The Q, The
Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre.
29th
October, 2015
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
The Russian
National Ballet Theatre is a large company of Russian classical ballet dancers,
under the Artistic Directorship of Evgeny Amosov. It’s currently undertaking an
arduous, whistle-stop tour of Australia, following a similar tour of New
Zealand. When it completes its Australian tour in Mildura in mid-December, it
will have played 108 performances in 45 cities and towns in New Zealand and
Australia.
According to
the glossy program, the company has around 50 dancers and its purpose is to
preserve the creative heritage of the great masters of Russian Ballet. In the
larger cities it is presenting two ballets, “Swan Lake” and “The Sleeping
Beauty”.
The single
performance in the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre was of “Swan Lake”.
Having paid $20.00
for the glossy program, it was disappointing to discover that it included details
of only five dancers. So to find out who was dancing the principal roles at this performance, at interval I approached the only company
representatives visible in the foyer, the Chinese couple who had sold me the
program.
Their
English seemed limited but helpfully they pointed to the photograph of
Barkolova Yelyzaveta. She didn’t look like her photograph but they assured me
that she was dancing Odette/Odile at this performance, and that none of the
other dancers pictured in the program were dancing in this performance. Who
were the other principals then? The
gentleman consulted his telephone then wrote on my piece of paper that Romonov
Maxim was dancing Sigfried, and Bogutskyi Oleksii was dancing both the role of
the Jester and Baron Rothbart.
I questioned
this last piece of information, but he was adamant. However, my doubts were
confirmed when the performance continued and both the Jester and Rothbart were
on stage together in the ball scene. Returning home after the performance, I searched
the internet only to discover that the company’s website made no mention of the names of any
of the 50 dancers in the company.
The next day
I contacted the publicist, who was unable to help, and even the Q, in the hope
that there might have been a discarded cast list left on the notice board. No
luck. So I’m not able to tell you who I was actually watching in this
performance. Which is a shame because even though I may not have known of them
previously I would have liked to have recorded which members of this company
had actually performed in Queanbeyan.
Back to the
performance. I hoped it all looked magical
to the dozens of little girls in the audience who were probably experiencing
their first live ballet performance. The costumes certainly looked pretty, and the 18 swans in the lake scene looked spectacular.
No
choreographer was credited, but given the company’s stated mission, one would
assume it was the original Petipa/Ivanov choreography, which might explain why
it looked so dated and repetitive. It also featured the happy ending which became obligatory for Russian production in the Stalin era.
The ensemble dancers were well drilled, but performed the choreography mechanically and with the minimum effort, especially in the two lake scenes which lacked any pretence of dramatic tension.
The ensemble dancers were well drilled, but performed the choreography mechanically and with the minimum effort, especially in the two lake scenes which lacked any pretence of dramatic tension.
Whoever the
ballerina was, she was technically proficient but her interpretation of the Swan Queen, Odette, was rather too brittle, even though this
quality later became an advantage for her black swan, Odile, in the ballroom
scene. Alas, in the ballroom scene her valiant attempts to bring some excitement to the black swan pas
de deux were thwarted by her totally dis-interested prince.
Elsewhere
the Jester did his best to inject some life into the proceedings, even if his
shameless mugging did become irritating, and there were occasional sparks of
life in the national dances in the ballroom scene, particularly from the two
Spanish ladies who impressed with their deep back bends, and from the swarthy male dancer in a bright yellow costume who danced with the sort of vitality
so lacking in his colleagues.
But overall
this “Swan Lake” turned out to be a rather dispiriting experience.
As long as
there has been ballet there have been Russian ballet companies relentlessly
touring the world, spreading the word. Watching this performance, it was
hard to escape the thought that generations of people must have had their first
experience of classical ballet watching such performances. How many people
sitting in the audience in Queanbeyan that night were having such an experience? And although they gave every indication of enjoying the show, would they
be inspired enough by it to attend
another ballet performance ?
I doubt
there was a budding Pavlova, Nijinsky, Nureyev or Makarova in this company of
anonymous dancers, but if there were, we'll never be able to boast that we were in the audience the night they danced in "Swan Lake" in Queanbeyan.