The Bolshoi Ballet in La Bayadère. Photo courtesy of Cal Performances.
Moscow’s legendary Bolshoi Ballet launched its latest U.S. tour Thursday evening (June 4) at UC-Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, and it was clear that the company is in a period of transition, considering the bewildering production of La Bayadère that serves as this institution’s calling-card. If you go simply for the dancing, you won’t be disappointed. Of course, there should be more in the ballet experience, like narrative coherence and detailed characterization. Those virtues are in short supply here.
Oddly, it was only months ago that the Mariinsky Theatre, the Bolshoi’s rival in St. Petersburg, graced this stage with the climactic Kingdom of the Shades act from this same ballet. The reason for this duplication? Of the four works that comprise this tour (including a new production of Le Corsaire), only La Bayadère could fit scenically on the Zellerbach stage, and then barely. Still, the compromises in this Cal Performances presentation (one of departing director Robert Cole’s final attractions) cannot be ignored. The sets extend into the wings (where the royal family seems to be sitting in the wedding act), flying trajectories seem hobbled and we are denied the final earthquake cited in the publicity material, yielding the limpest Bayadère ending in the annals. It all runs well over three hours.
This is the first Bolshoi tour to America under the company’s latest artistic director, Yuri Burlaka, hired last January to succeed Alexei Ratmansky, who has gone on to American Ballet Theatre. We are told that Burlaka is a specialist in historical reconstructions, but he simply hasn’t been on the scene long enough to influence the look and flavor of the company’s productions.
This Bayadère, a saga of love, betrayal and redemption in a fabled India, arrives with mixed parentage. It swears fealty to Marius Petipa’s 1877 original, but then, the program cites the 1991 “new scenic version” by Yuri Grigorovich, who held iron-fisted sway over the Bolshoi for three long decades of the Soviet era. We also get infusions from productions by Vakhtang Chabukiani, Nikolai Zubkovsky and Konstantin Sergeyev. So, what we see is a patchwork.
As is his wont, Grigorovich has banished most of the original’s mime. He has also dispensed with the final scene and enforces an all-dancing, all the time scheme. So, the narrative too often yields to spectacular divertissement, and, frankly, in the long second act wedding scene, it simply wears you down as wave upon wave of temple dancers, drummers and cute children (from the San Francisco Ballet School) flaunt their virtuosity and depart. The key plot element, the poisoning of the temple dancer Nikiya by the jealous princess Gamzatti, her rival for the warrior Solor, seems tacked on at the end, as if it were an embarrassment.
Svetlana Zakharova and Nikolay Tsiskaridze of Bolshoi Ballet in La Bayadère. Photo by E. Fetisova.
Grigorovich can’t resist filling empty space. So, just as Solor is about to smoke his opium pipe and fantasize the Shades scene, the stage fills with assorted fakirs for an unnecessary candle dance. There are some Bolshoi watchers who consider this stuff the zenith of the balletic art and they will surely love every minute. But, it’s a shame that the Bay Area saw almost nothing of the changes wrought by Ratmansky in his too-brief tenure at the Bolshoi. Burlaka has his work cut out for him.
After all those problems, there’s the iconic Shades scene with 32 women descending a ramp in arabesque penchée, and criticism is disarmed. Judging from Thursday’s performance (the company dances through Sunday at 3 p.m.), one senses a new refinement in the Bolshoi’s dancing. You can see it in this scene, with its unison lines, stunning pointe work and artful developpés offering an image of ballet heaven. Even earlier, the spirit and flesh were willing. Those semi-clad fakirs may be redundant, but they generate genuine fireworks.
Thankfully, this time around, the Bolshoi has imported some of its very best dancers to Berkeley. Note, however, that Andrey Uvarov, one of the designated Solors, has canceled because of illness, and his assignments will be shared by Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Alexander Volchkov. Thursday’s performance brought the long delayed Bay Area debut of Svetlana Zakharova. Her preternaturally long limbs and tapered torso are the stuff of legend. She is blessed, too, with a substantial jump, an austere line and a pleasing economy of gesture. But one also noticed a certain air of calculation and an absence of the vulnerability that should characterize Nikiya. Still, she melts considerably in the Shades pas de deux, the highlight of her performance.
The wondrous Maria Alexandrova’s buoyant allure and consummate authority have been noted in previous Bolshoi visits here and in Southern California. She is always a charismatic presence, thanks to her remarkable épaulement and emotional attack, and thankfully, she forswears most of the villainess gestures one associates with the jealous Gamzatti (Alexandrova will switch to Nikiya for the Saturday matinee). Tsiskaridze enters in Act 1 with such arrow-like directness and speed that it sets you up for a great performance. It doesn’t quite happen. Technique vies with mannerism for attention and, despite moments of brilliance, there’s an element of narcissism at work here. Tsiskaridze barely notices the fatal snakebite attack on his beloved Nikiya, and the element of self-absorption does nothing for dramatic credibility. I don’t think we can blame that on Grigorovich.
The poster boy for the new Bolshoi, Ivan Vasiliev, tantalized with his Act 2 golden idol solo (choreography attributed to Zubkovsky) and his speed in turns, and soaring flight across the stage suggested that the ballet world will be his to command. The corps contributions distract from this main event and are to be regretted, but with Vasiliev cleaving the ether, you probably won’t notice them anyway. Much praise is due the three solo shades (Ekaterina Krysanova, Anastasia Goryacheva, Nelli Kobakhidze) in Act 3; these variations represent some of the most difficult choreography in any Bayadère, and this trio reveled in the famed Bolshoi pedigree.
The sets, modeled after the originals by Valery Firsov and Nikolai Sharonov, exude a musty grandeur, but some of Nikolai Sviridchikov’s costuming is odd; what about those lavender outfits for Gamzatti and Solor in the wedding scene? In the pit, the Berkeley Symphony played with ardor (and some intonation problems) under Pavel Klinichev.
The Bolshoi Ballet dances La Bayadère at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, through Sunday at 3 p.m. For tickets, call 510.642.9988. The tour continues June 10-14 with Don Quixote and Swan Lake at Carolina Performing Arts, Chapel Hill, NC, and June 16-22 with Le Corsaire at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC.
