"La Bayadère"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
May 19, 2010
By Carol Pardo
Copyright ©Carol Pardo
Poetry and melodrama share the bill in Natalia Markarova’s production of "La Bayadère ." Poetry came first with premiere of the Kingdom of the Shades scene in 1974. Plot and melodrama followed six years later as the ballet expanded to fill a full evening. Thirty years on, "La Bayadère" is, with "Giselle," one of the only ABT versions of full-length story ballets derived from Petipa which, though wheeled out with numbing frequency to fill the four thousand seats at the Met every spring, has not yet worn out its welcome. Over the years, it has given countless dancers a chance to shine, here, Veronika Part as Nikiya and, in his company debut as Solor, Roberto Bolle. But injury intervened and Marcelo Gomes replaced him.
Veronika Part has always easy on the eyes and often downright glamorous. Here she also looked svelte, which hasn’t always been the case. The long lines and "bare" midriff of the temple dancer’s costumes drew attention to her broad shoulders, narrow waist and small base of her pointes, this last is in striking contrast to her voracious jump. She also danced at tempo. Only once was the pace markedly slower than expected, but the music was never deformed to accommodate the dancer. That hasn’t always been the case either.
Gomes’ Solor is confident, proud of the (stuffed) tiger he has bagged and fully aware of his place in the world. When, in the opening scene, Solor lowers his arm to point at the groveling fakir to reinforce his orders, he also, by his arrogance, sows the seeds of his own—and everyone else’s—destruction. This is but one instance of a grand gesture that veered toward overkill, rather like silent moving acting. What saved the performance was timing, but also the rapport between the leads and the scale and sculptural resonance of their dancing. That grandeur made their characters heroic and their dilemma tragic.
This "tall" cast was completed by Michele Wiles as Gamzatti. Wiles can do anything; the technical challenges of the first act pas d’action leave her unfazed. If her port de bras were slightly rounder and more weighed, Gamzatti’s power would be even more fearsome than it already is. Wiles' best moment of the evening didn’t depend on her whiplash technique. After being attacked by her rival, Wiles drew her torso up and out, like an irate cobra ready to strike in retaliation. At that moment, Nikiya’s fate was sealed, the remainder of the plot inevitable.
The corps in the Kingdom of the Shades scene is the other star of "La Bayadère ." It is hard to dance down a ramp in unison and harder still to make the steps flow, but flow they did. Even a few wobbles once the dancers arrived on flat ground couldn't disturb Petipa's magic. So Happy 30th Anniversary and many more to come.