Firebird/ In the Night/ Raymonda Act III, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, December 2012

What a terrific triple bill this is, and on the evening of 29 December it was beautifully danced.

Among cast changes in Raymonda, Zenaida Yanowsky and Ryoichi Hirano replaced Nuñez and Pennefather in the main roles, and Ricardo Cervera replaced Whitehead in the Hungarian dance. Cervera showed a fine cutting edge and dramatic sense, and his partnership with Kristin McNally worked like a charm, the two of them looking like dolls together in perfect time to the music. The dancers in the female variations, the same as before, were even better if that is possible. Hikaru Kobayashi showed beautiful control and musicality, Yuhui Choe’s arabesques en pointe with a bending of the leg were extraordinary, Itziar Mendizabal was lovely in the slow variation, and Helen Crawford’s jumps in the fourth variation were a thrill to watch.

Raymonda Act III, all images ROH/ Tristram Kenton

As a ballet Raymonda has a rather silly story, but the Act III wedding of its eponymous heroine with Jean de Brienne, recently returned from the crusades, is a feast of dancing, and Yanowsky and Hirano were outstanding in these roles. I can’t resist a quick mention of Fumi Kaneko, Emma Maguire and Yasmine Nagdhi who were brilliantly on the music in the pas-de-trois. Raymonda Act III makes a glorious finale, and as the curtain opened Barry Kay’s ravishing set once again elicited spontaneous applause.

Galeazzi and Watson as Firebird and Prince

Firebird, so often the finale itself, is the starter here, with Mara Galeazzi showing beautiful arm movements as the Firebird. Edward Watson gave a well-nuanced performance as Ivan Tsarevich, Alastair Marriott was suitably dramatic as the wicked Kostcheï, and Christina Arestis was a gorgeous princess. The story is the reverse of Swan Lake, the prince abandoning his passion for an exotic female to accept a royal and more appropriate partner, but Stravinsky’s music is, or should be, hugely dramatic, though Barry Wordsworth’s conducting with its elegantly rounded corners lacked energy and bite.

No problem on that score with the second item, In the Night, where Robert Clark gave an excellent performance of Chopin’s nocturnes to accompany some glorious choreography by Jerome Robbins.

In the Night, Campbell and Maguire

Against a starlit background, Alexander Campbell and Emma Maguire made a wonderful first couple, he so full of energy, she showing a gentle gracefulness. And in the third variation, Carlos Acosta and Roberta Marquez made a dramatic entrance on their shaft of light, moving apart and together with great passion. It was a super partnership, but in the second movement Zenaida Yanowsky and Nehemiah Kish did not manage the same success as a week ago. She seemed far less comfortable than with Hirano in Raymonda, and a couple of the lifts went slightly awry. In the Night ends with a delightful waltz, and interactions between the six dancers — it is a superb vehicle for the individual brilliance that this Company has in spades, and they should dance it more often.

In the Night, Yanowsky and Kish

Unfortunately all three later performances are sold out, but click here for details and possible returns.

Royal Ballet Triple: Firebird, In The Night, Raymonda Act III, Covent Garden, December 2012

A triple bill ending with the third act of Raymonda is a fine complement to Nutcracker for the Christmas/ New Year period.

Raymonda Act III, all images ROH/ Tristram Kenton

Raymonda has a wonderful finale with stunning costumes, and the sets drew audience applause when the curtain opened. With fifteen soloists including the principals, Zenaida Yanowsky and Nehemiah Kish on this occasion, it is jam-packed full of dancing. Among others, Hikaru Kobayashi and Yuhui Choe were excellent in their solos, Alexander Campbell was strikingly precise with his tours-en-l’air in the pas-de-quatre, and Ms Yanowsky, well partnered by Kish, showed star appeal. Glazunov’s music was well conducted by Barry Wordsworth, far better than Stravinsky’s Firebird, which opened the show.

Firebird

Firebird is always worth seeing, and the corps de ballet danced beautifully both in this and Raymonda. The Firebird herself was danced with conviction by Itziar Mendizabal, weakening as the prince holds her wings and fulfilling her promise to help him after her release. Gary Avis gave a fine portrayal of Kostcheï the deathless, whom the prince vanquishes with her help by breaking the egg that contains his heart. The prince is triumphant, but Bennet Gartside didn’t show it. He represented Fokine’s choreography with great care, but lacked stage presence, assertiveness and outward tension. This was not helped by Barry Wordsworth’s conducting, which removes the tension and rounds the corners of Stravinsky’s score, hollowing out the soul of the music.

