Hi all, this is a review that I did for the Auckland University publication. Due to space contraints (the arts section only gets 1 page), I couldn't be too detailed so I tried a different style of writing. I, of course, learned this the hard way - my Air NZ Gala review was reduced to a senseless heap of text by the editor
<P>-----------------------------------------<P><B>Stars Of The Bolshoi</B> <BR>ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre.<BR>22 September 2001, 8 pm.<P>This much-awaited 13-city tour has been advertised as <I>Stars Of The Bolshoi</I>, but its big glossy (and typo-filled) programme bellows “A Gala Performance: Stars Of The Great Russian Ballet Companies” on the cover. It’s a bit confusing. Featuring principals from the famed Bolshoi Ballet, St. Petersburg Ballet and Russian Classical Ballet, as well as a corps de ballet of 21, the troupe’s travelling plans were apparently delayed by the recent terrorist attacks in the US, arriving in Auckland only several hours before this evening’s show. Sleep-deprived as they were, the ensemble nevertheless pulled off a brilliant performance that displayed “Russian courage and stamina at its best”. <P>The evening of classical excerpts went underway with <I>Festival of Flowers at Genzano</I>. Being unfamiliar with the Bournonville style, it’s hard to tell if the slightly plastic grins and abrupt head jerks were intentional or not, but Dmitri Bugaev and Irina Pyatkina were attractively buoyant in their footwork. This was followed by the pas de deux from <I>The Sleeping Beauty</I>, cleanly executed by Tatyana Shanina and Alexei Shanin. The first half of the programme ended with Act II from the Romantic classic <I>Swan Lake</I>, where Prince Siegfried meets the swans and falls in love with their queen, Odette. Mark Peretokin made a distinguished, yet odd-looking Siegfried with that helmet hairdo of his. Leading a group of 19 frothy white swans, Nina Semizorova, with her sharp and precise legwork, still played a convincing Odette at the age of 45. Unfortunately, the role of Rothbart, the evil sorcerer responsible for keeping Odette and her kind as swans, was reduced to a purple bird-like annoyance with too much eye shadow, rather than a menacing figure of unspeakable power.<P><I>Harlequinade</I>, performed by Anna Kostina and Bugaev again, came after the interval. Some might have found this particular selection rather puerile, but there was something endearingly flippant about this cheeky duet, coupled with Kostina’s multiple fouettés and Bugaev’s confident pirouettes in second position. The athletic Ruslan Pronin then burst onstage with <I>Gopak</I> - one minute of complicated leaps, jumps and turns - to a gasping crowd. Shanina and Shanin reappeared in <I>Esmeralda</I>, a typical pas de deux in most respects, except for its touching undercurrent of sorrow, especially in the way Shanina flung her arms downward and dropped her back in despair. Semizorova returned for her rendition of Mikhail Fokine’s <I>The Dying Swan</I>, which has become synonymous with the late Anna Pavlova. Heartfelt and beautifully performed, the soppy instrumentation of Saint-Saëns’ wistful music, however, did little to enhance this bittersweet solo. <P>Capping the show was <I>The Walpurgis Night</I>, a divertissement from the opera “Faust”. When extracted from its original context, it’s difficult to determine what the ballet was about. Nonetheless, it served as an excellent finale as Pyatkina, Peretokin, Pronin and a corps of loose-gowned maidens and half-naked horned men danced assertively to the rousing score by Gounod. <P>Despite the dubious lighting, severely inadequate sets, pre-recorded music of erratic quality, and the curious absence of Bolshoi star Galina Stepanenko, it didn’t stop large numbers of spectators from giving standing ovations at the end. Performing fearlessly even in the face of such technical limitations, the tireless Russians certainly deserved every bit of applause.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by Malcolm Tay (edited September 23, 2001).]
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