ROYAL BALLET, LA FILLE MAL GARDEE, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, DECEMBER, 1991 |
| From: THE GUARDIAN, December 16, 1991
Dance Review by Mary Clarke LA FILLE MAL GARDEENO FEWER than three Russian dancers have given credible, brilliant and loveable accounts of the role of Colas in Ashton’s pastoral ballet. ĞLa Fille mal Gardeeğ - Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Mukhamedov - but Nina Ananiashvili of the Bolshoi Ballet is the first Russian to dance Lise in this, surely the defintive, version of the old ballet. Ananiashvili is a star of Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet and, unlike Mukhamedov (Bolshoi trained) has not shed Bolshoi characteristics when dancing Ashton choreography. Her leaps are glorious, but they are Bolshoi leaps and everything is danced in typically Bolshoi largeness of style, emphasised the more so by her exceptionally long legs and arms which make her, in this ballet, look taller than she is. Basically, she’s just too glamorous for a farmer’s daughter and she exaggerates - perhaps because she does not identify with the character - the mime... |