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Flashy dance from Havana

“Magia de la Danza”, “Don Quixote”
Ballet Nacional de Cuba
Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London
1 to 10 September, 2006

by John Percival
copyright ©2006
by John Percival

You may remember that I was not exactly enthusiastic about the Cuban National Ballet’s visit to London in August 2005, but that mine was a minority view, which explains why they have returned to Sadler’s Wells after only 13 months. This time they brought “Don Quixote” as the full-evening show, replacing last year’s “Giselle”, and also I was able to see the programme of short items they give as a mixed bill, “Magia de la Danza”.

My reservations about the company remain twofold, as they have been over two or three decades. First, their founder-director Alicia Alonso mounts versions of the classics that don’t seem to me very authentic or satisfying. I remember, for instance, watching the “Sleeping Beauty” she put on a while back for the Paris Ballet de l’Opéra and wondering why the Rose Adagio looked wrong, until I realised they had been given the right steps in the wrong order, so the dancing didn’t fit the music.

In this “Don Quixote”, premiered 1988, Alonso and her co-choreographers Marta García and María Elena Llorente seem keen to fit in as many extra steps as possible, mainly jumps and turns. Round and round they go with plenty of pauses to stimulate applause which they joyfully acknowledge. Although described as being “after the original by Marius Petipa and the version by Alexander Gorsky”, story-telling and characterisation must have been low on their list of priorities; why the Don engages Sancho Panza and sets out on his journey is not shown, for instance: we first meet him already on horseback — a very artificial horse — but not initially moving, while a group I would not without the cast list have recognised as villagers trot to and fro. Likewise the gipsy dances, much applauded and praised by some reviewers, all concentrate on classical steps.

Is it only at Sadler’s Wells, I wonder, that the (anyway somewhat enfeebled) toreadors merely lay their daggers on the floor rather than sticking them into the stage? Anyone not knowing the ballet will hardly have seen what the Street Dancer (here called Mercedes) was up to in her solo manoeuvring through them.

But it isn’t only the production that leaves me unhappy; it’s the way they dance too. The Cuban National Ballet School has a high reputation, contributing many star dancers to international companies, and since the company’s soloists nearly all graduated from it in the last five or ten years they share a high level of technique. But I wonder why Alonso, who was so fine and punctilious a ballerina, allows and presumably even encourages such flamboyant vulgarity in her dancers? The men, for instance, seem to be taught to whiz their partners round and round in multitudinous spins, not worrying about whether it fits the music.

The first-night Kitri, Viengsay Valdés, obviously delights in showing off her enormously sustained balances; my goodness how she holds them, and how she smirks at the audience while doing so. And yes, I do remember how Margot Fonteyn introduced long balances into “Sleeping Beauty” — but she did it within the musical structure, and Valdés doesn’t. There are fast turns a-plenty, too, from Valdés and her extremely capable but not very inspired or inspiring partner, Joel Carreno. But this is terrific technique rather than great dancing, and I can’t say that I found the secondary characters generally up to standards we have found elsewhere. I would have welcomed some real charact erisation from Miguelángel Blanco in the title role, much more than giving him a long pas de deux in the vision scene, and Víctor Gilí’s Gamache had me thinking about the far more vivid interpretations I saw in the past, e.g. from Georges Piletta in Paris or Vladimir Malakhov (yes really) with Moscow City Ballet.

Bits from “Don Q” were given also on the “Magia” programme, together with pas de deux and ensemble fragments from “Giselle”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Nutcracker”, “Swan Lake” and — surprisingly the most enjoyable — “Coppelia”, as danced by the apparently young Linnet Gonzáles and Taras Domitro, more classical than their confreres (note similarly Yanela Pinera’s promise in small “Don Q” roles). Alonso’s “Creole Party”, choreographed 1990 to part of Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Night of the Tropics” Symphony, got four couples plus ensemble on stage for a lively if conventional finale.

Photos (from top):
The company in "Don Quixote." Photo: Stardust Theatre.
Anetta Delgado in "Coppelia." Photo: Stardust Theatre.

Volume 4, No. 32
September 11, 2006

copyright ©2006 John Percival
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©2006 DanceView