A Fille that owes Nothing to Ashton or Lanchbery

Krasnoyarsk State Opera House

Author MaxBioHazard 
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Source Wikipedia Krasnojarsk

The Russian State Ballet of Siberia La Fille mal gardée 15 Feb 2019 Liverpool Empire

Krasnoyarsk is a city in Siberia with a population of just over a million on approximately the same latitude as Dundee. According to Google Maps, it is 4,559 miles away and takes over 14½ hours to reach by air or 5 days by surface transportation.

An opera house with a resident ballet company opened in that city in 1978.  The company's founder members included graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the Moscow State Academy of Choreography.  Krasnoyarsk has produced some fine dancers over the years despite its remoteness and modest population. They include Anna Ol of the Dutch National Ballet and Viktoria Tereshkina of the Mariinsky.  Many of those dancers trained or began their training in the city and some such as Ol danced with the Krasnoyarsk opera house company.

Every year artists from the Krasnoyarsk opera house ballet tour the United Kingdom as The Russian State Ballet of Siberia (see Anna Lidster Promoting Krasnoyarsk: How the Russian State Ballet of Siberia has won British hearts 3 March 2013 The Siberian Times). I am not sure why they chose that name. It may be that they think that the name of their city might be a bit of a mouthful for British tongues or it may be because they recruit a few extra dancers for the tour such as Francesco Bruni and Francisco Gimenez. However, it is clear from comparing the Russian State Ballet of Siberia's programme with the Krasnoyarsk opera house's website that the two companies are substantially the same.

The tourists have a punishing schedule.  They opened at St David's Hall in Cardiff with The Snow Maiden on 19 Dec 2018 and they will finish in Oxford on 16 March 2019 with Swan Lake. By the end of their tour, they will have performed 6 full-length ballets in 24 venues in every one of our constituent nations except Northern Ireland.  On Friday they reached Liverpool which is where I saw them for the first time.

I was attracted to Liverpool by the show rather than by the company.  They were to dance La Fille mal gardée with music by Hertel rather than Lanchbery and choreography by Gorsky rather than Ashton. La Fille mal gardée is in one sense the oldest ballet in the modern repertoire having first been performed at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux less than a fortnight before the storming of the Bastille but the version that we know was premiered in 1960.

To my great surprise and joy, Friday's performance was not at all inferior to the Ashton-Lanchbery-Lancaster version. I would go so far as to say that I left the Empire somewhat more elated than when I left the Lowry in October after seeing BRB's latest production which had somehow expanded into three acts. The story was very much the same. The only significant difference is that Colas gets into Simone's house disguised as a notaire rather than hidden under a bundle of wheat sheaves.

There were a few other differences.  Instead of churning butter half-heartedly, a distracted Lise collected a couple of eggs from the henhouse while her mother gathered a basketful.  Nobody dressed as poultry though there were computer generated animations of pigs and other animals crossing the backcloth which earned a few laughs from the audience. There was a sort of ribbon dance but it did not end up as a love knot and Simone performed a clog dance though not the one we know.  Alain was not swept into the sky by the storm clutching his umbrella.  Nor was he made to resemble a carthorse.

But there were elements that do not occur in the Ashton version such as a full-blown classical pas de deux complete with entrée, male and female solos and coda.  Lise dons a classical tutu which could not possibly have been in the Dauberval version. In the Russian version, Lise dances at least as many fouettés as Odile in Swan Lake or Kitri in Don Quixote.

As in Ashton's version, Simone was danced by a man.  In this case Pavel Kirchev, a Bulgarian guest artist who dances with the Varna ballet.  He reminded me quite a lot of Stanley Holden. Elena Svinko was a delightful Lise, coquettish and feisty.  She had teeth and she used them on poor Alain (Ilia Kaprov) biting his fingers and ear and stamping on his foot as he tried to express affection.  Marcello Pelizzoni, who trained in Moscow and dances with the Krasnoyarsk ballet, was Colas. He has impressive elevation, power and grace and I delighted in his virtuosity.

Considering the time they must have spent on the road and the need to pack and repack almost every day I was pleasantly surprised that the sets and costumes seemed so fresh and that the cast had so much energy.  I shall try to catch their Swan Lake when they come to Halifax or Sheffield.

