ABT Soloists Embrace ‘Swan Lake’s’ Passion

In creating a new production of “Swan Lake” for American Ballet Theatre two years ago, artistic director Kevin McKenzie borrowed innovations from a number of previous stagings.

During the prelude, for instance, he showed Rothbart turning Odette into a swan--an idea from the celebrated, influential Vladimir Bourmeister version of the 1950s.

McKenzie even recycled a concept from the radical Matthew Bourne modern dance “Swan Lake” of 1995: a nasty, sensual youth seducing all the women at the ball, including the Queen Mother.

But, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Friday, McKenzie’s patchwork edition proved far less noteworthy than his casting: international stars Nina Ananiashvili and Julio Bocca dancing together for the first time on any local stage.

Each had visited the Southland recently at the head of other ensembles: She as the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi, he as the leading light of Ballet Argentino. Together they provided a memorable sampling of what New Yorkers have cheered season after season--Ananiashvili’s refinement of style meshing perfectly with Bocca’s dramatic intensity.

Ananiashvili’s mastery of mime may have been the great surprise of her performance, since the Soviet-era productions she grew up on invariably replaced passages of traditional 19th century gesture with nonstop dancing.

“Swan Lake” contains many such passages, and Ananiashvili deftly integrated them with the prevailing musical impetus whenever possible, her hands floating through the sign language as if dancing on their own.

Her bold, high extensions, deep backbends and ability to highlight all the details of the choreography without diminishing its flow made the lakeside scenes impressive even without the sense of mystery and suffering she exuded.

Odette, however, should represent a heightened projection of the style of the swan corps, and that ensemble danced wretchedly Friday, inflicting blunt prose on passages that should have matched her eloquent poetry.

A glittering, carnal Odile, Ananiashvili made the flurry of multiple turns in Bocca’s arms during the Black Swan adagio a striking contrast to Odette’s exquisitely slow unfolding in his arms during the White Swan pas de deux.

Bocca partnered her passionately, and always kept this “Swan Lake” focused on Siegfried’s emotional journey. He also displayed glints of the brilliant virtuosity for which he’s famed--particularly in a sequence of turns near the end of the Black Swan coda.

At age 35, however, he couldn’t always make the bravura look easy, and there were enough hunched shoulders and unstretched jumps to leave the performance below the level of his phenomenal dancing in the less classically exposed “Tango en el Maipo” last season in Buenos Aires.

Most of the other soloists Friday had been previously reviewed in the Orange County engagement. But Joaquin de Luz brought his sunny buoyancy and technical finesse to the expanded duties of Benno, the Prince’s friend. Andrew Mogrelia again conducted.