Dance
McDonagh, Don
DANCE THE NEXT GREAT LEAP MEASURING THE BOLSHOI The Bolshoi Ballet's artistry has always been inextricably bound up with politics. Starting in 1703 when the capital was moved from Moscow, the...
...The pure-hearted win out, but only a trained Marxist dialectician could explain why the sainted Lenin's N.E.P...
...During the Bolshoi's last visit to the United States in 1979, the vociferously praised Ludmila Semenyaka and Nadezhda Pavlova had been transferred from the Kirov and the Perm State Ballet, a Kirov spinoff, respectively...
...Raymonda," re-staged in 1984, has the young heroine now dreaming about the Saracen knight rather than the Christian one in traditional productions, but all is resolved amid a continuous flurry of danced set pieces...
...Petersburg's Maryinsky...
...It implies the abandonment of readily understood, upbeat ballets that celebrate positive aspects of the Soviet world outlook in favor of ambiguous, "elitist" productions...
...The overall, physical look of the company now more closely resembles standard Western companies in its lean muscularity...
...In the meanwhile, a new generation of dancers has ascended to the principal roles in the company...
...The cherished appointment is to Moscow and the Bolshoi...
...The capital city which was reestablished after the Bolshevik Revolution, exercises a magnetism for artists which has been abetted over the years by the systematic transfer of talented dancers and teachers to the Bolshoi...
...He has an obvious athleticism and verve that draws attention whenever he is on stage...
...Two of its most respected coaches, Galina Ulanova (reported to have been Stalin's favorite ballerina) and Marina Semyonova, both began careers in Leningrad in the twenties...
...His special contribution has been substantially to eliminate mime and to replace it with pure dancing, thus cutting through the Gordian knot of gesture that was choking Soviet Ballet in the fifties...
...However, his and his country's inability to uncouple artistic and political concerns leaves these wonderful dancers little to express creatively: don McDONAGH 500...
...A contrasting ballerina is Nina Ananiashvili whose qua-trocentro prettiness makes her slide naturally into romantic roles...
...Irritation over these matters caused the long delay between that season and the present tour of the United States, due to end in Los Angeles...
...Petersburg where the Maryinsky (today Kirov) Ballet enjoyed the favored attention of the czars...
...Starting in 1703 when the capital was moved from Moscow, the company became second in importance...
...His restrained power is particularly notable in nineteenth-century ballets where his manner and presentation reminds me of his father, Nikolai Fadeyechev, who was for years Maya Plisetskaya's favored partner...
...The move away from elaborate mime in favor of danced expressiveness had its roots prior to World War II in the work of Michel Fokine...
...Act I has been streamlined so that the young village women now dance in a manner that is closer to the ethereal Wilis (would-be brides who died) of Act II...
...After Stalin's death in 1953, Grigorovitch united folk and classical dancing to alter decisively the, then prevalent, silent-film histrionics that had restricted movement to a form of mimetic theater...
...The Romantic Ballet's cherished practice of contrasting the naturalistic act against a supernatural one has been systematically eroded...
...Semenyaka still displays the winsome lyricism that marked her out for special attention as the pure-hearted Phrygia, even amidst the hurly burly of Grigorovitch's "Spartacus" (1969...
...Today that has changed...
...As a result, the company has liberated its technical pedagogy to develop impressively gifted and expressive artists, while confining the exercise of their skills to mediocre twentieth-century vehicles for the most part...
...With the major exceptions of Semenyaka and the senior Natalya Bessmertnova, the company presented a new line of top male and female dancers...
...The nineteenth-century classics, in as far as they preserve their original choreography, have greater subtlety and artistic merit...
...Act II, which has always featured the classical dancing of the malevolent Wilis, remains pretty much intact, though the sharp contrast between the real and surreal worlds has been blurred...
...Leonid Lavrovsky (formerly Kirov) had choreographed a production of this ballet for the Bolshoi in 1954 that had been disappointing...
