‘Giselle’ creates sparks despite fire rules

Remember the forgotten man: Vladimir Arefiev, one of the finest ballet designers of our time, who created the sets and costumes for a “Giselle” never seen in America -- a production scheduled to be introduced by Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet on Friday and Saturday at the Kodak Theatre.

Unfortunately, the scenic flame-proofing didn’t pass muster with our local fire authorities and the company declined to pay an amount estimated at between $18,000 and $40,000 to bring it up to code.

So the production premiered with just two huts and a bench in Act 1, and only a small gravestone in Act 2 -- plus an all-purpose sky backdrop.

However, this bare “Giselle” was never a meager “Giselle,” thanks to a company that treated the ballet as the crown jewel of the classical repertory. Moreover, Arefiev’s costumes richly supplemented the refinement of the dancing -- even if it seemed wildly implausible that court ladies would go on a boar hunt wearing floor-length dresses of white satin brocade.

Tatiana Legat’s 1991 staging may have made some questionable decisions about dramatic sequencing and orchestral cuts in Act 1. But her insistence on expanding the traditional choreography to suit millennial standards of technique (the highest extensions, the longest jumps) generated constant surprise and excitement when danced by different principals over the weekend.

On Friday, the spectacularly buoyant Natalia Ledovskaya played Giselle as disarmingly coltish, deeply trusting and then persuasively suicidal in a mad scene featuring complex responses from all the major characters. Act 2 found Ledovskaya’s hyperextended line and polished technique showcased by the unusually slow tempi of the duets opposite Victor Dik, a credibly grief-stricken, technically secure Albrecht.

The following afternoon, Tatiana Chernobrovkina offered a sunnier interpretation of the living Giselle, a mad scene that grew strongest in the moment when she realized she was beginning to die -- but also technical lapses in her solos. However, her Act 2 duets with the stylish, accomplished Georgy Smilevsky as Albrecht sustained an inspired rapport to glorious effect.

Kadria Amirova made a statuesque, stony Myrta on Friday, dancing with weighty authority. At the Saturday matinee, Natalia Krapivina proved tinier, icier, but with flashes of dangerous temperament as well as consistently powerful technique.

Oddly inserted as a kind of guest divertissement, the Peasant Pas de Deux exuded pride and professionalism Saturday afternoon when performed by Vitaly Breusenko and Natalia Shelokova. Their Friday evening counterparts, Roman Malenko and Ekaterina Safonova, looked comparatively uneven.

At both performances, Anton Domachev managed to make Hilarion (called Hans in this version) not merely interesting as a character but also a real rival to Albrecht when it came to virtuosity. Georgy Zhemchuzhin conducted resourcefully, coaxing plenty of energy and lyricism from the familiar score but also accommodating Legat and the dancers’ special priorities.

It should be noted that this company specializes in full-evening narrative dance dramas by its artistic director, Dmitry Bryantsev, and that the 19th century war horses that America has seen only reveal one facet of its artistry.

If the company and its sponsors can’t afford locally mandated flame-proofing, it probably can’t afford to chance bringing Bryantsev’s rollicking “Taming of the Shrew” or steamy “Salome” or sardonic “La Dame aux Camelias” instead of the works that Americans expect Russian companies to dance.

Our loss. International ballet is much more varied than we’re allowed to know, and by restricting touring companies to the same 10 or 12 solid-gold titles, we may be consigning classical dance in this country to an ever-shrinking audience base and an ever-increasing cultural irrelevance.