DANCE REVIEW : Bolshoi Ballet Offers ‘Swan Lake’ at Shrine

After many a season tires the swan. . . .

The Bolshoi Ballet has been performing Yuri Grigorovich’s streamlined, hyperactive distortion of “Swan Lake” since 1969. No wonder everyone on the vast stage of Shrine Auditorium looked a trifle bored Tuesday night. Some of the crowd out front seemed a tad dispirited, too.

This dubious production last surfaced at the Shrine in 1979. Absence has made neither art nor heart grow fonder.

This, you may recall, is the “Swan Lake” that pretends to tell a story but keeps forgetting to do so. This is a neo-Soviet “Swan Lake,” sans mime, with happy ending appended.

The Queen Mother, whose deportment is worthy of a tough-cookie showgirl, doesn’t give her growing boy a bow and arrow on his birthday, just a necklace. He doesn’t seem to like it (can’t blame him), for he fails to thank her and doesn’t bother to wear it long. Joining convenient ballerina-playmates, he is more interested in usurping the danseur’s duties in a pas de trois formerly reserved for his serfs or courtiers.

That is just the beginning. Our Muscovite Prince doesn’t go a-hunting. Odette doesn’t seem to be a swan, just another white-tutued ballerina, and she doesn’t even get to make her usual dramatic entrance. There is no pressure for the droopy and distracted Siegfried to choose a bride in the ball scene, and he doesn’t bother to observe the contenders’ divertissements.

Odile, the good ballerina’s bad alter ego, comes equipped with a entourage of six black ersatz -swans. They turn out to be merely decorative.

Rothbart, who sports neither red hair nor beard, goes in for a lot of fancy dancing. Often echoing Siegfried’s steps, he functions as the good guy’s bad alter ego. Don’t ask why.

Traditional “Swan Lake” addicts will, of course, recognize most of the exalted Petipa and Ivanov choreography. Those familiar with Soviet revisionism will recognize Alexander Gorsky’s infernal, irrelevant, anti-musical Jester, a circus acrobat who clutters the first scene and invariably garners the greatest applause.

Grigorovich, arch proponent of the more-is-more school, interpolates an odd adagio routine for Odile and her not-so-fine-feathered accomplices just before the Black Swan pas de deux. That is just one of many instances where he overloads the action with meaningless motion.

Abetted by his ubiquitous designer, Simon Virsaladze, he confines the ballet to a gauzy unit set that repeatedly sinks into the crack separating realism from abstraction. The fluid scenic arrangement does have one major advantage, however: It allows the sprawling ballet to proceed with only a single intermission.

The opening cast promised much on paper. Few promises, alas, were fulfilled.

Ludmila Semenyaka danced Odette-Odile with her wonted clarity, intelligence and style. At 38, she remains a ballerina of undoubted authority, and, despite some technical inequities, she still dispatches those ornamented fouettes with elan.

She did little, however, to differentiate between the innocent and the evil heroines. She sometimes seemed to be performing by rote. Her lyrical phrasing, moreover, seems to have lost some of its erstwhile suavity, and her bravura flights now tend toward the effortful. Perhaps she needs a loftier inspiration.

For all his noble attitudes, Alexei Fadeyechev didn’t appear to be much involved in the dilemmas that should confront Siegfried. He struck valiant poses, danced neatly if a bit ponderously, partnered the ballerina sympathetically, and, bowing to Grigorovich’s imbalances, left the high-powered leaping and spinning to Rothbart and the Jester.

Mark Peretokin leapt and spun with crisp precision as Rothbart. Mikhail Sharkov leapt and spun with flamboyant extroversion as the Jester.

Maria Bilova and Natalia Arkhipova used their opportunities in the pas de trois for fleeting star-turns. Elvira Drozdova (the Russian would-be bride) and Nina Speranskaya (her Polish counterpart) attracted special attention in the national dances. The magnetic Gedeminas Taranda was wasted in the non-duties of the Master of Ceremonies, and the muscular Alexei Lazarev--who had appeared in central roles on the last tour--was buried here among the Prince’s incidental attendants.

The all-important corps de ballet, subjected to a grueling work schedule, didn’t seem to set much value on unanimity of gesture. The rival Kirov still outclasses the Bolshoi when it comes to the mass production of perfect swans and cygnets.

Algis Zhuraitis conducted the competent pit orchestra with little concern for nuance, much concern for the dancers’ eccentric tempos.

The near-capacity audience in the 6,300-seat hall applauded wildly whenever aerial feats loomed. The crowd responded dutifully when, even in the middle of a pas de deux, the dancers milked the house for non-spontaneous ovations.

Fowl play.