...In the title role of Spartacus, Irek Mukhamedov showed a noble bearing as the leader of the slave revolt, whether vaulting astonishing distances and heights or exhorting his own followers...
...The corps continually presented a display of power and skill that, for many, make the artistic deficiencies of the ballet irrelevant...
...She established early the young girl's infatuated commitment to the deceitful Albrecht and sustained it even as a transformed Wili...
...Less concerned with picturebook precision, Liepa convincingly projects heedless passion...
...The mother's mimed warning against the dangers of unbridled dancing is eliminated and the Act I "peasant" pas de deux has a solo for Giselle herself oddly inserted into it...
...The latter was and still is a serious critical accusation...
...Her attack is normally quick and exact and she has the ability to modulate it for dramatic effect...
...That even the nineteenth-century classics have not been entirely spared the new policy was demonstrated by Grigorovitch's re-staging of "Giselle," first shown in Paris last year...
...Grigorovitch carefully retained a defensible libretto for each new production, eschewed subtlety in plot development, and steered clear of "formalism...
...Andrus Liepa, most notable in Grigorovitch's "Romeo and Juliet," has the ardent eagerness one associates with a still maturing artist...
...is currently being vilified...
...When Grigorovitch was invited to Moscow to mount this version, it was as successful as it had been in 499 Leningrad, and four years later Grigorovitch was summoned to take charge of the Bolshoi...
...Marius Petipa, who set an indelible stamp on ballet development in Russia, began at Moscow's Bolshoi but flourished when transferred to St...
...This strength is based on its school and others .throughout the Soviet Union which see many of their most talented pupils incorporated into the Bolshoi...
...The peasant who loves her is given a bit more nobility than ordinarily to bring him on a closer social plane with the disguised nobleman...
...With Fadeyechev, she danced glitteringly the "Black Swan" pas de deux...
...Dancers and choreographers vied first for appointment to St...
...The one constant over the past twenty-three years has been Yuri Grigorovitch, the company's chief choreographer and artistic director...
...The fourth program of the season featured substantial excerpts from Grigorovitch's "Romeo and Juliet" and "Spartacus" as well as brief divertissements from nineteenth-century classics...
...Stylistically, it differs most in the emphatic expressiveness of its dancing...
...The bare essentials of mimed exchanges are retained to keep the story of the betrayed village girl on track...
...Grigorovitch's emphasis on dancing rather than acting was a needed corrective...
...Trained in the Kirov school and a member of that company, he came to Moscow's attention in 1957 with a re-staging of Prokofiev's last ballet, "The Stone Flower...
...The company is strong at the top and throughout the soloist and corps level...
...Aleksei Fadeyechev combines technical prowess with refined partnering that makes him an ideal classical dancer...
...The company is weak in its contemporary choreography...
...This heavy-handed bit of agit-prop and its choreography were completely jettisoned in favor of an equally heavy-handed story about evil New Economic Policy (N.E...
...The vigorous dancing of the male corps was impressive more for its high technical level than any inherent worth in the choreography...
...Alia Mikhalchenko's gift for characterization found its most successful role as Giselle...
...P.) exploiters, bandits, and pure-hearted young workers...
...That creative path was enthusiastically followed in the West, but was stifled in the Soviet Union where melodramatic "socialist realism" governed all artistic expression...
...The Golden Age," re-staged in 1982, dates from 1930 and originally featured a story about Fascists, a negro boxer, Soviet soccer players, good workers, and corrupt police...
...That trip was marred by the defection of Alexander Godunov, along with Valen-tina and Leonid Koslov...
...Her not-so-pure-in-heart counterpart, Aegina, was precisely and sharply characterized by Nina Semizorova as scheming, self-centered, and unscrupulous...
...Pavlova did not make the trip...
...In "Romeo and Juliet" she was demure and innocent as she was being overwhelmed by her first great emotional experience...
...Her variation in "Raymonda" again showed to advantage her light, singing quality...
Vol. 114 • September 1987 • No. 15
