BALLET REVIEW : A Wonderful Ivan the Terrible

When the Bolshoi Ballet last appeared in Los Angeles, three years ago at the Music Center, the company could muster three resident matinee idols. Count ‘em. Three.

The undisputed popular favorite was Irek Mukhamedov, superbly magnetic whether impersonating princely hero or proletariat firebrand. Some fans found equal cause to cheer the egocentric glamour projected by the boyish Andris Liepa.

But the stubborn sophisticates--an endangered minority--hailed Alexei Fadeyechev. They cherished his unique qualities as a romantic danseur noble . It hardly mattered that his natural elegance, muted bravura and expressive reticence precluded screams to or from the gallery.

And now there is one. Mukhamedov has moved on to find greater fame and, not incidentally, greater fortune with the Royal Ballet in London. Liepa has defected to the Kirov in Leningrad. Fadeyechev’s moment has come.

He seized it with characteristic intelligence, independence and force Thursday night at Shrine Auditorium when he finally ascended to the throne of Yuri Grigorovich’s “Ivan the Terrible.”

The ballet remains a jumble of busy tricks, repetitive cliches and empty poses. It does, however, offer a mighty, and mightily rewarding, challenge to the dancing actor who dares portray the crazed protagonist.

Fadeyechev avoided easy solutions to complex problems. He refused to court grotesquerie for its own picturesque sake. He resisted the temptation of emotive exaggeration. He searched wherever possible for apt psychological motivation, stressing the pathos rather than the rage of the unhappy czar.

This should not imply that he slighted the inherent theatricality of the role. He stormed down the steps, three stairs at a time, with fine, angular violence. He tossed the scepter at the Boyars with ferocious bravado. He threw himself into battle with awesome conviction.

In the moments of unbearable torment, he leapt and kicked with frenzied compulsion. Other, lighter dancers may leap higher or kick with greater elan, but few can match Fadeyechev’s contextual ardor.

In the final tableau, he hoisted himself aloft, entwined in the bell-ringers’ ropes, proclaiming Ivan’s superhuman triumph and simultaneously bemoaning its price. The image will linger.

Other dancers make these moments look like isolated Gothic-horror tricks. Fadeyechev makes them spring organically from the character and the action. Ever sensitive to the credibility of subtle nuances, he traced Ivan’s progress toward madness with careful, increasingly poignant restraint. He made the protagonist a gentle lover, an idealistic warrior, a lusty leader and, ultimately, a tragic victim of betrayal and greed.

He validated Grigorovich’s kitsch.

Maria Bilova returned as a rather tough and cool Anastasia. Gedeminas Taranda repeated his robustly agonized Kurbsky. Alexander Kopylov led an improved pit orchestra through the percussive platitudes of the Prokofiev pastiche stitched by Mikhail Chulaki.

Incidental intelligence:

* The management is providing no synopses in its program slips this year. Anyone who wants to understand the plot must pay $15 for the 48-page souvenir magazine.

* Los Angeles audiences are not being subjected to the security searches imposed at Lincoln Center last month, where, incidentally, the top ticket fetched $105 (which makes the local top--$75--a bargain).

* “Ivan the Terrible” has left lots of the 6,300 seats at the Shrine empty. The masses--even the masses transfixed by the Bolshoi mystique--still prefer “Swan Lake.”

* A fascinating exhibit of Bolshoi memorabilia, organized by the ubiquitous and chronically dedicated Dwight Grell, graces the mezzanine foyer. Unfortunately, aficionados must crawl along the floor in order to savor the rare photos displayed at knee level.