other on one's hip; the little runs forward or backward with bent knees and tiny, tiny steps, and, of course, still more smoothing of one's mustaches — fit together and make sense, just as with that magnificent walk. I couldn't begin to tell the provenance of this particular dance — the program credits Konstantin Sergeyev "after" Petipa, with help from Lopukhov, Gusev, Tiuntina, and Konishev — but it's wonderful, showy, and just pure distilled joy. Leading the ensemble were Ksenia Dubrovina and Konstantin Zverev, and I can't say enough good things about each. Tall, lithe and long-legged, Zverev stalked Dobrovina, his not-unwilling prey, loping with bent-kneed, low-slung skipping mazurka step which devoured the stage. Yes, there was a little bit of drama in this happy dance. After teasingly putting him off while she danced a sinuously slow bar or two, Dubrovna happily gave in, and they didn't simply strike pretty poses together; Zverev would pull her into his arms as if he were capturing a rare prize.

While the Mazurka's a Polish import, the Czardas is pure Hungarian, starting slowly and ending in a passionate rush. As the ensembles couples paced slowly in, the men looking particularly noble in their knee-lenght drooping sleeves, I thrilled to their slow, high-kicking step, one leg out at waist height with the other leg slightly bent, with that little sinking of the hips adding drama and a contrary downward accent to the rising leg. Again, I've never seen it performed so naturally. After that slow procession, the lead couple, Alisa Sokolova and Andrey Yakovlev, made an equally slow and grand entrance, with each kick of their legs seeming to drive the orchestra, rather than the other way around. A dark beauty, Sokolova was stunning in her black-and-gold checkered dress, and made grand soliloquies of her high-stepping paces, and even the little bob and weave of the head, which can all-too-easily look affected or comical. As the czardas grew faster and faster, Sokolova's mien changed from noble sorrow to a infectious, almost wild energy, clapping her hands with glee, even. Certainly those side-to-side tilting and swinging steps she'd trade with Yakovlev, like pas de bourree on steroids, hopping into little sideways cabrioles, never seemed as natural and communicative — very, very happy feet.

I didn't want these character dancers to end. In New York, one can see tolerable ballet even in the absence of the Kirov or Bolshoi, but never such brilliant character dancing; I wanted to soak it up as long as I could. But of course the character dance didn't end with the czardas; Raymonda's a Hungarian princess, and the opening character dances just brought out how thoroughly these character elements are built into the classical choreography; they seem to be even more present in the Kirov versions, or perhaps just performed better. (Did I really see Lopatkina hint at clapping her heels together while in a parallel releve on pointe, or, later, Tereshkina fold her arms and give triumphant bob of her head after her magisterial series of releve retires?)

The treats continued with the bounding entrances of Raymonda and her friends paired up in big, booming chasses and arabesques saute. I remember four couples at a time downstage in a row, doing simultaneous releve-retire steps, and then entrechat sixes which left me transfixed. Not only were all eight dancers perfectly turned out, soles of their feet facing each other and showing off beautiful arches with quick clean beats, but all jumped simultaneously, to exactly the same height — you could draw a string connecting the toes of all four girls in the front row at the height of their jumps, and the line would be perfectly horizontal. Yes, I was impressed, as I was with the four men, with the sequential double tours firing off in a perfect transition from left to right.

In the grand pas, I've never seen such perfect unity among the eight couples behind Raymonda and De Brienne. I'm used to the timing of the women's leaps to those shoulder-sits and poses on their partner's chests being ever-so-slightly off, the angles of the women's legs in attitude having slight differences, but not here. I was drinking in the elegance of Lopatkina's line, but also thrilled at how strongly each of the couples behind her and Korsuntsev echoed her jumps and poses. When done sort-of together, those leaps to the chest look impressive and difficult; when done together as one, they pack a tremendous visual wallop. As for Lopatkina, her poses in attitude look my breath away; in a company of beautifully presented legs, hers were the most beautiful, and she displayed them as if they were the Hungarian crown jewels.

Yana Selina, a personal favorite, danced the variation with the clarity and control I remember from 2002, finishing by springing up into a perfect, tight sous-sous and snapping her arms into that Hungarian pose. Then it was time for Lopatkina's big solo. I've tossed the word perfection around a lot in this review, and I'll do it some more: Lopatkina was perfect. With her height and grand, long limbs, she had the regal bearing of a princess, and danced with such complete control it seemed there wasn't any part of her physique which wasn't bent perfectly to her indomitable will. Like the other Kirov dancers, she doesn't begin Raymonda's solo with an audible handclap, but regally, slowly turns her arms towards each other and delicately lets her hands drift closely past each other. Clearly, as a princess, she doesn't need to be so vulgar as to make a sound; her attentive subjects should observe her hands, and realize that, audible or not, a clap has happened, and behave accordingly.

