DANCE REVIEW : New Principals Change Kirov’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Two young principals brought an exciting new sense of involvement to the Kirov Ballet production of “The Sleeping Beauty” Sunday afternoon at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

In physique, 22-year-old Zhanna Ayupova may be more womanly than girlish, but she danced Princess Aurora with great freshness, sweetness and a rapt wonder at every happy surprise in the fairy-tale plot.

Free and spontaneous in phrasing, she faltered momentarily during the treacherous supported balances of the Rose Adagio but otherwise successfully met the technical challenges of the role. And she sustained an emotional rapport with her prince that helped camouflage many of the miscalculations in the staging.

Opposite Ayupova, Farukh Ruzimatov, 25, danced with a disarming blend of bold, pristine classical technique and soulful Romantic intensity. Slender, dark-skinned, exotic--a firebrand from Tashkent nicknamed “Razzmatazz” by his English-speaking fans--Ruzimatov managed to make the Vision Scene seem a private revelation, “seeing” the corps dancers in his own mind before he ever turned to look in their direction.

His distinctive melancholy complemented Ayupova’s sunniness perfectly, and they danced together in the last act with faultless surety--his sharply etched jumps matching her perfectly placed turns. Incidentally, the Kirov program booklet says that Ruzimatov danced on the 1986 U.S. tour, but don’t believe it.

As the Lilac Fairy, veteran principal Galina Mezentseva (the opening-night Aurora in this engagement) offered brittle, small-scale dancing and exuded a kind of impassive graciousness. Nevertheless, her authority helped the character represent a plausible counterforce to Carabosse--no easy task with all the cuts in storytelling pantomime that largely “abstract” the role.

Except for the dainty, refined dancing of childlike Veronika Ivanova as Florine, and the appearance of Evgeny Neff (the opening- and second-night prince) as one of the suitors in the Rose Adagio, the rest of the Sunday matinee cast proved wholly familiar. Dzhemal Dalgat again conducted.