| From: The
Orange County Register, June 23, 2000
Dance Review By Laura Bleiberg
A Rebirth for the Bolshoi
A sensational performance by Nina Ananiashvili is
just one sign that the troupe is back.
Let's amend an old expression: Dancing well is the best revenge.
That was the credo of the Bolshoi Ballet as it arrived
in Southern California Wednesday night for a two-week engagement, and it proved eminently
effective. This juggernaut of Russian classical dance thundered into the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion with equal doses of fire and finesse. (They head to the O.C. Performing Arts
Center June 27-July 2.)
It was as though general director Vladimir Vasiliev and
company artistic director Alexei Fadeechev were trying to assure the enthusiastic
opening-night crowd that they've put the Bolshoi back on track. Forget what we looked like
10, even five, years ago, they insisted. If we've not quite recaptured the glory years,
imprinted by legends such as Galina Ulanova and Vasiliev himself, well, we're working on
it.
The soloists showed tantalizing promise as a new
generation of stars, although most of these dancers were still unformed, their individual
personalities not yet as distinct or oversized as their predecessors. That should not, and
did not, detract from how really remarkable the Bolshoi turnaround story is, however. The
dark expressions, labored performances and lamentable choreographic productions of the
Bolshoi's recent past have been not just replaced, but upended.
The group of nearly 100 dancers on this tour are
noticeably young and hungry, and their dancing was clear and unmannered. The ballets are
the full-length, historic productions with all the mime, solo parts and variations
restored. Sets and costumes, while not opulent, were complimentary and at least did not
detract from the dancing.
In other words, the Bolshoi has rededicated itself to
doing what a 225-year-old opera house ballet company does best. And it's doing it at full
steam.
The company's calling card was the cheery, fun-filled
"Don Quixote," Marius Petipa-Aleksandr Gorsky's three-act, three-hour spectacle,
which Fadeechev revised one-year ago. By his account, he has mostly tweaked it here and
there, and speeded the narration along; the pace was frantic at times, and conductor
Alexander Sotrikov kept the Pacific Symphony Orchestra playing briskly through Ludwig
Minkus's undistinguished pseudo-Spanish score.
In the American versions of "Don Quixote,"
whole scenes and characters are condensed or excised. The Russians do it all. There are
six or seven meaty female solo roles, and almost as many secondary male parts in the
unabridged "Don Quixote" and the company uses these parts to show off the
talent, and different personalities, throughout the company's ranks. Some of the standouts
were: Maria Alexandrova as a sensuous and high-flying street dancer; Anna Antropova as a
fabulously passionate gypsy dancer with the most sinewy arms; Yuliana Malkhasyants as the
pliant, alluring Mercedes; Vladimir Moiseev (grandson of Igor Moiseyev) as a macho,
heel-clacking Toreador; and Nina Kaptsova as a sprightly Cupid.
But Wednesday's performance was one for the memory
books because of just one person - Nina Ananiashvili. Trained at the Bolshoi, Ananiashvili
long ago left the womb; she is an international star. She does still dance at the Bolshoi
between engagements with the Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and others. She may be
a veteran, but she proved thrillingly that she is no jaded snob. Ananiashvili was like a
young thoroughbred, dancing with abandon and utter glee.
Her steely legs flashed through leaps and turns, her
pointe shoes attacked the ground, her arms cradled classical positions softly and her
expressive face laughed or scowled or flirted with joyful sincerity. She stopped time with
her incomparable balance. After one minor misstep she took the next balance as a challenge
and hung on and on, defying physics. She threw us a look-at-me! glance, filled with
child-like sweetness. The crowd roared back equally delighted.
With dozens of dancers onstage, with the capes swirling
and castanets clicking, we could not take our eyes off Ananiashvili, or her dark, sloe
eyes. Her partner, Andrei Uvarov, seemed equally bewitched by her and was thoroughly
attentive (which won him Brownie points, of course). He displayed a gift for even, clean
pirouettes and strong leaps. He was a solid, less flashy dancer, but he is clearly pushing
himself for greater achievements.
Andrei Sitnikov, as Don Quixote, and Alexander Petukhov
as the comic Sancho Panza were perfect as the hapless comic duo. The corps de ballets
played its part of joyous peasants or strutting matadors; they only broke concentration at
the end as the cheering for Ananiashvili grew louder and louder. The classicism of the
dream sequence was well-placed but hard-edged. The Bolshoi had always been notable for its
big, macho male dancers, and there were fewer of this type. But with everything else there
was to cheer about, they were not so sorely missed.
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