Technically, the beginning of Raymonda's solo is little more than bourreing and posing, but from them, Lopatkina built wonders. I won't soon forget the dreamy way she'd rise on pointe then describe a huge arc over the stage, bourreing in a semicircle while sweeping her arm through an even wider arc, as if to proclaim her ownership of all she could survey. I loved how she used her port de bras to add expansiveness to this arc — rising on pointe, then bending delicately forwards and reaching her arm in front of her (the opposite direction from where she's about to bourree), then straightening her back while delicately swinging her arm from her front to her side, as she bourrees backwards on that curving path, as if gliding over a frictionless surface. It was just as spellbinding when she repeats it in the opposite direction; she's so tall and powerful that she can encompass vast tracts with a swing of her arm or leg. I loved her slow diagonals across the stage, picking her way on pointe as her arms worked through variations of the Hungarian Princess theme, at her hips or cocked behind an ear. She started her solo at a slow crawl worthy of Makarova. I didn't mind; I wanted it to go on forever.

Her Raymonda was strong, commanding and regal, and awe-inspiring in the Vaganova-style curving and recurving of her back, torso, neck and arms. (So much contrapposto!) She was far from the ice-princess I remember dancing the second movement of Symphony in C years ago, although still a bit aloof in her royalty. I loved how clearly her solo reflected the czardas I'd just seen, as with her series of long runs backwards on pointe, knees bent and arms slowly widening, and this was where I might've spotted clicking her heels together while on pointe. In the ballet's coda, she marched downstage center and seemed to hold her balance in retire forever, before plunging her foot to the stage, giving the conductor his cue for her commanding, ever-faster releve-retires backwards. Lopatkina continued her casual perfection in the allegro finale, and Korsuntsev, tall, dark and dashing, showed elegant power in his brief solos. After the curtain fell on yet another gorgeous pose from Lopatkina, I had regain my composure for a moment before drifting into the lobby to share my babbled enthusiasm with an equally gushing colleague.

Lopatkina's Raymonda was a tough act to follow, and the ballerinas for the succeeding warhorses, excerpts from Paquita and the Shades scene from La Bayadere followed her at an ever-increasing distance. The greatly abridged Paquita started wonderfully, with twin files of eight girls skipping in with great brio and gorgeous epaulement to the opening mazurka. Although two pairs of demis, followed (one of them being the indefatigable Selina), this production omitted the demis' solos, as well as the pas de trois, getting straight to the big-girls' action. The most familiar Kirov ballerina to New York audiences, Diana Vishneva was greeted with wild applause at her rousing entrance, looking in complete command of her big jumps and smiling broadly. If Lopatkina was ice, I thought, here comes the fire. I'd hoped for an equally strong but contrasting performance from Vishneva, but after the happy rush of entrance, she looked increasingly strained and, in this company, vulgar. I'd already noticed how good the Kirov dancers were at smoothing over little imperfections (like a double pirouette which turns out to be a single-and-a-half), but Vishneva pushed so hard in her subsequent solos that every little bobble became a glaring error. Usually able to snap off pique pirouettes with ease, Vishneva would get in trouble squeezing in a more turns than she could easily manage, and saving herself only with hasty adjustments to off-balance finishes. She'd always bounce back, and if you'd blinked, you'd have missed her jamming her flat foot into the stage to catch herself, but in this company, these tweaks were glaringly unfortunate. As if to compensate, Vishneva began what an older generation might've called "Ballet-Russing," embellishing her poses with little flicks of the wrists which seemed to say, "yes, you may applaud now." After Lopatkina's lack of affectation, Vishneva's flourishes just looked vulgar. She did pull out some grand moments, like a stabbing pique into a deep attitude balance right at the stage's edge before turning and hurling herself into the arms of Andrian Fadeev, but by the time she got to her "harp" solo, even her beautiful arms, curling and uncurling above her head in that long, slow diagonal, looked uncomfortably rococo. She blasted out some fast fouettés, but with an unpretty harshness.

Of this staging's variations, the first was danced by the infamous Alina Somova, kicking her ever-flexible right leg with great abandon, flinging it skyward in some behind-the-ears battements, hurling it ahead of her in a jeté to the side, and, most unfortunately, swinging it all over the place in some wobbly Italian fouettés. That she's now a peroxide blonde seems inarguably appropriate. Ekatrina Kondaurova couldn't have been more different; a tall, powerful redhead, Kondaurova seemed a study in calm detachment, when effortlessly turning a balance in second to a deep penchee, or in her dreamy, final diagonal of soutenu turns and pique pirouettes. A bubbly little firecracker, Valeria Martynyuk bounded through the petite allegro and quick little jetés of the "Amor" variation, and Ekaterina Osmolkina delicate and sweet in the celeste solo, finishing with a beautiful double pirouette to the knee. Victoria Tereshkina flew thrillingly through the big jumping solo, with its opening diagonal of grand jetés leading into a phenomenal combination of pirouettes in arabesque and attitude, and a sizzling tour of the stage with pique turns, pirouttes and particularly aerial jeté coupés. In his solos, Fadeev was clean and dashing. Despite Vishenva's excesses, it was not hard to love the ballet's conclusion, with its hordes of leaping and flying ballerinas, all to Minkus' best oompahs.