In the Night, Bonelli and Lamb

No such problems with the delightful middle ballet In the Night by Jerome Robbins to music by Chopin, beautifully played by Robert Clark. The choreography is for three couples, starting in this performance with Sarah Lamb and Federico Bonelli floating dreamily together on stage and showing a lovely line. The purity of the music and dancing was a relief after the drama of Firebird, but drama made its way into this 1970 Robbins ballet as Yanowsky and Kish came on for the second pas-de-deux, generating tension and showing a sure-footed ability in executing the upside-down lift. Finally it was Johan Kobborg and Alina Cojocaru who sparkled in the third pas-de-deux, passionately athletic and full of energy. Wonderful fun.

The Company should do Jerome Robbins more often. While they have staged Firebird over 200 times, and the third act of Raymonda nearly 100, this was only their twentieth performance of In the Night.

Performances continue until January 11 — for details click here.

Firebird/ Faune/ Rite of Spring, English National Ballet, ENB, London Coliseum, March 2012

Beyond Ballets Russes celebrates the legacy of Diaghilev’s famous dance company, and is the title of two programmes the ENB are putting on. This first one was very cleverly put together, placing The Afternoon of a Faune, with its gentle music by Debussy, between two longer works to intensely dramatic music by Stravinsky.

In fact there are four ballets here, not three, because Faune is given in two versions. One uses Nijinsky’s original choreography with designs by Leon Bakst, performed to music played by the orchestra; the other is an abstract work choreographed by David Dawson, with Debussy’s music played on two pianos. They have separate titles: L’Après-midi d’un faune being the original, and Faun(e) the abstract version. The first, with its very stylised movements for the nymphs, featured Anton Lukovkin as the faune and Begoña Cao as the lead nymph. His portrayal of a youthful faune, oozing immense yet scarcely suppressed desire, was very effective.

The abstract version of Faune

The second version by David Dawson, first shown at Sadler’s Wells in 2009, was beautifully performed by principal dancer Raphaël Coumes-Marquet, and Jan Casier a brilliant young member of the corps at the Royal Ballet of Flanders, making his debut with the ENB. The power of their movements captures the awakening desires inherent in Debussy’s music, and they are still moving as the front drop comes down.

After the second interval came the Rite of Spring, with Kenneth MacMillan’s 1962 choreography adapted and re-staged by Yuri Uchiumi. New costumes by fashion designer Kinder Aggugini are the same for both girls and boys, except for the three shamans, and along with John B. Read’s lighting give an air of dark mystery to this springtime ritual with its sacrificial victim. The company danced it well with Tamarin Stott excellent as the victim.

Rite of Spring

Oddly enough the newly choreographed Firebird that started the evening had a very Rite of Spring feel at some points. Diaghilev gave the original commission for this ballet to Fokine, with music commissioned from Stravinsky. The idea was to tell an old Russian folk tale about a maiden trapped in the realm of a deathless magician, discovered by a prince who himself is trapped, before the firebird comes to his rescue. Here the idea by choreographer George Williamson was quite different.

Ksenia Ovsyanick as the firebird

There was a firebird, brilliantly portrayed by Ksenia Ovsyanick, but there the similarities seem to end. Among solo roles was a peacock, an ‘army captain’, a celebrity in a red dress, ‘purity’ in a white dress, and three muses in maroon costumes. All were superbly danced, and I thought Junor Souza as the captain was outstanding. But what reminded me of the Rite of Spring was the way the firebird was treated like a sacrificial victim. As she was stripped of feathers, headdress and jewellery, it reminded me of the ancient Mesopotamian legend of the descent of Ishtar to the underworld. Ishtar returns after first being stripped of her clothes and adornments, yet returns intact to the world above, and this is a death and rebirth story, like the vegetation that returns to life in spring. If the title of this ballet had been Ishtar’s Descent I would not have been the least surprised, and I thought the costumes by David Bamber, and the set design by Bamber and choreographer George Williamson wonderfully apt to the story that rose into my mind, as well as to the choreography and music.

The company are dancing brilliantly, and this whole mixed bill has to be seen, particularly the extraordinary Firebird. Performances continue at the London Coliseum until March 27 — for details click here. After that comes the second part of Beyond Ballets Russes, starting on Wednesday, March 28^th. All praise to Wayne Eagling on his artistic direction of the company, and why on earth are they getting rid of him?

