Casting Undercuts Toulouse in Its All-Balanchine Finale

Capably staged and coached, the all-Balanchine program by Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse suffered from consistent miscasting in the company’s last performance at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday. Not bad dancing, but the right moves by the wrong people.

Evelyne Spagnol, for instance, is a spirited, authoritative artist with physical proportions that make her unsuited for tutu roles. Classicism (and neoclassicism) can be cruel--less about steps than about idealized shapes. Casting Spagnol as the prima ballerina in “Raymonda Variations,” a celebration of Russian classicism to music by Glazunov, not only overtaxed the limited partnering skills of Juan Polo but left such crucial classical virtues as lightness and line conspicuous by their absence.

In “Prodigal Son,” the technically secure Leon Pronk made a shallow victim and the expressively resourceful Frederique Vivan an insufficiently domineering victimizer. Dishy to the last, Pronk managed to look miraculously buffed and blow-dried even when crawling brokenly toward home in rags. Vivan, at least, had all the Siren’s greed and pretension delineated in her small-scale performance.

“Rubies” (also known as “Capriccio”) found the imposing Tuesday Siren, Paola Pagano, dancing the secondary female role but dominating the ballet with a mesmerizing illusion of throwaway exactitude, while Magali Guerry danced with very, very fine technique but little impact as the ostensible star. Using music by Stravinsky, Balanchine created here a mine field of classic, neoclassic, show-dance and athletic challenges, many of which left Minh Pham looking stiff and even clueless in the principal male role. Pham, however, did have the speed and bravura attack for one of Balanchine’s greatest showpieces for men.

Marina Lafargue, Anne Frenois and Christelle Combescot (leads in “Scotch Symphony” earlier this week) joined Guerry and Pagano for the subsidiary solos in “Raymonda Variations,” helping upgrade the reputation of a company full of high ambition but evidently in the throes of growing pains.