GRIGOROVICH VERSION : BOLSHOI INTRODUCES NEW ‘GISELLE’

Once upon a time, in the good old days, the Bolshoi Ballet version of “Giselle” ranked as one of the undisputed wonders of the Eastern world.

Leonid Lavrovsky’s production, first seen in Moscow in 1944, used bold, realistic, ultradramatic strokes to tell the sad tale of the trusting peasant girl, the caddish nobleman who betrays her and the vengeful Wilis whom she joins in death.

There was striking expressive contrast between the elaborate passages of mime narrative and the elaborate passages of expansive dance. There also was a crucial stylistic contrast between the bucolic little tragedy of Act I and the ethereal transfiguration of Act II.

In those days, moreover, the dancers had faces.

This was the “Giselle” that introduced the unforgettable Galina Ulanova to the West. This was the “Giselle” that later accommodated such magnetic protagonists as Ekaterina Maximova and Natalia Bessmertnova.

Bessmertnova is still with us. An injury, unfortunately, has forced her to limit her current appearances to less demanding challenges. Had she been on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Wednesday night, the new Bolshoi production--staged last October by her husband, Yuri Grigorovich--would still have been distressingly bland, silly and contradictory. But at least it might have had a compelling central force.

As things turned out, Grigorovich offered Los Angeles a showcase “Giselle” with production values that ranged from dull to dubious. And, making matters even dubiouser, he chose a first-night cast that put none of the company’s best feet forward.

Nina Semizorova--born in 1956, trained in Kiev and coached, we are told, by none other than Ulanova herself--took the title role on this occasion. She is tiny, fleet, fragile and the epitome of the eternal waif. With her big eyes, round face and somewhat spindly figure, she suggests the odd image of Shelley Duvall lost, somehow, in a Romantic arabesque.

She speeds through the customary paces with a sharp attack, glittery precision and almost demonic ease. She phrases with somewhat less lyric amplitude than one might wish, however, and, adopting the accepted neo-Bolshoi manner, settles for mild dramatic generalities.

She does little to distinguish between the carefree maiden of Act I and the disembodied spirit of Act II. She conveys little passion for her suitor, little frenzy in her mad scene, little sense of aching nostalgia in her reincarnation as a Wili.

She dances crisply, often beautifully. She pouts sweetly and compels admiration for her technique. She virtually evaporates from the mind with the descent of the final curtain.

A similar problem besets her partner, Yuri Vasyuchenko. His duties oddly truncated and his involvement in the action slight, this Albrecht emerges in Act I as a pleasant all-purpose ballet prince. (Actually, he is, of course, a no-account count.) His line is remarkably trim, his articulation clean, his manner poised, his dramatic projection vapid.

He isn’t wild at all when, in the second act, he undertakes the wild pyrotechnics designed to appease the bloodthirsty virgin-ghosts in white. His bravura flights bear no signs of desperation, though they are gratifyingly tidy.

Vasyuchenko did provide one unintentionally memorable moment, however. After completing his modest final variation, he collapsed in a nice mock-exhausted heap. Responding to tepid applause, the would-be heroic victim smiled, raised himself on one elbow high enough to take a grateful bow from the floor, then returned to his original prone position so the tragedy could continue.

For the icily virtuosic duties of Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, the Bolshoi drafted Nina Speranskaya, a tall, rather blank, earthbound dancer who simply left out the most challenging steps.

For the crucial antagonist duties of Hilarion, the Bolshoi chose Yuri (not to be confused with Alexander) Vetrov, whose performance was, to put it feebly, feeble.

For a ponderous, oddly embellished, should-be innocent peasant pas de deux--a potentially joyful diversion understandably boycotted by the attending royalty--the Bolshoi drafted the overpowering Maria Bilova and the overparted Alexei Lazarev.

The frolicking townsfolk, exceptionally snooty aristocrats and tutued amazons all danced with steely aplomb, even when Grigorovich gave them anachronistic maneuvers. Although the ballet is supposed to take place in a rural German never-never land, the program identified the locale as France. Some of the ritual celebrations, however, looked distinctly mock-Italian.

Grigorovich obviously concerns himself more with dance per se than with such technicalities as time, place, mood and plot. He reduces mime to the barest minimum. He blurs character definition and ignores motivation. He seems to see little difference between the literal and the abstract.

Abandoning Petipa and friends from time to time, he just seems to like to keep his dancers busy. He often does so, one fears, for the sake of busyness alone.

He also favors clumsy yet fussy storybook designs by Simon Virsaladze. In this instance, that implies gauzy autumnal sketches for the village scene and a distinctly unmagical, primitively lit nocturnal vista for the graveyard.

In the well-staffed pit, Alexander Kopylov stressed prose over poetry.

Los Angeles has seen and heard far better “Giselles.” One would never have guessed that, however, from the applause in the sold-out, security-tight house.