A Loss of Tradition in the Kirov
JACOBS, LAURA
On Dance A LOSS OF TRADITION IN THE KIROV BY LAURA JACOBS When the full Kirov Ballet last came to New York in 1989, it brought a looming and leafy Sleeping Beauty, a later version of the work it...
...Although Makhalina is impressive standing still, when she moves one sees what is missing: liberty...
...What was particularly striking about its return was how unfamiliar the company looked...
...If the Kirov can shed no light on the conclusion of Swan Lake, one of ballet's most existential moments, who can...
...he is not even a gifted choreographer...
...When the prince appears in Act I, he is hardly recognizable...
...I complained about a soulless Swan Lake after last summer's Royal Ballet production at the Met...
...With its dusty velvet costumes of Disney blue and ivy green, the ballet evoked a sense of old-world spaciousness and laissez-faire treatment...
...Semion Pastukh's sets, if handsomely high-vaulted, are forgettable, while Galina Solovieva's gaudy costumes rattle, rustle and jingle with fool's gold...
...Mentoring, back-biting and favoritism, of course, are just another day at the ballet...
...These fine points accentuate the swell of her calves and bust, lending her a cool, sculpted perfection...
...The production was off-tempo, and the dancing was a bit bottom heavy...
...Only Makhalina made an impact...
...In contrast, she has a wide forehead and full cheeks, accents deemed "peasant" in some circles...
...But it was Kirov to the toes...
...Vinogradov is not...
...The two ballerinas I saw dance the lead, Makhalina and Nina Ananiashvili, looked overscaled and uncomfortable...
...His inability to inspire dancers has combined with the country's Zeitgeist to produce strained, characterless effects...
...each step is labored, exact to a fault...
...In an act that should see the couple tragically reunited and reborn, the dancers are placed on opposite sides of the stage, facing into the wings...
...She is blessed with tiny ankles, wrists and waist...
...Within the Kirov, moreover, a Byzantine coaching system is today causing division rather than conserving tradition...
...Makhalina can hide her flaws for a while because she isn't afraid to grab attention—the mark of a true ballerina, yet just one of many...
...Indeed, the story has been so flattened by Vinogradov's confused corps work and excessively abstract floor patterns that Odette looks like some feathered eccentric fluttering in from a vaudeville stage...
...The situation is exacerbated by the dictatorship of artistic director Oleg Vinogradov, who has his own agenda and alliances...
...In 1989, for instance, at least six ballerinas were presented equally...
...As the curtain descends, Odette scampers off and Siegfried crumples to the floor...
...There is a jolting interpolation of music in Act IV, a grand, stately segment that tonally derails the usual development of quiet anxiety, and that emphasizes the ridiculous distance Vinogradov has put between Siegfried and Odette...
...Instead, she has cultivated a hard, international approach that Vinogradov must have thought ideal for his Swan Lake...
...Once a sleeping beauty itself, the Kirov seemed to have awakened, run to Macy's and gotten a makeover...
...Unlike the softer, impressionably present Ayupova, Makhalina does not dance "Russian...
...Here is another one to toss into the pond...
...Glasnost has been a huge factor...
...She has "plastique" but lacks pulse and impulse...
...But the drama her style craves is that of large theatrical gesture rather than delicate emotional play amid the airy arcs of classical technique...
...What of their apotheosis...
...With this freedom has come a loss of the old purity...
...With her earthy hauteur and fiery eyes, she pleased most in the role of a blazing diva—the black swan Odile, for example, or the hot-blooded lover of Jerome Robbins' In the Night...
...This year, Vinogradov has fixed on Yulia Makha-lina as his bright star—the new brand of Kirov dancer...
...But they can be put to good use if the director is a genius on the order of George Balanchine or Frederick Ashton...
...A bounding, baby-fatted female when last we saw her, the tall Makhalina is now slim and arrowy...
...Unfortunately, the production is a mess...
...This summer at the Metropolitan Opera House, the Kirov presented two old ballets, Romeo and Juliet and La Bayadere, plus a new Swan Lake and a mixed bill of American classics...
...Where did she go...
...She was given the principal role on opening night...
...Not only has it allowed a broadened choreographic sensibility into the hallowed halls of St...
...Petersburg's Maryinsky Theater, it has enabled dancers to appear as guests with Western troupes and soak up additional outside influences...
...Of the others, Altynai Asylmuratova looked washed out, Larissa Lezhnina seemed diminutive and Zhanna Ayupova hardly got on stage...
...On Dance A LOSS OF TRADITION IN THE KIROV BY LAURA JACOBS When the full Kirov Ballet last came to New York in 1989, it brought a looming and leafy Sleeping Beauty, a later version of the work it had premiered in 1890...
Vol. 75 • August 1992 • No. 10
