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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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The MCB closes its season in high Bolshoi style.
By Leonard Eureka
Metropolitan Classical Ballet always manages a quality show despite its shoestring budget. Latest example: the season-closing program in Bass Performance Hall last weekend, with a bevy of guest dancers augmenting company regulars in a dancefest second to none seen this year. There were bumps and bruises along the way to be sure, but the overall effect was “Wow!”
The meat of the evening was a revival of co-artistic director Paul Mejia’s “Romeo and Juliet,” set to the Tchaikovsky Fantasy Overture and seamlessly danced by Olga Pavlova and Yevgeni Anfinogenov. Pavlova’s gentle lyricism and inner warmth are wonderfully suited to the ill-fated Juliet and make you long to see her in a full-length version of the familiar classic.
The ballet begins with the death of Romeo and the awakening of Juliet in the crypt, and briefly outlines the story in a series of flashbacks, ending in a moving wedding scene in the hereafter with a giant silken fabric billowing up behind them like a huge, sunlit cloud. Anfinogenov is a handsome Romeo, although there isn’t much for him to do here except run around looking tragic when he isn’t partnering Juliet.
The rest of the program was devoted to high-powered duets and ensembles staged by co-artistic director Alexander Vetrov, arranged by mood and style to fill the evening. Pavlova was again seen, in the glittering Black Swan Variations from “Swan Lake,” as a conniving minx luring Prince Siegfried into betraying his beloved Odet. Her prince was Russian-trained guest Alexei Tyukov from the Colorado Ballet, a solid dancer who was in over his head with the variations. Everything he tried was just this side of a struggle, and some of his landings were floor-shattering.
Pavlova ended her solo with a strange pastiche of rapid turns, jumps, and references to other passages that seemed almost improvisational. She omitted the traditional 32 fouettes, the whipping turns on point, perhaps in deference to guest Bolshoi ballerina Marianna Ryzhkina, who had the same choreography scheduled in her program-ending “Don Quixote Variations.” (The athletic sequence was so popular that it appears in a number of classical ballets.) Ryzhkina injured her lower leg in rehearsal here last October and had surgery to repair the damage. There was no apparent effect on her dancing. She earned a healthy ovation.
The surprise of the evening was the super-charged performance by Shea Johnson in the “Diana and Acteon” duet, a Soviet-era blockbuster based on the myth of the goddess Diana and the hunter Acteon. Johnson has been with the company for a couple of years, paying his dues in the corps and appearing in bit assignments. Nothing suggested he could be the powerhouse who bounded on stage here with such animal intensity that many audience members audibly gasped in amazement. Bravado and arrogance colored all of his actions; even the trickiest moves were tossed off with boldness and assurance. The crowd witnessed a major talent claiming his place in the dance world. He was rewarded with the biggest ovation of the evening, which just about blew away his Diana, Maiko Abe, a sweet young Japanese dancer with nice technique and beautiful line. She hasn’t learned yet to open up to allow any personality or emotion to shine through and, next to Johnson, looked pale and colorless.
Guests Olga Voloboueva and Howard Quintero gave a raggedy account of the “Grand Pas Classique” by Victor Gzovsky but were more relaxed in a brief new piece called “White Fog,” choreographed for them by Eric Bortolin and set to the music of Bach in a vaguely modern style. The whole thing seemed to end before it began.
Ryzhkina was seen again, in the love duet from “Spartacus,” partnered by a more secure looking Tyukov – but near the end of the piece the lights went out in the orchestra pit. The musicians kept it together, their only source of light was flittering down from the auditorium. Conductor Ron Spigelman eventually announced that there would be a slight delay while the problem was being fixed. And for the next several minutes, a lone violinist lamented the dim situation by bowing a mournful rendition of “You Are My Sunshine.”
The MCB Orchestra includes Fort Worth Symphony players, Dallas Opera Orchestra members, and freelance musicians who play particularly well together under Sligelman’s direction, no mean feat when you’re following dancers with constant tempo changes. He was associate conductor of the FWSO and now heads the Springfield Missouri Symphony full time. Next season, he’ll return for more ballet performances, as well as four pops concerts with the FWSO.
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