ABT, LE CORSAIRE, THE KENNEDY CENTER, WASHINGTON DC, MARCH 7, 2002

Dance Review by Sarah Kaufman

ABT’s Careening Le Corsaire

American Ballet Theatre can’t make up its mind about Le Corsaire, which it not so much danced as unloosed on the Kennedy Center Opera House stage over the weekend. Granted, the ballet is a pastiche of mixed lineage, clashing dance styles, patched-together music (by Delibes, Drigo and others) and confounding plot elements, but that doesn’t mean it should be treated like a circus. Among the evening performances, two different casts, with two different approaches, made for vastly different experiences.     Friday night’s lineup, led by Julie Kent and Ethan Stiefel, tended toward broad comedy and bright spirits; happier slaves and bouncier pirates you can’t imagine. At Saturday night’s more harmonious performance, Nina Ananiashvili and Julio Bocca threaded a love story through the virtuosic tricks, and the warmth of their rapport tied the unwieldy thing into a whole...

Saturday night’s cast was a dream team we are unlikely to see again: Bocca and Ananiashvili are frequent partners during ABT’s New York seasons but rarely dance with the company on tour because they are in such demand as solo performers around the world. Herman Cornejo was a commanding and dangerous Birbanto who left no doubt as to why he was Conrad’s lieutenant. The celebrated virtuoso Angel Corella fairly flew across the stage as Ali, Saveliev’s Lankendem was even more menacing than the night before, and Ashley Tuttle was a powdery soft Gulnare.

Happily, whether by coincidence or design, all the featured dancers took the ballet seriously; none danced out of key. There was wit - Bocca, especially, has a sly comic touch - but it was underplayed and handled deftly. Ananiashvili was sensational as Medora: She possesses the expansive grandeur and technical power to match the men, but tempers her physical prowess with a velvety legato and utterly believable, naturalistic acting. Her duet with Corella had a fierceness and abandon that was met with a stadium-size roar from the Opera House crowd - of a force that hasn’t been heard there in years. But most moving of all was her clear affection and attachment to Bocca, and his to her. Bocca delivered her from savage imprisonment, and she never let you forget how much her freedom meant. More than all the show-stopping technique that flooded this production, it was that emotional thrust that mattered most.