The celebratory gala held for Thomas Edur and Agnes Oaks was not strictly the last occasion the couple would be performing together. Oaks has set her retirement date for early summer; Edur should continue for a little longer. Even so, this event was their official farewell, and every seat in the Wells had been sold for it. Since their first professional performances together in 1988, Oaks and Edur have created a unique partnership, married to each other off-stage and on. Theirs is an intimacy of style bred in the bone from their early training in Estonia. And as Friday's gala revealed, it has sustained them right across the repertory.
To Balanchine's Apollo, for instance, Edur and Oaks brought a near-identical instinct for drama. More a boy and a girl falling in love than a young god dancing with his muse, they built a delicate arc of flirtation and mutual discovery, which reached its climax when Edur, gently resting his head on Oaks's open palm, revealed a suddenly poignant depth of trust. Yet they were just as closely attuned in Wayne McGregor's 2Human, which had Oaks violently transformed into a brittle, punk Firebird and Edur into her spiky prince.
The highlight of the evening, which also featured performances by dancers from English National Ballet, was the grand pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty. It was classical dancing at its most exemplary and true. In the mutual symmetries of their phrasing, in their innate grandeur and charm, Oaks and Edur inhabited the magisterial style of Petipa's choreography as if by divine right.
