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The Bolshoi in London

"Le Corsaire", "La Bayadere", "Don Quixote"
Bolshoi Ballet
London Coliseum
London, England
July 30 to August 15, 2007

by John Percival
copyright ©2007 by John Percival

Here's a surprise: a London season of the Bolshoi Ballet presented by the Hochhauser management without a single "Swan Lake" -- unprecedented and most welcome. The three-week season contained three premieres. At the time of writing we still await new productions by Christopher Wheeldon and Twyla Tharp, but the run opened triumphantly with the new version of "Le Corsaire" premiered only a few weeks earlier. (Why, I wonder, does this get known under a French title when the original inspiration was an English poem by Lord Byron?) You've probably heard that artistic director Alexei Ratmansky, aided by ballet master Yuri Burlaka, relied upon the archives at Harvard University to restore more than we usually see of Petipa's authentic old choreography and has filled that in with pastiche which I found attractively convincing. He also restored the intended running order, which helps make a more logical story than usual - although some of our critics said they couldn't follow it. Even after cutting out long mime scenes, the show runs to almost three and a half hours, but doesn't feel too long to me.

Very Mixed Offerings

"Making Television Dance"€
BBC TV
British Film Institute, London
5 to 25 June

"Ballet for the People"
Ballet Boyz Gala
Royal Festival Hall, London
14 and 15 July

"The Sleeping Beauty"€
Ballet of La Scala, Milan
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
25 to 29 July

by John Percival
copyright © 2007 by John Percival

The most enjoyable series of performances I have seen for quite a time was the British Film Institute's presentation entitled Making Television Dance. As long ago as the 1930s BBC television was offering its then modest audiences programmes by the Vic-Wells Ballet and specially made works by Antony Tudor which proved highly popular. Two decades on, when Margaret Dale decided (at only about thirty!) that her days as a dancer with Sadler's Wells Ballet were numbered, she first turned briefly to choreography with just one ballet that flopped, then began as an assistant on television programmes, saw the opportunities for developing the medium, and joined the BBC in 1954.