DANCE REVIEW : A ‘Romeo’ From Kirov’s Museum

When Orange County last cheered the Kirov Ballet, in 1989, the company was the vaunted pride of post- perestroika Leningrad. A few things have changed since then.

The Soviet Union isn’t a union anymore. Leningrad has become St. Petersburg again, and the Kirov is returning, in name at least, to its courtly Maryinsky roots.

Under the circumstances, one might have expected something very old and imperial to open the season at the Performing Arts Center on Tuesday--or, at the other extreme, something very new and daring. No such luck.

Oleg Vinogradov, the always enduring and sometimes endearing artistic director, chose this occasion for some old-fashioned Soviet realism amid some prime Soviet nostalgia, in the sprawling form of Leonid Lavrovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet.” And so, 1940 lives again.

Some cockeyed optimists have heralded this historic “Romeo” as a new production. Others have called it a revival. As performed here in its belated U.S. premiere, it suggested nothing so much as a halfhearted exhumation. The Kirov has brought us “Romeo” as a museum piece--and a dusty museum piece at that.

American balletomanes know the star-cross’d lovers well. The wondrous fusion of Shakespeare’s lyrical tragedy and Prokofiev’s brilliant score has been splashed across numerous stages in Kenneth MacMillan’s flamboyant production for the Royal Ballet (later adopted by American Ballet Theatre) and in John Cranko’s poignant version for the Stuttgart Ballet (later appropriated by the Joffrey). We also have caught fleeting glimpses of the subtler Frederick Ashton edition, thanks to the Royal Danes and, later, the English National Ballet.

Each of these is very interesting, the ancient experts agree, but each owes its existence in one aspect or another to Lavrovsky’s pioneering effort. New York saw a variation of it in 1959, when the Bolshoi exported its version as a vehicle for the ageless Galina Ulanova, whose classic Juliet has been documented in an abbreviated film.

Now, for better or worse, we can see exactly where all the beloved romantic indulgences and emotive extravagances began. It isn’t a particularly pretty sight.

Exactly ? That may be something of an exaggeration. Nothing can look today as it did 52 years ago. Pyotr Williams’ prosaic canvases and pompous drapes may have looked imposing in 1940, but they look faded and flimsy, drab and quaint in the blaring light of 1992. His reconstituted costumes look merely garish.

Lavrovsky’s fabled choreography, which owes more to mime than to the language of classical dance, doesn’t seem so fabulous today. It oversimplifies the libretto, veers constantly toward irrelevant clutter, succumbs frequently to silent-movie cliches .

It is easy to spot Lavrovsky’s most emulated inspirations. Most obvious is the tender balcony scene duet (enacted here without a balcony, and without the benefit of the parting that invites such sweet sorrow). One recognizes the charming grotesquerie of Mercutio’s taunts, the fierceness of the sword fights, the hysteria of Lady Capulet over Tybalt’s corpse. One is struck anew by Romeo’s heroic, desperate lifting of the lifeless Juliet in the tomb scene.

There is much padding, however, between the highlights. There is much conventional busywork, much obfuscation of both the drama and the dance.

It is possible that Lavrovsky’s primitive visions could still exert some compulsion if executed with dauntless conviction and dazzling bravado. Such redeeming qualities, alas, seemed scarce on Tuesday.

Vinogradov’s truncated staging, uncredited in both the puffy souvenir program and the oddly edited house program, isn’t as faithful to the source as one might think. The revisionist choreographer has deleted both prologue and epilogue. Even more damaging to structure as well as to narrative logic, he has cut the crucial scene in which the Capulets discover Juliet’s body, not to mention the episode in Mantua where Romeo hears that Juliet is dead.

The opening-night cast went through its hand-me-down rituals dutifully, for the most part, and sometimes clumsily. Although long celebrated for its suavity, discipline and refinement in depth, the Kirov ensemble looked a bit bedraggled on this occasion. Making matters worse, neither principals nor corps could muster theatrical flair to camouflage the technical limitations.

The saving grace, quite literally, emanated from Altynai Assylmuratova, who danced Juliet with ethereal calm, willowy line and exquisite delicacy. Other Juliets are more childlike at the outset, more vulnerable, more overwhelmingly tragic at the end. Assylmuratova didn’t even begin to simulate the unforgettable frenzy of Ulanova’s “pouter-pigeon” silhouette as Juliet dashes to meet Friar Laurence and her destiny. Still, she exuded specific authority and magnetized generalized sympathy. One had to be grateful.

Konstantin Zaklinsky, her husband both onstage and off, was, as always, a conscientious partner and a handsome, reassuring presence. He did little to characterize the hero’s plight, however, and solved Lavrovsky’s modest demands for bravura modestly.

The others remained stubbornly bland. Sergei Vikharev (replacing a scheduled guest artist from Buenos Aires) offered a sweet, small-scale Mercutio. Dmitri Korneyev contributed push-button stagger and swagger as a goldilocked Tybalt.

The warring clans were headed meekly by Vladimir Ponomarev as a doddering Capulet and Pyotr Stasyunas as an eye-popping Montague. Marina Abdullayeva lurched comically as the Nurse. Yuri Fateyev leapt and spun nervously as the inevitable Soviet Jester. Evgeny Neff, erstwhile danseur would-be noble , tried not to look silly in a blond wig as the good Friar. The assorted courtiers, whores, troubadours and townsfolk performed their minimalist character exercises mechanically.

Prokofiev was better served in the pit than on the stage. Boris Gruzin conducted an orchestra imported from St. Petersburg--no pickup band this time--with fine symphonic sound and reasonable theatrical fury.

The first-nighters applauded politely, not passionately. That seemed fair.