Firebird, in concert at the BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, August 2010

This concert by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev, had a substantial hors d’oeuvre in Scriabin’s Symphony No. 1. That six-movement work, which ends with massive choral forces, was beautifully performed. The soloists, mezzo Nadezhda Serdiuk and tenor Sergei Skorokhodov, both members of the Mariinsky Theatre, sang strongly, and the LSO chorus gave immense power to the finale.

Stravinsky’s Firebird followed after the interval. It’s a work I have seen danced many times on stage, but here it had an unusually dreamy quality in the earlier part, quite different from the overtly dramatic effect one normally gets with ballet performances. It’s interesting to compare it to Vladimir Jurowski’s excellent Firebird with the London Philharmonic at the Proms two years ago, which was more in the style of a stage performance. After the dreamily dreary first half, Gergiev built momentum and there was a wonderfully swinging quality to the later part when the prince gets hold of Kashchey’s heart in the egg, before breaking it and releasing the princess from Kashchey’s magic. Gergiev also produced a very remarkable dynamic range from the orchestra at the end, becoming scarcely audible before building to a huge climax, helped by the dramatic appearance of three extra trumpets on stage left. This was a superb ending that elicited immense applause.

Les Sylphides, Sensorium, The Firebird, Royal Ballet, 21 May 2009, return visit

This was a return visit to see a performance with a different cast. Here is the link to the earlier review of the first night.

This time Les Sylphides featured David Makhateli and Tamara Rojo as the principal couple, backed up by Yuhui Choe in the waltz, Helen Crawford in the Mazurka, and the same leading sylphs as before. All were very good, as was the corps, but I thought Rojo and Choe were outstanding. The conducting by Barry Wordsworth was very slow at the beginning, though it picked up tempo later, but the trouble is that his work lacks incision and edge — it is just mellifluous and laboured, or in a single word, dull.

In the other cast for Alastair Marriott’s new ballet Sensorium, to music by Debussy, we had Mara Galeazzi with Bennet Gartside, and Melissa Hamilton with Gary Avis as the main couples. The lighting worked well this time, and the designs by Adam Wiltshire were excellent as before, with white leotards for the principal ladies and light peacock blue for the others. The cast seemed very much in tune with the ballet, and Melissa Hamilton was simply wonderful. It’s astonishing that she’s a mere 21 years old.

The Firebird was once again a blaze of colour, and the corps were terrific. This time we had Leanne Benjamin as a very fine firebird, with Edward Watson as the Tsarevich, Genesia Rosato as the Tsarevna, and Christopher Saunders as the immortal Kostcheï. All did well, and Saunders was very strong in this part, which seems to suit him better than some of the other roles I’ve seen him do.

Les Sylphides, Sensorium, The Firebird, Royal Ballet, May 2009

This was a lovely triple bill, with a new ballet by Alastair Marriott sandwiched between two well-known works by Mikhail Fokine.

The first item, Les Sylphides was very well danced, with Johan Kobborg and Yuhui Choe doing an excellent job as the principal couple. They were backed up by Laura Morera in the waltz, Lauren Cuthbertson in the Mazurka, and Iohna Loots and Bethany Keating as leading sylphs, not all I’m afraid as musical as Yuhui Choe. But with good technique it’s difficult to go wrong with Fokine’s glorious choreography and Chopin’s wonderful music.

Sensorium, choreographed by Alastair Marriott to music of Debussy, was a sensuous and cleanly performed dance work that lasted almost half and hour, and didn’t flag for a minute. The costumes were simple leotards for the girls and full length leotards for the two men, Thomas Whitehead who danced with Leanne Benjamin, and Rupert Pennefather who partnered Alexandra Ansanelli. All danced well, as did the ten girls who backed them up, and Pennefather in particular showed a lovely line, and very clean technique. One fault was that dancers moving across the front of the stage were in the dark, but otherwise the lighting, designed by John Read, gave just the right texture for this work.

Finally The Firebird was a terrific show of colour, with Mara Galeazzi heavily made up for the part of this magical bird. Her dancing however seemed to lack fluidity, and Thiago Soares as the Tsarevich did not cut as strong a figure as he might. But Elizabeth McGorian was a lovely Tsarevna, and Gary Avis was simply superb as the immortal Kostcheï. The supporting cast did a very fine job, and this might have been a successful Firebird were it not marred by Barry Wordsworth’s sloppy conducting — the music is Stravinsky and should sound like it.