Australians Play It Safe

There’s a passage early in the second act of the Australian Ballet “Giselle” where Ulrike Lytton’s icy force as Myrta and John Lanchbery’s swift, urgent conducting momentarily propel the company beyond glazed rectitude into something like glory.

Here, in the allegro ensemble preceding Giselle’s entrance from the grave, we watch the full potential of 19 women and the full power of “Giselle” as Romantic dance-drama mutually realized. It’s an achievement that earns the Wilis the biggest curtain-call ovation at the Orange County Performing Arts Center--but it also confirms the worst about the evening as a whole.

In its first Southern California visit in nearly 20 years, the Australian Ballet continually demonstrates its good taste and elegant manners, but that’s pretty much as far as it goes. Once you’ve savored the beautifully finished hands, the immaculately pointed feet and the aristocratic placement--virtues rare in our own ballet companies--what’s left?

A sense of duty and rigid expressive restraint. Certainly, everyone looked ready to dance on Tuesday (opening night of a seven-performance engagement): coached and rehearsed to a glossy proficiency very much in the British ballet tradition. But, for all its picture-perfect refinement, their dancing proved consistently underpowered and even anonymous.

Working from the same Royal Ballet heritage, the dancers in National Ballet of Canada deliver just as impressive stylistic nicetities but also blaze with individuality. Dancing releases them into something greater than themselves and we’re delighted to be invited along. In contrast, the Australians seem to be aiming for nothing more than our respect.

Intelligent and opulent, the four-year-old staging of “Giselle” by artistic director Maina Gielgud seems unusual only in a few details: building the peasant pas de deux dancers into genuine characters, for example, or having Albrecht dance his Act I solo later than usual (he also carries white roses in Act II, instead of the customary lilies).

Otherwise, it may be memorable chiefly for its unyieldingly monochromatic Peter Farmer designs. In the relentlessly earth-toned first act, for instance, Giselle doesn’t wear her traditional blue dress but instead appears in pale yellow.

Lisa Pavane brings to the role a deep understanding of Romantic style, but her performance is both technically uneven and dismayingly overcalculated. Each reaction, each step, seems a test to be passed and even though Pavane passes most of them expertly, Giselle is nowhere to be found.

In contrast, Greg Horsman (Pavane’s husband) sometimes abandons those silken Aussie terminations in search of a hotter, riskier attack. His portrayal of Albrecht could use sharper definition, but it’s always alive and remarkable for its selfless generosity. Pavane and Horsman were both coached by the great Galina Ulanova and though this Albrecht can’t always make his Giselle look weightless, his partnering brings out her most sensitive and responsive qualities.

Stuck with a rather flat concept of Hilarion, Steven Heathcote nevertheless manages to display glints of star presence and dancing prowess. In the peasant pas de deux, a very assured Elizabeth Toohey outclasses her occasionally shaky partner, David McAllister.

To begin the evening, the Australians ventured something Australian for the first time on their three-city American tour: “Catalyst,” by company member Stephen Baynes of Adelaide. Fluently set to Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, this three-month-old creation assigns bravura combinations to Horsman and two women, contrasting them with lyrical choreography for Pavane and two men.

Unfortunately, the vocabulary for each group isn’t quite distinctive enough to make it a major event when Horsman and Pavane finally interact--but the way they lead, manipulate and inspire a 12-member corps becomes very interesting indeed.

“Catalyst” bears a program note about “violent and aggressive” forces contending with “serenity and calm.” Nonsense. The sweet, buoyant Horsman never looks remotely threatening any more than the tensely passive Pavane suggests serenity. What we see are principal dancers teaching a corps by personal example and instruction: the process of growth within a ballet company used as the subject of a classical showpiece.

It’s a big step beyond “Etudes,” “Ecole de Ballet” and all those other brainless at-the-barre divertissements--and it manages to make the viewer very hopeful about Baynes’ own growth and the Australian Ballet’s as well. More, please.