ABT, LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE, MET OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY, MAY 24, 2003

DANCE REVIEW By ANNA KISSELGOFF

Yet Again, The Lovers Outwit the Elders

Whatever the weather outside, sunshine is guaranteed to fill the Opera House when American Ballet Theater performs Frederick Ashton’s very funny, very poetic and enchanting masterpiece La Fille Mal Garde this week.

There are only three more performances (tonight and two tomorrow) of the production that Ballet Theater introduced last year as one of its happiest hits in years. Over the weekend, this season’s three casts did justice in different ways to Ashton’s spirited and humane view of a rustic tale told by sophisticates…

The story is clear. The rich Widow Simone wishes to marry off Lise, her daughter, to Alain, the simpleton son of Thomas, another rich farmer. But love triumphs as Lise and her sweetheart, Colas, outwit their elders.

Ashton kept Dauberval’s story but brought a very English tone through his English designer, Osbert Lancaster, a score fashioned by the English conductor John Lanchbery out of Ferdinand Herold’s music for an 1828 production of La Fille and his own English touches. These include maypoles, English stick dances and clog dances for Simone, portrayed by a man in the English pantomime tradition, and above all, Ashton’s love of the English countryside.

For all the slapstick he picked up while working in a London music hall for Simone’s pratfalls and the delightful opening number for dancers dressed as chickens, Ashton speaks a universal language. Humanity triumphs as well. As the casts on Friday and Saturday made clear, Ashton shows that in the end these parents truly love their children and that this love is returned. The universal language of art is also spoken, and on an elevated level. This La Fille displays classical choreography at its most refined and exquisite…

On Saturday… evening Nina Ananiashvili, who had danced with Carlos Acosta (absent this season), found new Colas in Maxim Belotserkovsky......

…Ms. Ananiashvili had the most sparkle, and Mr. Belotserkovsky responded in kind. Theirs was the most animated performance, sometimes free form but full of theatrical detail. Guillaume Graffin’s Simone here was the best because he offered more nuances than Kirk Peterson did on Friday and Victor Barbee at the matinee. Ethan Brown and Brian Reeder ranted nicely as Thomas, Alain’s father.