Posted 10 June 2001 - 10:36 PM
I saw Saturday afternoon’s performance and I was totally delighted. I hope Alexandra won’t condemn me for agreeing with her, that this is the closest I know to a perfect ballet: loving, witty, charming, yet never trivial. The two hours I spent seemed to pass in a minute. And afterward, I wished that the whole thing could have been longer.
I was also delighted by the quality of the dancing. My only source of comparison are the two most recent videos: the Royal ballet w/ Leslie Collier and Michael ??? and Alexander Grant, and the sadly undercommitted, undistinguished one by the Australian Ballet. The Australian Ballet performance only showed me that this ballet can be undone, if the performers aren’t committed and in-sync.
Mara Galeazzi danced as though she’s done this role for years (maybe she has), with precision and fluidity (better in the last respect, I thought, than Leslie Collier). Her arms were lovely, but I noticed an odd rigidity in her hands, which sometimes seemed flat-fingered rather than gracefully curved. She executed complex stepwork with absolute finesse. I found her dancing in the Act I, Scene 1 dance with the farm girls to be just about perfect. She does indeed have a beautiful jump and she can do it without seeming to prepare, like a bird taking off. Her footwork in the Act II Tambourine Dance also impressed me. I love the music in this part – a delightful theme and variations – and she seemed to be dancing on air. (Sorry if these are cliches, I can’t think of any better way of putting it.) I don’t think the audience appreciated what they were seeing, because she got only the one curtain call, and I think she deserved many.
She was also a very good comedienne, but still not as good an actor as a dancer, and I think one of the results of this was that the audience didn’t warm up to her as much as they might have otherwise. Of course, it could have been the audience, or me, or where my seat was, etc. It also may have been the slightly undercharacterised performance of Colas, by Johan Kobborg. This made the love between Lise and Colas a respectable staged presentation, but there needs to be a little more ardor to get the audience actually to love the dancers back.
Kobborg was also technically very strong. He’s also quite handsome and one could easily believe Lise would fall for him. He seemed to me an almost faultless partner and did his leaps and spins beautifully. But, there was something just not “there” about the pairing of this Lise and Colas. It may have been the dancers or may have been other production choices.
Alain, as danced by Giacomo Ciriaci was very fine. He may have danced just slightly too well to seem quite the dunce he’s supposed to be, however. He seemed a more gentle, sweet fellow than the Alain that Alexander Grant played in the video, but there was nothing wrong with that.
The corp were fantastic. That so many people could dance so many interesting steps, with such energy, vigor and precision is a large part of what made the ballet so wonderful.
Luke Heydon played the Widow Simone very broadly, more so than Brian Shaw in the old video. This production seemed to emphasize the physical comedy parts of her (his) role, with a somersault and a skidding exit on the clog dance (it wasn’t there as far as I can tell in the video), which was really good fun.
(Now for the negative parts.) But in the wedding scene, instead of having Colas catch Simone sideways after she “cuts a caper, ” he catches her by the breasts as Simone slips backwards, which is still funny, but a bit cheap.
Another unfortunate change has been commented on before on this board. In the old video (and I presume the original production) after Lise discovers Colas has witnessed her fantasies of wedded bliss, Colas assuages the embarrassment Lise feels by miming that he feels the same way about marriage and kids. In the newer version I saw, Colas rubs Lise’ embarrassment in, miming “Oh, so you want three babies?!” Colas just seems meaner for this, and it undermines the audience’s sense of the trust and love they should have. The next part, where Colas kisses the distressed Lise on the wrist, then the elbow, then the arm, as a consequence becomes a seduction, not a reassurance of love as it seemed to me it was in the original production.
I now wish I hadn’t spent so many words on what wasn’t wonderful in this production, because this was a great theatrical and artistic experience. If any show could bring in kids and families like Nutcracker, this is it. I just wonder why we don’t see it every other year in the US, instead of every other decade.
[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: 4Ts ]
-- but it still worked.