Kirov Ballet - Forsythe evening

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"Giselle"
The Kirov Ballet of the Maryinsky Theatre
Opera House, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC, USA
June 13 & 15, 2006

by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright ©2006, Alexandra Tomalonis

There were moments this weekend when the Kirov’s corps de ballet danced with such sweet, sonorous uniformity — arms joined in a heartless meandering line to point Hans (Hilarion to the rest of the world) to his doom, bodies as alike as sisters and as individual as only beautifully trained dancers can be — that all seemed right with the world. It wasn't perfect. The company’s production of “Giselle” looks musty and under directed; mime speeches we don’t need are there in full while those we do need are cut or muffled, some of the costumes are gorgeous while others are way past their prime, and, most important, the second act is danced like an abstract ballet, totally devoid of drama. But at its best the corps breathes life into this old, Romantic ballet. During the curtain calls Thursday night, Daria Pavlenko and Igor Kolb, who had danced Giselle and Albrecht, each went to a corner of the stage, turned, and bowed to the corps, and the tribute was indeed well-deserved.

Pavlenko had the house from her entrance. Her Giselle isn’t a waif like innocent. She’s a peasant girl, full of life in the first act, and a ghost, full of forgiveness in the second. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Giselle who was so different in each act, and that alone would have made me love Pavlenko’s interpretation. Add to that her beautifully precise footwork, a leg that floats, rather than shoots, skyward, and gorgeous arms, and I was sorry this was the last I’d see of her for awhile. Her mad scene was almost frightening, though not overplayed, and her dancing gave her rather spoiled first-act girl strength of character, which made her determination in the second act believable. Her second act “Giselle” was pure and calm, tamed by death, and I can’t remember seeing the first solo better danced.

Kolb’s dancing, especially in the first act, was very clean, and his miming exquisite, but I couldn’t tell whether he was truly in love with Giselle or only playing around. He was always “in the moment,” as dancers say — deeply in love when the scene specifically called for it — but the moments remained unconnected. In the second act, he faded badly, and there was no hint that he needed saving or even that he was particularly connected to his savior. The whole ballet looks as though someone in charge needs to sit in the audience and actually look at the ballet and try to see it as an audience sees it, then go back in and fiddle and fix. It wouldn't take much to clarify the drama and give the dancers an overview of what they're supposed to be doing.

For example, it's not really clear, from what's going on on stage, who Myrtha is and why she is there. (It doesn't help that, when the corps curtsies to her at the beginning of their big dance she's not on stage and they curtsy, ever so prettily, to nothing.) As Myrtha at both performances, Victoria Tereshkina’s authority came from her dancing. Her jetés were beautiful, clear and high, and her épaulement gave a true illusion of flight. After the opening grand pas classique, however, she nearly disappeared. She can’t yet quite carry the second half of the act standing still.

The peasant pas de deux was danced at both performances by Ekaterina Osmolkina and Vladimir Shklyarov, both very promising young dancers. Unfortunately, Shklyarov is miscast in this; he’s not demi-caractere, and he’s simply too tall for the choreography. His long legs kept getting caught in the steps, and a shoulder sit went badly Thursday, since Osmolkina has to jump nearly twice her height to reach the shoulder. Even so, his talent is obvious — huge jump, rock solid landings. He had looked like a completely finished dancer back in January in the “Nutcracker” pas de deux, and doubtless will again in the right role. Osmolkina is a delight, small and sure and musical. Her dancing was positively dainty — an unusual quality these days, and a very welcome one.

While, on the whole, Thursday's "Giselle" was convincing, Saturday night was a different story. The cast seemed so inexperienced that the first act looked like a student performance, with all the depth of an episode of “The Brady Bunch”. Olesya Novikova danced beautifully — very light, very clean, footwork clear as embroidery. Leonid Sarafanov, too, is a very clean dancer, well-schooled and coached to the nines, his huge jump modulated, not flashy, and he was convincingly sincere in the second act. He’s a good dancer and was terrific in Forsythe’s “Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude” earlier in the week, but he’s so light, both physically and emotionally, that I can’t imagine a single 19th century role he could inhabit convincingly. Yes, both of these dancers can do the steps, but of all ballets, isn't "Giselle" about more than the steps?

Context is everything. Thursday night, I had thought Dmitry Pykhachev’s Hans a bit prissy and inferior as a suitor to Kolb’s Albrecht; there was no question why Giselle went for the tall stranger. Saturday night, Pykhachev might have been, oh, Alexander the Great on a particularly good day, and the scene in which he exposed Albrecht was the tightest, best acted, and most strongly delivered of the evening. And the only drama. Again, it was the corps, with its inexorable beauty, that found the ballet's soul and let us see it.

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