Bolshoi Springs Some Surprises at New York Festival

NEW YORK — The Bolshoi Ballet dropped the other toe shoe at the Lincoln Center Festival this week, dancing repertory not seen elsewhere on its recent American tour--including the U.S. premiere of a 1997 staging of “Giselle.” The strong emphasis on Classicism and Neoclassicism in New York amplified the view of the Bolshoi that the Southland enjoyed earlier and suggested that the company is currently in transition between its old hyperdramatic priorities and the very different demands of international style.

However, the big news of the sold-out, seven-performance engagement at the New York State Theater was arguably 20-year-old Svetlana Lunkina, currently second-ranked in the company but being groomed for international stardom.

A protegee of the great Bolshoi ballerina Ekaterina Maximova, the fine-boned, beautifully proportioned, if dangerously thin, Lunkina had suffered an ankle injury that kept her out of George Balanchine’s “Symphony in C” on Wednesday and Friday. But her first New York “Giselle” on Saturday afternoon gloried in technical refinement as well as a fresh, deep and detailed expressivity.

Performing opposite young Georgian virtuoso Nikolai Tsiskaridze (like her, unseen during the Bolshoi’s recent Southland engagements), Lunkina exemplified Romantic softness and innocence in the first act, blushing adorably when the disguised Albrecht tried to sit close to her and later dancing playfully with him and her village friends. Her mad scene may have achieved less variety and, especially, wildness than that of Bolshoi prima Nina Ananiashvili, who danced the role powerfully Saturday night, but her agonized dislocation projected strongly.

In Act 2, Lunkina’s sustained stillness and exquisitely modulated classicism ideally complemented Tsiskaridze’s florid acting and flamboyant technique. If Andrei Uvarov made a far nobler, more sensitive Albrecht in the evening performance, Tsiskaridze brought unstinting passion to the matinee.

Unfortunately, the staging by Bolshoi Theatre artistic director Vladimir Vasiliev proved unworthy, starting with crude attempts to shoehorn contemporary male virtuosity into the antique choreographic text. Particularly objectionable: his use of hard-sell turning leaps to convey every emotion--from Hilarion’s fear of the supernatural at the very opening of Act 2 to Albrecht’s morning-after anguish at the very end.

Vasiliev’s best idea involved expanding the role of Hilarion (Ruslan Pronin alternating with Alexander Petukhov) into a genuine foil for Albrecht, but his methods invariably introduced problematic clashes of style.

With gilt-edged lollipop trees and gold tassels overhead in both acts, Sergei Barkhin’s scenery emphasized self-conscious theatrical artifice. In addition, his tiny cutout buildings sometimes provided needless obstacles, as when Andrei Sitnikov as the Duke had to duck down to get inside the door of Giselle’s house. Costumes by Hubert de Givenchy and Philippe Venet boldly flouted tradition (Giselle wearing red and yellow in Act 1 rather than blue, for instance), looked lavish throughout but often didn’t move well.

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Dancing Balanchine in Balanchine’s own theater gave extra excitement to the Bolshoi’s first New York engagement in a decade. And before Lunkina dropped out, the plotless, Neoclassic “Symphony in C” featured all-star principals, with most of its leads also showcased earlier in the four-part mixed bill.

Thus Ananiashvili and Uvarov coupled their stylish teamwork in the extroverted grand pas de deux from Marius Petipa’s “Don Quixote” with one of Balanchine’s most serene adagios--though on Friday, Ananiashvili lacked the requisite pliancy for the latter.

Similarly, Dmitri Belogolovtsev forcefully executed a showpiece excerpt from Yuri Grigorovich’s “Spartacus” at the start of the program and ended the evening by carefully working through the complex Balanchine finale. His ballerina Galina Stepanenko also looked a mite cautious here but proved pure in line and exemplary in technique in the lead role of Petipa’s “Kingdom of the Shades” from “La Bayadere.”

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Replacing Lunkina in the “Symphony in C” first movement: a hastily recruited, promising corps member named Anastasia Goriacheva, partnered by Sergei Filin with the same consideration he’d given Stepanenko in “La Bayadere.” However, only Tsiskaridze and Maria Alexandrova in the breezy third movement brought genuine ease to Balanchine, and what a difference it made.

Conductor Alexander Sotnikov expertly led the New York City Opera Orchestra throughout the engagement, though the scores by Adam, Khachaturian, Minkus and Bizet all endured squeaky strings, off-pitch brass and other major lapses in playing. Finally, the women’s corps that looked strongly drilled but heavy-footed in “Giselle” also made its celebrated “Bayadere” entrance strangely clenched, destroying a sense of flow by laboriously setting balances before daring to raise any legs into extension.

Other companies dance this sequence as a ballet poem; the Bolshoi’s 32 shades reduce it to just a thorny technical chore.