The Scent of Mothballs
Kirov Ballet and Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre: Petipa-Sergeyev’s Raymonda, Act III; Petipa’s “Kingdom of the Shades” (La Bayadère); Petipa’s Paquita, Act III
Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre in Petipa’s La Bayadère. Photo Courtesy of Cal Performances.
Approximately midway through the performance Tuesday night (Oct. 14) at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, the Kirov Ballet suddenly, with a lightning flash, showed us the grandeur behind the reputation. It was about time, and then some.
When Leonid Sarafanov, the Solor in the evening’s performance of the “Shades” act from La Bayadère tore from the wings in a series of space-devouring jetés, followed by a manège that left observers gasping for air, you knew in your bones that the Kirov can still, in an era of globalized ballet, claim its unequal share of glory. More thrills were waiting offstage. Alina Somova’s willowy Nikiya was a wonder of superb verticality, stunning line and magisterial phrasing. There may have been little pathos in this fallen shade, but the artistic impulse gleamed from every airy extension, every voluptuous developpé. Her dancing was simply a revelation. Sarafanov was just beginning his career when the Kirov last visited UC-Berkeley, but he has evolved into a danseur of enormous urgency, technical clarity and uncommon empathy. And for the only time in the evening, in the Nikiya-Solor exchange, scarf and all, one really felt a current of electricity crackling through a duet (note that Diana Vishneva, the Kirov’s current assoluta, dances Nikiya Wednesday evening).
Yulia Kasenova, Tatiana Tkachenko and Daria Vasnetsova, the three solo shades, delivered their maddeningly complex variations with the technical assurance one expects from the St. Petersburg institution. If Kasenova’s attacks seemed unduly heavy in the first solo, Vasnetsova’s airy trajectory commanded superlatives. The “Shades” scene, of course, means 24 corps women wending their serpentine way onto the stage in a series of arabesques cambrées. The tempo under Kirov conductor Pavel Bubelnikov, was judicious here, yet this touring production limited the wonted magical effect by dispensing with the ramp deployed in the full production of La Bayadère. Instead, the women simply slip out from a black curtain, and the results were downright prosaic. Despite one or two wobbly arabesques, the sequence exuded the otherworldly aura that has vouchsafed the sequence a permanent niche in the international ballet repertoire.
Alas, the remainder of this opening bill in the Cal Performances run, a potpourri that, reportedly, pleased many balletomanes during the Kirov’s New York City Center run last year, heaped ballet cliché upon cliché in its survey of 19th century pseudo-classics. Where was the Kirov of 2008, the company which now confers its pedigree on the neo-classical masterworks of George Balanchine and William Forsythe?
Not apparently for Berkeley dance fans, whose sophistication was belied by this parade of circus acts. I, too, relish the prospect of seeing a superb performance of the final act of Raymonda. But, almost nothing here, starting with Simon Virsaladze’s aging set and costumes, suggested why the work should retain its place in the repertoire.
The problem may have started in the pit. Under Bubelnikov, the orchestra played with blowsy efficiency, rarely providing the steady rhythmic underpinning for the national dances highlighted in this sequence. The results were the dancers’ surprisingly soggy responses to the music. Where was the heel-clicking snap in the mazurka (with soloists Elena Bazhenova and Konstantin Zverev)? Where was the insinuating verve of the czardas (Yulia Slivkina, Boris Zhurilov)? The four princes, however, proved convincing in their unison turning variation, not withstanding noticeable placement problems.
More seriously, the uniformity of address one has come to expect from the Kirov seemed seriously blemished. The evening’s Raymonda (Irma Nioradze) strutted like a pouter pigeon. The Jean de Brienne (Yevgeny Ivanchenko) was all extremities without much expression in the torso, and the feeling of dead weight above the waist seemed endemic to the male corps, in which sunken chests abounded. They get out the steps but they do not embody them. Nioradze brings authority and a measure of hauteur to her assignment, but the rigid, grande dame rigidity of the neck has nothing to do with this character. The partnering never courted disaster, but it never reflected the blushing romanticism of the Glazunov score, either.
The Grand Pas de Deux from Paquita (all that remains of the 1881 piece) is a hard sell under any circumstances. A “can you top this?” sequence to mediocre Minkus music delivers virtuosity, but not necessarily charm, a quality little in evidence Thursday, as six ballerinas scooted out with their variations, threw up their arms with a flourish and vanished. In reality, these empty displays wear you down. Yet, Victoria Tereshkina’s promise seemed fulfilled in her airy attacks and masterful beats. Partner Andrian Fadeev struggled valiantly to keep us, but this is a women’s ballet.
After Wednesday’s repeat, the Kirov Ballet run concludes with three performances of Don Quixote Friday evening through Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. Tickets: 510.642.9988 or www.calperformances.org
