"Raymonda"
The Mariinsky Ballet
The Opera House
The JFK Center for the Performing Arts
February 28, 2016 (matinee)
by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2016 by Alexandra Tomalonis
The Mariinsky Ballet showed why it has long been one of the world’s greatest ballet companies Sunday afternoon, not only by its soft, beautiful dancing, but by how it coped with unexpected change. Oxana Skorik danced the first act, but after an intermission only a few minutes longer than usual, the announcer told the audience that the role of Raymonda would now be danced by Anastasia Kolegova. Kolegova had danced the part Saturday afternoon with a different partner, yet made the transition seamlessly. (One presumes that Skorik was injured.)
Kolegova danced as a member of the ensemble – first among equals, her dancing soft and clear, as befits a young bride. Skorik is a beautiful lyrical dancer, but her concept of this role seemed to be to show how l-o-n-g her leg is in arabesque, after arabesque, after arabesque. Kolegova has long lines, too, but she didn’t emphasize them, and so one could concentrate on her fine dancing rathern than mentally trying to measure her leg.
Would Petipa really have made a senseless ballet, or has something gotten lost along the way? There are so many questions, first and foremost, who are these people? One often reads that Raymonda is a Hungarian Princess, but is that so? And if it is, what is she doing in Provence? Cyril W. Beaumont tells us that Raymonda (no nationality given, so we can assume she’s from Hungary if we want) is there visiting her aunt, the Countess Sybille. If one goes with Beaumont, usually a safe bet, then all of the visits do make sense. Raymonda has gone to her aunt’s castle because she’s going to marry a French knight. That knight, Jean de Brienne, is also a real historical character. He and King Andrew II led the Fifth Crusade, so it would also make sense that Andrew would come to the wedding. (There history leaves us; Jean de Brienne had three wives, but none was named Raymonda.)
How does Abderakhman get there? At the time of the Fifth Crusade, Spain was still under Moorish rule. Thus “the Saracen” is from Spain, practically next door, so why wouldn’t he come over to take a look at the beautiful visitor of whom he has heard tales? This also explains the Moorish and Spanish dances in Act II.
The story of a knight rescuing his love at the last minute has become a cliché, but that’s not Petipa’s fault. The dream scene, in which Raymonda sees both her intended husband and the Moor, made more sense in Petipa’s version, when the statue of the White Lady (dropped from the Sergeyev production) comes down from her pedestal, not to inspire a dream in which the young girl has to choose between her True Love and the Tall Dark Handsome Stranger, but to warn Raymonda to be wary of Abderakhman because he does not have honorable intentions.
After a duel to settle that problem, we move to the part of “Raymonda” that does make sense to contemporary ballet goers. In Act III, Petipa brings us right up to date (1898). The wedding’s character dances are a tip of the hat to Hungary, as are the character touches to the port de bras in the classical dances -– a very innovative touch in its day. Character dancing was the rage then, and audiences liked to see dances they could do at their own balls. However, the ballet wasn’t popular with members of its audience who wanted more dramatic ballets, like “Esmeralda,” and were tired of Petipa. This taste lasted at least 50 years, and when George Balanchine staged the work in 1948 for Alexandra Danilova, the reviews told him that no one would sit through this again.
Another way to look at it is that "Raymonda" can be seen as a great gift to us: it’s living dance history. “Raymonda” received its premiere two months before Petipa’s 80th birthday, and everything he knew about ballet and its history is contained in it. Classical ballet began at courts like this one. There was a requirement for turnout, not extreme turnout, but a proud opening of the body that remains at the core of ballet to this day. In addition, many of the steps that dancers still dance were born at those courts, and its positions came from fencing. In “Raymonda,” there’s also a tribute to the softer dancing of the Romantic Era (the dream scene), and always there’s a look back to the great court ballets and, perhaps, the grand ballets of Pierre Gardel, which Petipa would have seen as a young man in Paris. Then, in the last act Petipa showed off what he had built: an enormously gifted classical ballet company that could dance anything.
“Raymonda” certainly still challenges companies today, as the work requires squadrons of fine classical dancers, which, of course, the Mariinsky has by the dozen. Kolegova was a charming young bride, worthy of a knight who would become an Emperor of Jerusalem, and a fine classical ballerina, dancing her many solos as though they were play. Timor Askerov was a lordly Jean de Brienne and coped with his change of partner admirably; both Askerov and Kolegova managed the difficult lifts and made it seem as though they had been dancing together forever. Askerov danced like a great knight in his third act as well.
The role of Abderakhman has been beefed up since Petipa’s day. Once a star mime part (first danced by the great Pavel Gerdt), the Saracen now dances several solos and leads the suite of character dances in Act II. His is a much richer role than Jean de Brienne’s now, and Konstantin Zverev made the most of it, with powerful, soaring jumps. As a dance-actor, he showed Abderakhman’s attraction turn to aggression, with a bit of desperation. He really loves “Raymonda,” it seems. Andrew II (uncredited in the program) was his commanding, and ultimately victorious, foil.
The soloists (Nadezhda Batoeva and Kristina Shapran, Fuad Mamedov and Vitaly Aelishko) as well as the character dancers and classical corps showed the graceful, confident power of the Mariinsky. This was a beautifully harmonious performance, with everyone contributing to its success.
copyright 2016 by Alexandra Tomalonis