BOLSHOI BALLET, RAYMONDA, COLISEUM, LONDON, JULY 1999 |
| From: THE GUARDIAN,
July 21, 1999 Dance Review by Judith Mackrell Raymonda
Grigorovich ruthlessly stripped the story to its barest minimum. Of the alternation of dance and mime by which 19th - century ballets were originally constructed, little is left of any action or character... What's left of the ballet is essentially a solid three acts of dance... Yet the Bolshoi production can still persuade us that we're hooked into the real classic experience - partly because enough is left of Petipa's exquisitely ornamented choreography and partly because the company produce dancing on a genuinely grand, classical scale. Nina Ananiashvili, in particular, moves with a physical largesse and elegance that would raise the level of any production. As Raymonda she displays a regal breadth and certainty within which the quick glancing details of her technique glitter like wittily set jewels, and her performance of the third - act variations is nearly definitive. The crisp Hungarian hauteur that these demand is hard for anyone born west of Budapest; with Ananiashvili, the autocratic exoticism seems bred in the bone. Briefly she seems to dance for us in a world of ice-locked palaces, sledges and wolves. Sergei Filin as Jean de Brienne is a fabulous jumper and a handsome partner, and his transparent ardour is deliciously set off by Mark Peretokin, whose Abderakham swaggers and glowers with extravagant menace. Even though the production makes no dramatic distinction between the other dancing characters, several soloists, including Anna Antonicheva, mark themselves out with fine performances...
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