Dance Review by Anna Kisselgoff

THE BOLSHOI TRADITION LIVES ON IN SWAN LAKE

A sense of ensemble and strong dancing still dominate

The Bolshoi Ballet from Moscow opened Tuesday night at the New York State Theater with Yuri Grigorovich’s version of Swan Lake. Nina Ananiashvili was a wonderful Odette-Odile, with the accent on Odile. Her Siegfried, Aleksei Fadeyechev, had the nobility that courses in his veins from another memorable dancer in the role - his father, Nikolai Fadeyechev...

The production itself has not been seen locally since 1979, when it was performed in the same theater. Tuesday, however, was the first time that Miss Ananiashvili was seen in the ballet in New York. She did perform as guest artist in May in the Boston Ballet’s very successful staging of Swan Lake...

That production was also predicated on a premise, not necessarily proven, that a Soviet-American collaboration required each male or female Soviet guest to dance with an American partner. Miss Ananiashvili was much more at home on this occasion with her regular partner, Mr. Fadeyechev, who knows how to give her free rein - especially for her smooth multiple pirouettes - and yet can also step in with strong physical support, disguised as attentive gallantry.

The Bolshoi’s last United States tour in 1987 introduced virtually a new company of young dancers. Miss Ananiashvili, who shortly afterward spent three weeks with Andris Liepa at the New York City Ballet, has become known through various guest appearances in the West...

More than most of her colleagues in Soviet ballet, she is a thoroughly contemporary dancer. One could only gasp at her huge space-devouring leaps in the choreography Mr. Grigorovich has inserted in the last two acts to recognize the modern energy that infuses her dancing...

It was left to Miss Ananiashvili to make Tuesday’s performance come alive, which she did... Mr. Fadeyechev was also visibly roused from his initial laconic torpor.

...Miss Ananiashvili’s first extra-large jump introduced the Swan Queen in Act II, where her tendril arms colored an adagio...