Well, the ballet portion of the show was standard gala fare—warhorses like Black Swan and Don Q—but it also included a genuine novelty (to Western audiences, at least): the pas de deux from La Fille Mal Gardée, choreographed by, of all people, Alexander Gorsky. The opera portions seemed more like filler, with only one soloist (Vladimir Matorin, a basso). The idea behind the gala seemed to be the recognition of a very large gift to the Kennedy Center by Catherine B. Reynolds, and an attempt to match the ballet/opera gala by the Kirov last winter.
It was well organized, with two extended scenes (with scenery as well as costumes) at the start and finish, and snippets in between. It was also blessedly short—2 hours 20 minutes. I find that galas featuring "highlights" can get numbing when they go on for hours.
It opened with the Shades scenes from La Bayadère—the epitome of refined Maryinsky style. I was kind of apprehensive about how the Bolshoi would handle this, but they brought it off pretty well. I was too close to the stage to be able to see the great spectacle as it should be seen, and the lighting in the opening procession was so dark (has the Bolshoi hired away ABT's lighting designer?) that I'm sure I missed a lot. Still, the soloists were all good (but why didn't the company identify the three solo Shades?), and I very much liked Nikolai Tsiskaridze. His fine taut line and clean, airy dancing were perfect for Solor, and he didn't over-emote the way many men do in this role. He did botch his landings in a manège of turns and once pulled Anna Antonicheva off pointe, but the beauty of the rest of his performance made me put those flubs down to jet lag.
After Tsiskaridze, Andrei Uvarov looked merely human and earthly in the Black Swan pas de duex with the dreadfully overworked Antonicheva, who is taking on all of Nadezhda Gracheva's roles this week. It didn't look like she was pacing herself, though, and she gave a big, clear account of a role she will have to dance twice more this week in its entirety, in addition to doing two full-length Nikiyas.
The curiosity of the program was the Fille pas de deux, danced by Nina Kaptzova and Denis Medvedev. Of all the people to have tackled a restaging of this charming, gentle Romantic work, Gorsky is surely the oddest choice; after all, he made a vulgar mess of Petipa's Don Quixote. (Incidentally, Gorsky had a hand in two other pieces on the program, since both Black Swan and of course Don Q are partially credited to him.) But, surprise—he didn't ruin it. The choreography for the ballerina is clearly post-Petipa (lots of pointe work and multiple overhead lifts), but that for the danseur looked quite Bournonvillean to me—more beats than turns and even a diagonal of jetés in attitude. Of course, it was all danced in the modern Bolshoi style, which altered the look of the choreography for the man considerably, but I thought it was interesting to see Gorsky making an effort to salute an earlier style.
The final ballet item was an expanded version of the Don Q pas de deux, with two female soloists and an ensemble of six girls. The fascination here was the performance of Anastasia Volochkova as Kitri. Trained at the Maryinsky, Volochkova is now a freelance who has been guesting with the Bolshoi lately. Her style is certainly more Bolshoi-like than Kirov-like, but Bolshoi in the old Plisetskaya way—over the top and sunnily vulgar. She is a big, solid woman with an upper body more like an Olympic swimmer's than a ballerina's, and she seemed reined in, as though she were trying to tone herself down to fit in with company style. The prospect of her as Nikiya,which she will dance on Friday, leads to lurid imaginings.
I wonder how much of the company the Bolshoi is bringing to Washington. Do they really only have two ballerinas? (Volochkova is a guest.) Last night's program did not include a company roster. The list of female corps dancers was buried at the end of the program, and one was identified as dancing only in the Don Q divertissement at the gala. Very odd.
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