Review by Clive Barnes

BOLSHOI BALLET

Oh, to be in London, now that July is there. July is traditionally a dance month in London, even more so than in New York. This July, opening and closing on the same days, July 6 and July 31, were Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at the Coliseum Theatre (London's second opera house— the home of the English National Opera) and Britain's Royal Ballet at the newly refurbished, refitted, and essentially remade Sadler’s Wells Theatre.

New York duties, primarily at the Lincoln Center Festival, prevented me from flying to London before July 25. Thus, I caught only the last week of the season, but I managed four performances of the Bolshoi - two of V. Vasiliev’s new production of Swan Lake and two of Alexei Fadeyechev's new production of Don Quixote...

Although it was London in July 1999 - an extraordinarily hot July, incidentally, for Britain seems to be enduring the same incipient signs of global warming that are heating up the United States - my mind kept slipping its moorings back to two earlier points of personal reference. One was July 1945, the last time the Royal Ballet played Sadler’s Wells. The other point was October 1956 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which marked the first time ever that the Bolshoi Ballet came to the West. It was led then by Galina Ulanova, Raisa Struchkova, and Nikolai Fadeyechev, father of Alexei (who wasn't born until 1960, but who is now, after his own distinguished international career as a dancer, the artistic director of the Bolshoi). Both dates -1945 and 1956 - seemed only yesterday.

How different was that first Bolshoi, with Ulanova in Romeo and Juliet and Giselle - rather more genteel, perhaps, from its first London manifestation in 1956 but much the same troupe as came to New York in 1959 - how different from the present Bolshoi, itself testing the waters for an American tour next year?

The Bolshoi has undergone not simply the natural process of time but also the enormous sea change of a political and, consequently, aesthetic revolution...

After three decades of Y. Grigorovich’s artistic direction, the company is now under the control of V. Vasiliev. In fact, that's an understatement, for Vasiliev, in an appointment in 1995 directly from Russian president Boris Yeltsin, is actually in charge of the whole theater, ballet, opera, and orchestra; he last year delegated the artistic direction of the ballet company to Fadeyechev.

However, half of the Bolshoi productions seen in London were holdovers from the Grigorovich period, his stagings of La Bayadere and Raymonda as well as his original choreography for Spartacus. In addition to these there was a double bill of Vasiliev's own new production of Giselle, together with a revival of Leonid Lavrovsky’s Paganini. The rest of the repertory, which was confined to the final week of the month's season, consisted of the new Swan Lake and new Don Quixote...

The Bolshoi ended its London season with five performances of Fadeyechev’s new Don Quixote, which had received its Moscow premiere six short weeks earlier. ...This ballet, if properly danced - and it was - is a surefire winner; it managed to send off the season in a triumph that bodes well for the future.

The Don Q production, with rather conventional settings but handsome costumes (after 1903 designs by Vasily Dyachov), is based on the original Marius Petipa - Alexander Gorsky choreography.

Fadeyechev has emphasized the Spanish tone of the ballet, rather as did Victor Ullate in his recent Madrid production, which he brought to New York's City Center last year.

The dancing of both the casts I saw was as vibrant and full - hearted as anyone could wish for - here indeed was the old - time Bolshoi in full and glorious flight. The opening - night Kitri was that perennial New York favorite, Nina Ananiashvili, a ballerina who energetically shares her duties, favors, and allegiances among the Bolshoi, ABT, and Houston Ballet as well as having a busy freelance schedule. Here she was at the top of her scintillating form, exuberantly matched by one of the Bolshoi’s up -and -coming male dancers, Andrei Uvarov.

...This new generation of Bolshoi male principals is outstanding, and at the final matinee, it was Sergei Filin’s turn to shine, confirming the brilliance of his Siegfried, while Vladimir Moiseyev (the grandson of the great Igor Moiseyev) made an impressive Espada, the matador...