It might've seemed a good idea to round out this program's trio of Petipa classics with the Kingdom of the Shades scene from La Bayadere, or at least until they tried to fit that famous entrance of twenty-four shades into City Center's too-small stage. Rather than stepping down a ramp, each Shade emerged abruptly from behind a curtain upstage center, struck a pretty, arms-raised pose, and then stepped off into her first penchée. To keep from running out of stage, each Shade also took only two measured paces between arabesques. By the last Shade, there was an awful lot of big, white tutu filling the stage: if for some reason it started to rain onstage, you could've crawled from wing to wing without feeling a drop. Nontheless, the corps was stunning in its measured unity. It was almost hypnotic to watch them, after they'd squared their ranks, all sink slowly into a deep demi-plie, then rise, as one, into tight sous-sous, and then just stand unmoving, on the tips of their toeshoes, for a breath-holding moment. Breathtaking, too, was the gorgeous arch to their backs in every penchée: somehow, their back legs would rise higher and higher, but their heads never drooped towards the stage; instead, their amazing backs would arch ever-deeper.

While the three soloists, Olesia Novikova, Nadezhda Gonchar and Ekaterina Kondaurova again were lovely, Alina Somova, partnered bravely by Leonid Sarafanov, was not. While Somova's got undeniable physical gifts: that high extension, a great leap and, sometimes, great strength in her turns, her dancing seems entirely uninformed by any sense of proportion, phrasing, or even, particularly sad for La Bayadere, any sense of why her character's there, or indeed of even who Nikiya's supposed to be. With her overly-blonde hair, somewhat self-satisfied smirk, Somova seemed to approach her pas de deux with Sarafanov as little more than dead time between opportunities to show off her extensions and leaps. This dead girl only came alive when stretching her legs to the ceiling; sadly, this reanimation never reached her arms, which, while hitting all the required positions, looked always flat and lifeless. Freed of dramatic meaning, Samova's relentless employment of her gifts was also unfettered by taste or restraint. Her every extension seemed designed to reach the ceiling and every penchée to six o'clock. Her grand jetés were particularly alarming, with her front leg rising far above horizontal, with her pointed foot looking like the figurehead of a Viking warship. She's not without strength and athletic bravery — in her arabesque turns while holding the scarf, she turned both right and left, pulling into big double pirouettes at the end of each phrase (even if her turn to the left finished a bit sloppily). Would that her face might've said something more than "look at me!" when Sarafanov lifted her to that grand fish pose on his shoulder.

I admired all the demis, although Novikova didn't quite nail the final pose of her variation, the first one. Gonchar proved to be a pretty jumper, and Kondaurova paced the growing force of the third solo, from languorous developpes to her final, sparkling diagonal run on tip-toe. Bravely or foolishly, she made use of every inch of City Center's stage, and then some, finishing that last diagonal with a leap into arabesque, sinking through to her knee well beyond the stage's left wing, where a slip would've sent her smacking into a huge amplifier, or tumbling into the orchestra pit. Sarafanov gamely partnered the big and wild Samova, looking to be a bit late catching her after an unsupported turn, but otherwise managing her with at least the appearance of ease. He was thrilling in his solos, managing six double-assemblés (usually men do five; I once saw Nureyev do seven). Somova was quite zippy in her final diagonal of chaines, before the final happy-ending pose.

I wasn't hugely disappointed that Paquita and La Bayadere didn't match the perfection of Raymonda; how could they? I was just happy to see what could well be the world's greatest company, and at such close range, too.

April 2

Perhaps the opening-night adrenaline had worn off, or perhaps the dancers were feeling the effect of an opening-night party, but Raymonda didn't quite have the edge of the night before. The character dances were as lovely, but the classical dances for Raymonda's friends, and the solo for the four men feel ever so slightly short of the previous night's standard, with the occasional little correction, or moments when dancers weren't quite in sync. It was still great fun, but just a bit short of perfection. Olesia Novikova is a pretty dancer, slightly petite, and with shining black hair and a face which prompted a friend to call her a combination of Audrey Hepburn and Yvonne Borree. She's strong and clean, but not really a princess, or at least not this princess. She looked more like Raymonda's kid sister. Fadeev was an impeccable partner, but a little off-peak in his solo.

