On Dance
JACOBS, LAURA
On Dance THE KIROV'S TIMELESS VIRTUES BY LAURA JACOBS It was Mikhail Baryshnikov's desire to have his company perform the world's most difficult (because most sublimely formal) ballet that...
...No clues were to be found, though, in the Kirov's "contemporary" programs...
...In other ballets it was unnerving to hear the conductor hold phrases for the dancers, especially when they were up in the air, as happened time and again during the men's Bluebird variations...
...But since it is the keeper of the Petipa repertory, its deviations from the norm we are used to somehow seem a more serious matter...
...At the same time, that is why the Kirov's Sleeping Beauty is still the genuine article...
...Scotch Symphony (Balanchine's take on La Sylphide) struck the perfect tone —impressionistic and piquant—and was exceptionally performed by Mezentseva...
...One felt, nevertheless, that wherever the company is heading, its qualities transcend temporal perspectives: It came to us sure of its lineage and secure in a style that might be described as one of disciplined and noble abundance, where sensitive epaulement and port de bras suggest coquettish imaginations, and line is sculpted and dimensional but never baroque...
...Characterizing Galina Mezentseva, the company's reigning ballerina, is more difficult...
...The reconstructed Le Corsaire, for instance, a pirate-and-slave saga that opened the engagement, listed no less than five composers...
...her musical response attained hearing as a form of speech, an ideal Balanchine was forever striving for...
...It is a long work, and among its many lessons, it teaches us the triumph of patience and the powerofpoise, oldfashioned virtues out of step with the MTV anarchy of choreographers like Twyla Tharp and William Forsythe...
...Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov and Tchaikovsky, the three men who reimagined the poetic horizons of the art, did so at the Kirov (then called the Imperial Ballet) in St...
...The stand-out performance belonged to Asylmuratova and her husband Zaklinsky...
...And over the last three decades it was the Kirovbred defectors Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova and Baryshnikov who invigorated dance in the West...
...We dance therefore we are...
...Kirill Melnikov performed with notable grace as Prince Desire, if not much vibrancy...
...Asylmuratova, a dark-featured stunner, has lost her early spontaneity...
...The country's most prominent pundits were there, some shaking their heads and confessing that they themselves no longer knew what to make of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece...
...The Kirov ended its visit by doing two Balanchine ballets, Scotch Symphony and Theme and Variations—a...
...Even when the dancing is wrongheaded, asenseof commitment—to the company and to the art—burns and gives warmth...
...Her dancing, too, is plain and strong, with accents of streaking audacity...
...Brimming with both choreographic allusions and technical advancements the work is & Beauty for a brave new world...
...A danseur noble who seems a tad modest in the spotlight, he is happiest when sidling into caractère...
...Speed and precision thus became the fundamental principles of American ballet appropriately reflecting the rapid pace and ebullient variety of American life...
...she remains unformed, neither sharply defined nor provocatively mysterious...
...Petersburg youth on a New York stage history almost came full circle...
...It seemed that ABT's failure was accompanied by a failure of our perceptions—we had forgotten what to look for in this ballet...
...Theytackled every difficulty with virtuosic care, and while you could feel the gravity of their own tradition (their own Beauty) pulling at their heels and straightening some of Balanchine's beveled edges, they cut a plush path through this crystalline ballet and possessed it...
...Although the current roster of performers is impressive, the Kirov did not introduce any dazzling prodigies this summer, no star the caliber of a Baryshnikov or Makarova in their prime...
...Clearly such a practice can play havoc with the through-line of a musical idea...
...TerekhovamaynotbetheKirov's most fascinating star, but there is no ballerina in America who can finish a phrase in attitude or arabesque balance and create an equally profound punctuation...
...An effective Sleeping Beauty must include an Aurora of ever-deepening integrity and a company's mastery of the delicate, aristocratic tension between court and fairies, mortal and immortal...
...Ironically, it was in large part because American dancers were not trained to expect subtle interpretive concessions from the orchestra that Balanchine was able to invent an American style in the '30s and '40s...
...Wavey-maned and cheetahslim, Ruzimatov has Nureyev's ferocity without the fiery insight—he is too remote to project indelibleimages...
...The season's best surprises came from the younger women...
...Here Balanchine looks at Sleeping Beauty as through a prism that contains and refracts aspects of Aurora: her darting enthusiasm, her yearning, her regal simplicity...
...Hers is an atavistic line fixed in space speaking of hard-won wisdom and stone-smooth discipline, daunting isolation and haughty pride of place, unconscious glamour and duty fulfilled...
...He wanted to show off the corps' newly rigorous classical technique and to spotlight his dewy ballerinas...
...Ayupova's dancing was lucidly engaged...
...The Kirov's liberties in this regard may not be worse than those of other European companies...
...The less good-looking Tatyana Terekhova, on the other hand, is a diminutive powerhouse who has willed herself to beauty and into a compelling force on stage...
...During the company's minitour in 1986, New York critics took an instant disliketo her, and their antipathy continued this summer...
