BALLET REVIEW : Kirov’s Surprising ‘Swan’

Much more than just the cast changed at the second performance of the newly restaged Kirov Ballet “Swan Lake,” Wednesday in Shrine Auditorium.

For starters, French dancer Daniel Meja (currently with the Boston Ballet) made his debut with the Kirov at this performance, dancing roles that had been performed by two company members on Tuesday: the jester and the Prince’s friend (lone male in the Act I pas de trois). Since these characters should appear onstage at the same time, some confusion resulted.

More crucially, perhaps, Siegfried didn’t die at the end of the ballet, as he had the previous evening. Instead, he arose from where he’d fallen after his fight with Rothbart to gaze longingly after the departing Odette: a replay of the end of the first lakeside scene. Thus a ballet with any number of possible endings now has no ending at all but simply doubles back on itself.

Originally scheduled as the Tuesday principals, Olga Chenchikova and Makharbek Vaziev danced the Swan Queen and her prince a day later with no chemistry or rapport whatsoever--not even a suggestion they’d been introduced.

As in the previous Kirov production in the same theater six years ago, Chenchikova used speed, weight and dynamics to make her Odette and Odile utterly different, but the interpretation has become glazed and mannered in the interim.

Yes, she took the Black Swan fouettes at a furious clip, throwing in doubles for extra flash. But she also slipped badly in Oleg Vinogradov’s useless new last-act adagio to music that Kirov audiences already heard earlier this season in Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux.”

Tall, with splashes of gray at his temples, Vaziev began the performance nervously with grimaces in place of acting and more than one set of chancy, off-center turns. Eventually, however, he settled into a bland competence, with his partnering always conscientious.

Meja brought spectacular multiple turns, gorgeously placed leaps and rough terminations to his experimental double assignment. However, since he wore the friend’s tunic (instead of the jester’s costume) in Act I, it was easy to mistake him for the prince. In the trio, he effortfully partnered fleet, fluid Irina Chistiakova and pert, brittle Irina Sitnikova.

Meja appeared Wednesday without advance announcement, but company representatives say he’ll be back in “Swan Lake” (as only the jester) on Saturday. Local balletomanes may remember the showpiece roles created for him by Michael Smuin (“Hearts”) at San Francisco Ballet and Mikhail Lavrovsky (“The Novice”) at California Ballet, San Diego. He will reportedly remain with the Kirov throughout the American tour.

Midway through the evening, an announcement credited the solid, idiomatic conducting to Boris Gruzin instead of the listed Victor Fedotov. A night of surprises, some happier than others.