An Interview by John Percival

STORMING THE WESTERN PAGODAS

John Percival meets the latest Soviet stars at Covent Garden

Nina Ananiashvili and Alexei Fadeyechev had to fit in our meeting between rehearsals of «The Prince of the Pagodas» at the weekend. They have little enough time, before their Royal Ballet debuts tomorrow, to get to grips with music and choreography that are markedly different from their previous experience as stars of the Bolshoi Ballet. But that is the whole point for them: a new experience. Besides, Covent Garden holds good memories.

Ananiashvili first stepped into the international spotlight here in 1986. aged 23, with a beautifully polished, serene performance as Raymonda. Her partner, then as now, was Fadeyechev, who is also proud of a debut that season: his first performance as Ivan the Terrible, on the same stage where his father Nicolai had done his first «Giselle», partnering Ulanova exactly 30 years earlier.

Alexei Fadeyechev finds it a benefit to have a father who is still in the theatre as a coach. «When I was young and foolish, I argued with him a lot,» he says. «I felt 1 knew better. Now, I hope I am more mature; I listen to him».

Ananiashvili agrees. In contrast to Fadeyechev (whose mother was also a dancer) she comes from a family with no theatrical traditions, although her parents used to watch and enjoy ballet in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, where the legendary male dancer, Vakhtang Chabukiani, was both star and director. At 12, she uprooted herself from home and family, moving 1.000 miles north to enter the Bolshoi School. «I had been told the Bolshoi was the biggest and the best. so I knew that was where my career had to be».

That same quiet determination took her as guest to New York City Ballet a couple of years back, where she had to learn three new roles in ten days, contending with an unfamiliar style (Balanchine’s) and tempi much faster than she had ever experienced. Coming to the Royal Ballet is less traumatic, but she finds Britten’s music different and difficult. When I mentioned that the composer studied «The Sleeping Beauty» before writing it, she laughed and replied: «Yes - then stood it on its head! With Tchaikovsky, everything is in fours. This is much more complex».

She also finds it disconcerting that the Royal Ballet teaches the dances by counting the rhythm. «In Russia we are expected to know the music. I love to listen to the music and I have my own thoughts about it. There’s a life that’s going on inside me while I dance».

Fadeyechev comments that «we shall try to dance so that the difficulty doesn’t show». He adds that MacMillan’s choreography is also something new for them. «The positions are different, and there are different kinds of lifts. When you look at it for the first time, it seems very easy, because there is an easy flow to it. But when you try to put it together, that»s another matter. Yesterday, for the first lime, we felt we had got there».

One of the reasons behind leaving their home country was the lack of new roles. Ananiashvili has had only one role created for her: the spirit of the dead heroine, in the opera «Mlada». Fadeyechev seized the chance offered by Vladimir Vasiliev to dance Macbeth, because it was a big dramatic role, and fell a certain chilliness afterwards because of tensions within the company.

«I still danced the classics, but for a time I didn’t dance in Grigorovich’s ballets. As dancers we don’t fully understand the politics of these things. That shouldn’t come in to it. We just want to work. and the career is short enough anyway. The rest should not concern us».