Reet Gradely: Romeo and Juliet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House 29 July 2014

Mariinsky Theatre, St Perersburg

Photo Wkipedia

In Tuesday's Evening Standard Lyndsey Winship wrote:

"For Londoners used to Kenneth MacMillan’s masterful version for the Royal Ballet, this Romeo and Juliet seems flabbier and hammier — especially smugly arrogant Tybalt (Yuri Smekalov), seemingly modelled on Prince Charming from Shrek, and Vladimir Ponomarev’s theatrical Lord Capulet (even his eyebrows are up to something dastardly)."

Well that may be how Londoners see it but for this Northern lass Tuesday's performance of Romeo and Juliet by the very company that had created the ballet was reet gradely. Xander Parish who danced Romeo ought to know what that commendation means for he was born in God's own county. For those who weren't. here's a definition and etymology.

I am a bit of a connoisseuse of Romeo and Juliet having seen English National's, Scottish Ballet's and Ballet Cymru's in a little over a year. I also know the Royal Ballet's very well. Indeed, I have actually seen Seymour and Fonteyn dance Juliet. In my humble, provincial opinion the Mariinsky's  version towers above any I had previously seen.

I had expected a lot from this show. I had come to see Xander Parish whom I had last seen at the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School gala in York on my silver wedding anniversary 7 years ago ("We still have some of the best dancers in Yorkshire" 20 July 2014). Even though he and his sister were very young they impressed me with their athleticism and grace  Xander Parish displayed those same qualities yesterday. That alone would have been enough to justify a 440 mile round trip at the height of summer with the motorways in a mess but there were two others who stood out.

First, Viktoria Tereshkina who danced Juliet. Even more than Parish, she was the star of the show. I was bowled over by her from her first few playful steps with her nurse. She is a powerful dancer with considerable elevation which she demonstrated frequently but she is also an accomplished actress projecting sensitivity and vulnerability. The crucial part of any production of Romeo and Juliet takes place in Juliet's bedroom. First, there is the newly weds' pas de deux. This is the most beautiful part of the ballet and it is on that sequence that the whole work hangs.  Parish and Tereshkina were magnificent. After Romeo leaves her parents enter with Paris in tow with news that she is to marry Paris. So many emotions are unleashed in this poor young woman which she has to project in dance.  Again, Tereshkina excelled. For the last 40 years Seymour had been my Juliet. From now on it will be Tereshkina

The other dancer who impressed me greatly was Kimin Kim. He danced Mercutio. He has a beautifully expressive face conveying every type of feeling. He interpreted the role brilliantly with boyish swagger as he provokes Tybalt (also danced well by Kamil Yangurazov). The sword fight with Tybalt was one of the most exciting and realistic I have ever seen on stage.  "It's as if they are fighting with real swords" whispered my daughter manquée. Though we all knew how this fight would end how our hopes soared when Romeo seemed to separate the swordsmen and how they were dashed after Tybalt's sword punctured Mercutio's body. I could barely restrain a tear as Kim staggered around the stage rising to his feel, slumping, getting up again and eventually collapsing. This is one of the great death scenes in ballet. It stings Romeo into action overcoming temporarily even his love for Juliet. How we clapped and cheered as Kim took his curtain call at the end of Act II so relieved by the assurance that he was indeed alive.

There were sterling performances by Elena Bazhenova as Lady Capulet, Valeria Karpina as the nurse, Yuri Smekalov as Paris and Andrei Yakovlev who danced Friar Lawrence and Lord Montague. The whole company danced well but the cast is so long that it would be impossible to do justice to them all.  The Martiinsky's orchestra conducted by Boris Gruzin played magnificently.

I need to say a few words about the sets and costumes. These were credited to Pyotr Williams whose biography in itself. Intrigued by the Welsh surname and Russian forename and found that he was the son of an American scientist who had become a Russian citizen in 1896. The very time that so many Russians were emigrating to the United States. Somehow this son of an American émigré survived Stalin's purges when so many other artists perished.  The sets we saw on Tuesday must be reproductions of Williams's sets for the original 1940 performance. They were impressive particularly the opening scene of Verona with an estuary in the background, the Capulets' balcony and the burial ground. An interesting feature was the use of a second gold curtain which was no doubt intended to simulate the historic stage of the Mariinsky theatre.

"What's so special about the Russians?" my daughter manquée asked me when I invited her to the show. It is a question I had often asked myself. After all there are so many other fine companies around the world - not least our own Royal Ballet. Well after Tuesday's performance both my daughter manquée know the answer to that question. Despite revolution, purges, war and crisis the Mariinsky - the successor to the Imperial Russian Ballet - continues to set the standard to which everybody else aspires.