...Besides its monumental reputation, there was much curiosity about what effect glasnost might be having on its august traditions...
...For just as The Sleeping Beauty is the quintessential classical ballet (both an allegory of the ballerina's birth and blossoming and a comprehensive textbook on technique), the Kirov is the quintessential company—the origin of ballet as it is danced today...
...The result was a messy musical pastiche, fortunately relieved by precious nuggets of Petipa choreography...
...The three-week engagement presented an opportunity to reassess the legendary group and to see what direction it was moving in...
...An older dancer, she is unbecomingly thin and frequently unsteady...
...Looking back at the whole Kirov engagement, however, the dancer who comes most vividly to mind is Tatyana Terekhova...
...She hits her balances on pointe so softly and with such ample security, for instance, that she seems to survey the stage from on high...
...Lovely and immensely talented, Ayupova is still green in the role, whereas Mezentseva's portrayal (available on tape) is powerfully stark, and in Act II, full of a night-blooming strangeness...
...I am reminded of that time because the July 3-22 Metropolitan Opera House engagement of Leningrad's Kirov Ballet raised—and fulfilled—hopes of resurrecting our understanding...
...Alas, most of the ABT dancers just didn't get it...
...hint, perhaps, for those wondering where the company's sights are set, as well as a generous gesture...
...The Russians, as if recognizing the missing element, even provided Theme with a gold-and-blue backdrop depicting the jewel-like Maryinsky Theater...
...Exquisite as she was in her Paquita variation, most of her performances tended to be overcalculated, decorative and ultimately disappointing...
...These offered up the most synthetic dollops of alienation influenced by Maurice Bejart, Glen Tetley and Martha Graham...
...Senior ballerina Lyubov Kunakova, an attractive woman, has trouble evoking her allure...
...Yet the more one watched her the clearer it became that a direct line runs from the technical purity and transparency of phrase of Irina Kolpokova, a recently retired Kirov icon, to Mezentseva...
...Altynai Asylmuratova and Farukh Ruzimatov, Kirov principals who were ABT guests last year, are both exotic, arresting presences capable of enthralling an audience, so much so that the celebrityhungry press nearly devoured them...
...It retains a sense of birth, change and renewal—the whole touched with patience...
...The tricky and difficult Theme did not fit the company as comfortably as Scotch, yet it was the more poignant achievement...
...they fit the dancers, emotionally, like polyester...
...That same spring the Dance Critics Association held a Sleeping Beauty seminar...
...For many years, after all, the Kirov was constrained to remain aloof in its Imperial niche while the myriad trends of Western dance teemed by...
...The full company's arrival in New York after a 25-year absence was thus eagerly anticipated...
...On Dance THE KIROV'S TIMELESS VIRTUES BY LAURA JACOBS It was Mikhail Baryshnikov's desire to have his company perform the world's most difficult (because most sublimely formal) ballet that prompted the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) to produce its version of The Sleeping Beauty three seasons ago...
...Yet they promise more than they can deliver...
...Pankova and the angelic Yuri Zhukov were a younger, more vivid pair of dancers who moved with a startling City Ballet-ish impetuosity...
...Her ardor and lyric nuance expressed the sylph's desires and elusiveness...
...High polish and youth, however, are not all this demanding work requires...
...This is the language of the Kirov...
...This was convincingly demonstrated at the end of the first week when she was replaced by young Zhanna Ayupova in Giselle...
...Her plain, angular face, lit by a wide smile, suddenly glitters...
...Finally, there was the Kirov corps in all its heroic strength and existential poetry...
...Yulia Makhalina's Athena-like size and elegance as the Lilac Fairy...
...her sylph in Chopiniana was naturally, girlishly communicative, her sweep and timbre as a lieutenant Wili like a cello's plaint...
...Konstantin Zaklinsky, dashing and witty, carried the season for the men...
...Scores are not sacred...
...With Balanchine being danced by the company of his St...
...This, plus their happy formal deficiencies and freedom from the burdens of tradition—not to mention his own deep dislike of emotional effusion—inspired Balanchine to declare tempo markings off-limits...
...This visit will be remembered for the tenacious purity of Irina Chistyakova's peasant pas de deux in Giselle and the enamel gleam she put on her Fairy Doll...
...Yelena Sherstnyova's tantalizing intelligence in the Battleship Potemkin...
...the sheer hunger for movement in Yelena Pankova's Fairy of Courage variation and vivacious Aurora...
...The biggest difference between the Kirov's way of doing things and ours in the West is what we take to be its lack of musicality, which was loudly discussed during intermissions...
...I have never seen the jewel fairies dance their pas de trois with such perfect corps d' esprit and blazing rigor, and the whole final Act overflowed with light and beauty...
...George Balanchine studied there before eventually coming to New York, starting a school and a style, and creating the New York City Ballet with its incomparable repertory...
...Petersburg in the late 19thcentury...
Vol. 72 • August 1989 • No. 12
