The London Success
The Mikhailovsky Ballet’s London tour came to an end on 7 April. The press interest in this year’s London season was unpecedented. As at 7 April, 60 reviews of Mikhailovsky Theatre productions had appeared in British print publications and dedicated online resources, with the number certain to rise. The most authoritative British ballet critics, including Debra Craine (The Times), Clement Crisp and Gerald Dowler (Financial Times), Jeffery Taylor (Sunday Express), Judith Mackrell (The Guardian), and Luke Jennings (The Observer) highly rated the quality of the productions, the standard of the corps de ballet, and the mastery of the soloists. Ballet lovers are actively discussing and commenting on the performances in blogs, social networks, and specialized ballet forums, and the overwhelming majority of comments are unreserved in their praise.
The programme for the fortnight at the Coliseum featured mainly classical ballet: Giselle, Don Quixote, Laurencia. London audiences were able to form an opinion about Nacho Duato’s original style from the full-format production Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness and from an evening of Duato’s one-act ballets: Without Words, Nunc Dimittis, Prelude. The performances featured Natalia Osipova, Polina Semionova, Olesya Novikova, Ekaterina Borchenko, Ivan Vasiliev, Leonid Sarafanov, and Denis Matvienko, a “luminous” line-up of soloists, according to British ballet critics. Among the dancers praised by the English press were Oksana Bondareva, Sabina Yapparova, Mariam Ugrekhelidze, Veronika Ignatyeva, Marat Shemiunov, Alexander Omar, Pavel Maslennikov, Philip Parkhachov, Nikolay Korypayev, Andrey Yakhnyuk, Alexey Kuznetsov, Mikhail Venshchikov, Vladimir Tsal. This list can be continued with the words present in almost each review: “great Russian company delivering inspiration“.
Since the principal roles in five ballets, including the first Giselle, were danced by Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, they attracted most attention from the critics, and drew an irrepressible flow of rapturous acclaim. At the same time, Jenny Gilbert in The Independent insisted, “Don’t suppose that the former Bolshoi pair are the only reason to see the Mikhailovsky. Giselle’s second cast leads were scarcely less appealing.” According to her review, Polina Semionova and Denis Matvienko (“a sunny ingénue and an arrogant charmer”) were “particularly well poised for tragedy.” The most complimentary mentions went to the duo of Olesya Novikova and Leonid Sarafanov: London’s ballet lovers compared Sarafanov’s dancing with reminiscences of the young Rudolf Nureyev.
Don Quixote is well-known in London, but Mikhail Messerer’s version with stage design by Vyacheslav Okunev, was being performed there for the first time. “Incredibly fresh and vibrant, it’s a lusty rom-com”, wrote The Times. “Its exuberance is overwhelming and its attention to character a treat. And everyone in the company, be they toreadors, dryads, or gypsies, danced it for all it was worth.” Graham Watts on londondance.com was fully in agreement. “This Don Quixote was a triumph for Messerer and the whole company, with stellar dancing throughout the cast... The orchestra under Pavel Bubelnikov’s conducting was excellent and Vyacheslav Okunev’s set and costumes were particularly effective.”
Laurencia then took up the baton and earned no less approval. This rarely performed ballet, exclusive to the touring programme, maintained the high standard that had been set. Jeffery Taylor wrote in the Sunday Express, “Without wishing to devalue Osipova and Vasiliev, Messerer’s Laurencia does not rely on starry attractions. He has captured the rapture of dance, staged it with the cool hand of a professional and driven it with the potent impetus that makes dance so irresistible. What dancers, what a night.”
The London season was rounded off with Nacho Duato’s ballets, and the main reviews will be published later. However, even from the initial comments it is clear that they created a powerful impression. Gerard Davis in Dancing Review remarked, “The second scene of Multiplicity where Bach conducts the dancers as though they were a small chamber orchestra was fantastic... The final scene of the piece, a kind of reversal of La Bayadère’s famous entrance of the Shades where the dancers instead walk heavenwards, was also a memorable uplifting homage to Bach’s musical legacy. Duato’s costumes were a rich mix of contemporary designs melded with 18th-century fashions and were visually tremendous, lending real atmosphere to the performances.”
