The Custom of the Country

“Serenade,” “Rubies,” “Ballet Imperial”
Kirov Ballet
New York City Center
New York, NY
April 18, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

It takes guts to bring an all-Balanchine program to New York.  The scene at City Center on the Friday night opening of the program was thick with present and former New York City Ballet dancers, including Peter Martins, all there to watch, and perhaps to judge. If bringing coals to Newcastle is going to be done, it might as well be by a company like the Kirov that has a completely different tradition. Watching the Kirov do Balanchine is like wandering into a Japanese grocery and marveling at Western dishes transformed by native tastes; Ronzoni spaghetti is next to packages of spaghetti sauce mix – cuttlefish flavor.

“Serenade,” originally staged for the company in 1998 by Francia Russell and Karin von Aroldingen, opened the program, and it was Balanchine – cuttlefish flavor.  The Kirov doesn’t see “Serenade” the way we do.  As with just about everything the company does, the tempo was as slow as molasses; the opening phrases before the curtain felt like a dirge.  The company also doesn’t see the ballet as crepuscular; the lighting at City Center made “Serenade” seem to begin at about 11 a.m. and not head towards dusk until the Waltz.  The company isn’t at its home theater, and there are things that may be as they are not by choice.  The Kirov dancers held back on the ballet and did it all under themselves, but I’m not sure how New York City Ballet managed to do “Serenade” at City Center for so many years; the stage can barely hold it.  The lead dancers also omit the later change by Balanchine of unbinding their hair in the Elegy.

Alina Somova, the love-her-or-hate-her darling of the company danced the lead in the Waltz.  Tall, lanky and platinum blonde, I don’t love and I don’t hate Somova.  I just think she’s weird. I’m used to and appreciative of Balanchine weird but Somova is Russian weird, all smiles, superhigh extensions and fussy port de bras. I don’t know how to place her.  Ekaterina Osmolkina is far easier to parse – she’s quite lovely.  She’s smaller and like the rest of the company, dances “Serenade” with her back rather than her legs.  Osmolkina also did the “fall” in the first movement emotionally differently than what I’ve seen.  There’s usually some sense of foreboding as the dancer gets up.  Osmolkina took it almost chirpily, bounced back up and greeted the world.  Ekaterina Kondaurova looked her absolute best in the “Dark Angel” role in the Elegy.  She moved big and creamily; in a role that isn’t technical, one can still see how technically sound she is.

The men had trouble.  Somova’s partner, Danila Korsuntsev, misjudged the stage dimensions and entered what seemed like an hour too soon to his, and our, confusion. He was left doing egg-on-face improvisatory port de bras until his actual cue.  Alexander Sergeev nearly twisted Kondaurova's ankle when partnering her, narrowly missed flubbing the famous promenade supported by the leg, and brought Somova all the way up for the final rotation at the end instead of leaving her low. 

“Balanchine Style” is service-marked but people will still healthily debate what it is.  It doesn’t matter whether the Kirov’s “Serenade” is “Balanchine Style” or whether it looks like NYCB’s, does it illuminate the choreography in some way?  It takes time to digest a company’s style; there’s a chance one’s answer would change over several viewings.  With only that performance to go on, I’d say the Kirov’s approach is wrongheaded.  The company seemed to be trying to push the ballet’s classical style with precise corps work and a suspended carriage of the upper body.  Virtues all, but “Serenade” is more romantic than classical; it needs motion, sweep and abandon, not more niceties of style.  The ballet looked narcotized.  Slow tempos don’t make it more romantic; it’s like pouring gum into the carburetor.

The stumbling block is probably the Tchaikovsky score.  The Kirov has its way of dancing to Tchaikovsky.  “Rubies” is set to Stravinsky; everyone there knows that’s supposed to be danced differently and can start with a blank slate.  The problem with the Kirov’s “Rubies” is that it’s too aware of that.  Andrian Fadeev seized on the quirks in the choreography rather than the phrases; a small skidding step across the stage got pointed up into, “Look, Ma, I’m falling!”  When dancers are so fixated on style in Balanchine they might never get to the actual style, which is to do the steps.   The rest, as has been said about greater things, is commentary.

Diana Vishneva did not dance as scheduled (to loud groans in the audience at the announcement) and Olesia Novikova went on her place.  She took Balanchine’s advice, “Don’t think, Dear, just do,” and it worked.  It seemed to be the best approach for her nature; she’s a daisy of a dancer, fresh and unaffected, with a physical resemblance to Kay Mazzo.  Novikova is an innocent, the first hint of sexuality occured at the very end of the pas de deux, in the curling and intertwined arms that close it.  In contrast, Kondaurova vamped the second ballerina role hard; over the top and right between the eyes.

Colleen Neary has staged “Ballet Imperial” for both the Kirov and American Ballet Theatre.  She sets the version now known at NYCB as “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” and at a glance, her stagings look the same except for the costuming; ABT uses tutus and the Kirov knocked off the simpler costumes now used at NYCB – white for the men and peach chiffon for the women.

“Serenade” and “Ballet Imperial” may both be Tchaikovsky ballets, but as the name implies, “Ballet Imperial” is a gloss on the Mariinsky style Balanchine learned as a youth in St. Petersburg.  The Petersburgers should be able to show us a thing or two about “Ballet Imperial” – and they do.  Their version was scrupulous in details that are rarely considered in New York.  Entrances that would be haphazard (Balanchine probably only indicated rather than set them) got cleaned, standardized and rehearsed  - at the beginning of the third movement, the four women stepped out, and took a position in perfect synchrony as if the entry really were part of the choreography.  In “Serenade” the punctiliousness robs the ballet of its energy; in Ballet Imperial it’s a connection to the parent style. 

Osmolkina was like sunshine in the second ballerina role.  Once again, there was boy trouble.  Igor Kolb looked like he had just wandered in from “Chopiniana,” (why couldn’t he have danced in “Serenade” instead?) and had problems both with his air turns and his partnering. Victoria Tereshkina may be a tough cookie (I don’t think I’d want to meet her in a dark alley) but she’s also fiercely competent.  The lead role is legendarily difficult, and Tereshkina danced it with pulled-up turns ending in pristine arabesques, an explosive grand jété and secure fouettés.  It’s a queen bee role and Tereshkina is most decidedly a queen bee. 

copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel
Top photo:  The Kirov Ballet in “Serenade”
Bottom photo: The Kirov Ballet in “Rubies”