Mariinsky Ballet
Apollo, Middle Duet, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, The Prodigal Son
Sadler's Wells Theatre,
London, England
13 -16 October, 2008
by Judith Cruickshank
copyright 2008 by Juditih Cruickshank
There was some surprise when earlier this year it was announced that the Kirov Ballet and Opera would be giving a short season at Sadler's Wells. Until now, the company had always appeared in London either at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden or at the London Coliseum, and the rebuilt Sadler's Wells, with its big stage and excellent sightlines, is still very much a people's theatre. But come the company did, now officially called the Mariinsky, bringing an all-Forsythe evening, and a mixed bill of ballet, plus a splendid production of Rimsky Korsakov's opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”. All were given just two performances.
The Forsythe evening was identical to that given when the company was last at Covent Garden some years ago, even to some of the casting, and I was happy to give it a miss. The mixed bill looked more promising; announced as two by Balanchine, “Apollo” and “Prodigal Son”, plus Alexei Ratmansky's “Pierrot Lunaire”, created for Diana Vishneva. In the event, we got neither “Pierrot” nor Vishneva: they were substituted by Ratmansky's “Middle Duet” and Balanchine's “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux”.
In a pre-season interview the Mariinsky's artistic director, Valery Gergiev, was quoted as saying; “Balanchine suits this company so well. We understand what he was trying to say with his choreography because he was a child of our tradition and never broke with it”. Well, up to a point Lord Copper, as Evelyn Waugh put it.
Igor Zelensky has been dancing the title role in “Apollo” for a good many years now, and still in it looks very much the blond god. But some of the powerful fluidity has gone from his dancing, and everything seems to require rather more effort, lifts especially. To be fair this could be because the whole ballet looked under-rehearsed, despite it being the second performance. Terpsichore was a very flirtatious Ekaterina Osmolkina, with Nadezhda Gonchar as Calliope and Olesya Novikova as Polyhymnia. Beautiful dancers all three, but strangely uninvolved. And I must say I dislike this version of the ballet, shorn of its prologue and with no final ascent to Parnassus.
It was Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux that really made me query Gergiev's claimed ownership of Balanchine. The piece could hardly have been more beautifully danced. I suppose Vladimir Shklyarov must (although he doesn't look it) be more than 16 since he graduated from the Vaganova School into the company in 2003. He seems to be one of those perfect St Petersburg products; beautiful line, perfect turns and tours en l'air, a good jump and a charming stage personality. Evgenya Obraztsova was his partner, pretty in pink, her crystalline dancing matching her appearance.
But where was the fun, the pizzazz, the daring? These dancers were like two exquisite, beautifully brought up children displaying their party piece. One couldn't imagine that Obraztsova would ever play with the music, like Violette Verdy, or that Shklyarov would hold off till the last minute so as to make those catches in the coda look even more thrilling. It was beautiful, it was deservedly thunderously applauded, but it was very serious – and I don't think that's how Balanchine meant it to be.
“Middle Duet” is an odd one. Created by Ratmansky in 1988, the actual duet was previously seen in London at a Mariinsky gala, but it arrived at Sadler's Wells complete with décor and the full cast. The curtain rises on a wintery landscape with bare trees in front of a high wall whose surface is broken only by a large arched window. The light from the window is cast on to the stage and confines the duettists of the title; at this performance Ekaterina Kondaurova and Islom Baimuradov. The music is by Yury Khanon, a strange repetitive score punctuated by a repeated clockwork-like sound.
The couple tussle, push and pull at each other. She collapses, only to be pulled up by her partner. He breaks away and then the pair come back together. All this is watched by two motionless figures, one in black, one in white, each with huge curving wings. Finally the dancing pair collapse, and we see another couple enter and begin the self-same duet. The dark angel walks up to them, picks up their seemingly lifeless arms and lets them fall. The white angel then helps that couple to rise and tenderly shepherds them off stage. It's a strange piece, but never less than interesting and original, and I'd love to know exactly what inspired it.
Back to Balanchine for the final work, “The Prodigal Son” with a platinum blond Mikhail Lobukhin as the eponymous hero and a very seductive Kondaurova as the Siren. Lobukhin is gifted with a remarkably beautiful physique and he gave us abundant opportunity to admire it as he opted to wear only a miniscule pair of flesh-coloured briefs under his mini-kilt. His acting seemed to consist mainly of opening his large and heavily made-up eyes even wider, and never before have I seen Prodigal and Siren pawing each other eagerly during the Friends' duet.
It's very seldom that I fail to have a lump in the throat or even a certain moisture in the eyes at the end of this ballet when the Prodigal is folded into his father's arms. But on this occasion I was left wondering whether Petr Stasyunas would actually fall off his unbelievably high platform soles as he carried the blood and mud stained Lobukhin into the family hut. Not then a memorable performance, or at least not for the right reasons, and there seemed to be far too many moments when the dancers were clearly waiting for the next musical cue.
As beautiful as these dancers are, it seems to me that this is a company with real problems that are unlikely to be solved simply by a change of ballet master. I think I've never come away from a performance having seen such good dancing but feeling so flat. Artists of earlier generations were the product not just of wonderful schooling – that is clearly still there – but of careful and considered preparation, and its hard to see how that can happen in present circumstances when the dancers travel constantly between airport, theatre and hotel.
Kondaurova, for instance, was dancing in California in “Don Quixote” on Friday. She then appeared in two ballets in the Forsythe programme in London the following Monday and Tuesday, in an unfamiliar theatre. This was followed immediately by two more leading roles on two evenings in the next programme. Just two weeks later she makes her debut as Odette/Odile in St Petersburg. Obraztsova – who also appeared in both programmes - left London on the Friday to dance the lead in “Cinderella” in St Petersburg on the Saturday. One hopes at least she had time to do her laundry and prepare her shoes, and possibly even catch up on some sleep.
And there's the problem of repertory in a world where every major company dances the same handful of both classics and modern works – Forsythe included, and the few 'hot' choreographers have a world of companies to chose from. Both Gergiev and the new ballet master Yuri Fateev have indicated that they have no interest in the reconstructed “Beauty” and “Bayadère”. But it could be argued that these are an important part of the company's heritage, allowing us to see the glory and the logic of Petipa's classical architecture (though I confess I'm no fan of the “Beauty” costumes).
This attitude seems especially odd coming from Gergiev when he proudly boasts that the “Tsar Saltan” production he brought to the Wells is based on one first given in 1903. Would he consider making cuts to say, “Götterdämmerung”, in order to make it shorter and more acceptable to today's audiences? Or re-arranging a Tchaikovsky symphony to suit the current crop of orchestral players? Because that in effect is what has happened to Petipa's masterworks over the years, and if St Petersburg doesn't respect them, who will?
Ekaterina Kondaurova in "The Prodigal Son." Photo by Natasha Razina.
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