The starry Russian company gets to grips with Frederick Ashton.

“...Quintessentially English, this summery romantic comedy offers a stylistic challenge to Russian-schooled dancers. Where Russian dancing is grand scale, Ashtonian dancing is all in the detail. Subtle upper-body alignment and diamond-cut footwork for the women; self-deprecating virtuosity for the men. And all of it shot through with flirtatious wit.

Initially, the first-nighters in the apricot-and-silver Mikhailovsky auditorium didn’t know what to make of Fille. No Russian ballet has ever opened with a dance for a cockerel and four chickens. And 22-year-old Anastasia Soboleva, dancing the heroine Lise, was visibly nervous. But the audience and the young Bolshoi-trained soloist soon unfroze, and when the final curtain fell the cast was rapturously received. The Russian critics were seduced too.
„Ashton’s ballet is a real delight. It is light, elegant and as transparent as watercolour,„ wrote Svetlana Naborshchikova in Izvestia...“

Star rating (out of 5)
La Fille mal gardée ★★★★★

Luke Jennings, The Guardian