Tereshkina led Paquita with a vengeance. She was everything Vishneva wasn't, dazzlingly powerful and perfectly clean where Vishneva was sloppy. Her fouettés were fast and didn't budge an inch, as she spiced up her single turns with a few flashing, hands-on-hips doubles. Yevgeny Ivanchenko was also clean and impressive, but not quite in Tereshkina's league. There was an odd bit of juggling in the solos, which were cast the same as April 1, except that Vishneva was supposed to be the last soloist, but didn't dance. So the solo dancers were the same as before, but Tereshkina did the jumping solo, and, in Vishneva's absence, nobody danced the harp solo. Yevgeny Ivanchenko showed some flair in his solos, overturning a few pirouettes from enthusiam, perhaps.

With Korsuntsev, Lopatkina was exquisite in La Bayadere. I loved watching her grand expansiveness, but sometimes she was too expansive for the City Center stage; I wonder if she'd rehearsed Nikiya on this stage before. She'd make little corrections to keep herself from drifting too close to the wings, which so she looked not quite as perfect as the previous night. She was a cold spectral Nikiya, and Korsuntsev a brilliant Solor. He didn't do double assemblés, but a flashy combination of jeté coupes and big, booming leaps with his legs swinging through a double-split corkscrew leap of his own. The two looked well together, and Lopatkina was like a floating goddess while perched on his shoulders. Unlike opening night, there were some unfortunate wobbles among the corps; sometimes even dead girls are only human.

April 3

As in Paquita, Tereshkina was a terrific Raymonda. More compact and not quite as Olympian as Lopatkina, she nonetheless was every inch a commanding princess. I've quickly come to admire her clarity, precision and strength, as well as Korsuntsev's long line and unforced, understated virtuosity. Paquita paired Somova, her blonde locks liberally enhanced with golden glitter, with the dashing, baby-faced Anton Korsakov. Somova didn't quite butcher the choreography, but seemed tremendously pleased with herself at every high-kick or extreme extension. She's got talent, but her stage instincts, shallow and self-aggrandizing, are dazzlingly vulgar against a backdrop of so many beautifully refined dancers. Imagine Vishneva without her savvy, or Dvorovenko stripped of artifice; Somova's got no outlet for her ambitions other than cranking up her volume. In the parade of variations, she chose the diagonal jumping one which Tereshkina had done so well the previous nights. Rather than simply wait offstage for the variation's introduction to end before leaping onstage from the upstage right wing, Somova ran onstage from the downstage corner at the introduction's first notes, smiled at the audience and spread her arms as if to remind us that she was indeed the star of this show, and then ran to the upstage corner in time to start her diagonal jetés. It seemed an odd display of ego, and as tasteless as her big leaps, with her front and back legs pulled far above horizontal, for that unfortunate dropped-crotch look. She then tossed off some amazing pirouettes in arabesque and attitude, without spotting at all. Would that her sensibility matche her talents. Her fouettés were just a mess, with her working leg flopping all over as she drifted lazily towards the right-hand wings, then slowly back to center.

The variations were much the same as previous nights, except I think (the program notes and insert weren't worth the paper they were printed on) Gonchar danced the Italian fouetté solo that Somova'd done the first two nights, Somova, as mentioned, did the diagonal jeté one, and Tereshkina quite beautifully floated through the harp solo, the one Vishneva apparently declined to do while Tereshkina led Wednesday night's Paquita. I liked Korsakov's line in his solos, although he seemed bland in places.

Atoning a bit for her Paquita, Vishneva was wonderfully dramatic in La Bayadere, making it crystal clear that Nikiya's repeated pose, pointing upwards, was to remind Solor of their oath before the sacred fire, and her own devotion to that holiness, making the Shades scene into a story of Solor's redemption and forgiveness. While Vishneva was still less restrained than her Kirov colleagues (leaving Somova alone for the moment), here she emoted just enough to shape her story, without overwhelming the role with her own personality. I could've done without quite so many bows after her pas de deux and solo, though. Ivanchenko was a good foil, passionate and spectacular. I'd grown fond of the trio of Novikova, Gonchar and Kondaurova, especially the way the latter always finished her solo using that last inch between the speakers and orchestra pit. The first night it seemed an errant miscalculation; by the third it was clear she'd judged her space to the millimeter.

For these first three nights, Mikhail Sinkevich worked wonders with the small orchestra in City Center's pit, although peculiar amplification would sometimes oddly warp the balance between instruments. I was a little dismayed to notice many empty orchestra seats, and to see that many others had been filled through the half-price ticket booth in Times Square. There was a time when the Kirov would sell out its rare New York visits; were high ticket prices ($110 for orchestra) keeping audiences away, or is this just another sign of the coming End of the World for the classical performing arts? I don't know, but I'd encourage any New Yorkers reading this to hurry to City Center; one doesn't get to see the greatest company in the world here all that often.