Light Steps from Leningrad

By Martha Duffy

The Kirov Ballet is still a classical marvel

For ballet lovers, all roads lead to Paris right now. The attraction is a rare, eight-week appearance by Leningrad's Kirov Ballet, considered the finest classical troupe in the world. No other company in this century has produced talent as profligately as the Kirov, and certainly no foreign company has had so strong an influence on American dance. Pavlova, whose ceaseless touring virtually introduced ballet to the U.S.; Balanchine, creator of many of this century's choreographic masterpieces; Nureyev and Makarova, who set new standards for classical style; Baryshnikov, who is probably the greatest male dancer since Nijinsky and is in the process of turning the American Ballet Theater into a major classical ensemble--all these have emerged from the Kirov.

That list alone would give the company considerable mystique, but it is not the only reason why American ballet lovers are juggling airline deals to get to Paris. It is very difficult to see the Kirov; the troupe tours less than the rival Bolshoi, even in the U.S.S.R. Since it has lost three superstars (Nureyev, Makarova, Baryshnikov) in 20 years, the company has been kept home at times for security reasons (the last U.S. tour was in 1964). After Baryshnikov's departure, it was rumored that the Kirov had deteriorated and that morale was low. Those difficulties, if they existed, seem, on the basis of the first Paris performances, to have been overcome. The Kirov looks to be in excellent shape, with spirited, beautifully schooled principals and a truly awesome corps de ballet.

The company came to France with 90 dancers (another 100-odd are performing at home) and a 70-piece orchestra. Mostly the repertory is taken from the Kirov's gallery of classics--Swan Lake, Giselle, La Sylphide, La Bayadere--but there are a few modern works, including Maurice Bejart's Bhakti and a new work choreographed by Oleg Vinogradov, the Kirov's director. To Vinogradov the mix is about right. "This company is good enough to do any kind of choreography," he says, "but we are proud of our reputation as a museum, a Hermitage of choreography. Here the classical repertory in its entirety is preserved."

He might have added that the style is cherished as well. It may be that the classical style comes as readily to these Russians as Shakespeare's poetry does to English actors. They dance with an easy amplitude, buoyant lightness and total technical command. There is no empty reverence. To American eyes, the Kirov Chopiniana (called Les Sylphides here) is startling because it is performed seemingly in a sunlit field instead of in a cathedral at midnight. Every Kirov dancer and musician knows a common musical idiom as well. The orchestra takes blithe liberties with tempos--flying allegros, subaqueous adagios--that are a shock to ears accustomed to stricter counts. One needs an entire performance of Swan Lake to absorb the confident, even radical, musical style.

Swan Lake is the signature ballet in Paris, performed nearly twice as often as the others. The Kirov emphasizes the pure dance elements at the expense of plot and melodrama. There are no hunters (though the corny Soviet tradition of having a jester cavort through the court scenes is maintained). Familiar confrontations, such as Odette's please-don't-shoot-my-girlfriends plea in the White Act, are missing. There are a few gross details--a dead swan that resembles nothing so much as a bleached Big Bird is carried in at the beginning--but mostly the production is understated and elegant.

In the interpretation of the Swan Queen, it also reveals something about the aesthetic that keeps this "museum" company so vibrant. This is not some star-crossed princess doing her regal best in tragic circumstances. The true heroine is the corps de ballet--all the white swans whose movements, at once precise and poetic, have drenching lyrical power. The ballerina is a distillation of the corps, an embodiment of their collective rhapsodic impulse. The idea is a very moving one, but it takes a superb ballerina to demonstrate it. The company has one in Olga Chenchikova. A lovely, long-limbed woman of 26, she has a natural, self-effacing nobility. Her technical mastery is such that one tends to forget about steps and concentrate on the rather abstract ideal she makes palpable. She does not so much appeal to the Prince as befriend him; there is neither complaint nor enticement in the famous pas de deux. Chenchikova has a virtually ideal Prince in Konstantin Zaklinsky, a picture-perfect danseur noble with long legs and a huge, expansive leap.

In Swan Lake backs are Petipa-straight, carriage plumb line. In the romantic ballets like Chopiniana and La Sylphide, the balance shifts forward, arms undulate and the dancers look gauzy and ethereal, like incarnations of the prints of a bewinged Carlotta Grisi or Fanny Elssler. In Chopiniana, Irina Kolpakova, whose light, musical dancing was the hit of the Kirov's 1961 U.S. tour, still gives a charming, ineffably girlish performance. She too seems like a projection of the corps de ballet, all of whom shimmer like sunny reflections on a clear pond.

These magical metaphors are pure dance, and they show just how powerful pure dance is. The Kirov falters only when it shows a lack of trust in its own art. Vinogradov's full-length work Le Revizor, is a respectable effort, no worse than the clumsier excesses of John Cranko, though never as good as Cranko at his best. It is based on Gogol's classic satire The Inspector General, the story of a young adventurer who is mistaken by cringing local bureaucrats for a dreaded government inspector. Vinogradov does not lack for ideas; he may even be a little too fluent. He sets up violent explosions of motion, heavy lampoons and in-jokes (the pas de deux is a gloss on Le Spectre de la Rose).

In the adventurer Khlestakov, danced with dandified zeal by Vadim Gouliaev, Vinogradov has created a real comic figure. He names Chaplin and Fellini as his sources of inspiration. He has picked two connoisseurs of motion, but unfortunately he reaches for cinematic techniques as well. The ballet is deliberately kaleidoscopic. Images jostle each other, lights blink busily, entire expressionist cartoons flash by at an enervating pace.

Vinogradov, 44, is now working on a ballet about the life of Charlie Chaplin. He intends to invite Maurice Bejart to stage it in Leningrad. The gossip is that Vinogradov was brought into the Kirov five years ago to liven things up and keep the younger generation of dancers interested. Vinogradov is a snappy dresser who likes wide pinstripes or a modified cowboy look. He seems to emerge from a Soviet equivalent of gilded youth, cosmopolitan, familiar with the latest trends in all the arts. His choreography is similar to that of several young Americans and Europeans, to judge by Le Revizor, but he may be grittier and more ambitious.

It is comforting, though, that Vinogradov has another invitation in mind, although there is no channel through which to send it. "My dream is that Balanchine would come back to Leningrad and do something with us," he says. "If only that were in the stars. Balanchine is one of the gods. After Petipa he is No. 2--among living choreographers, No. 1." If that assessment of the great classicists reflects Vinogradov's priorities, the Kirov is in safe hands. --By Martha Duffy

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