Balanchine 100
Royal Opera House, London WC2
Ballet companies around the world are saluting George Balanchine on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Since his prolific output spanned much of the last century, there's plenty to choose from. Only the biggest classical companies, though, can muster the 48 dancers (plus reserves) needed for Symphony in C, his showcase Bizet ballet from 1947.
Symphony in C, given by his New York City Ballet the night he died (30 April 1983), triumphantly concludes the Royal Ballet's current tribute. It's a well-balanced triple bill, made up of Agon (1957) and his early Prodigal Son (1929). So we see a biblical parable to Prokofiev's music, a black-and-white leotard ballet to Stravinsky's 12-tone Agon score and massed ranks of tutus in a grand Bizet finale.
Prodigal Son was created when Balanchine was 25, during the last months of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Young George was presented with a scenario, a score and painterly designs by Rouault (Matisse having turned down the commission). He set to, casting Diaghilev's latest discovery, Serge Lifar, in the leading role. The outcome was a 1920s form of Tanztheater, grotesque, cruel and unexpectedly moving.
Carlos Acosta as the Prodigal could almost be telling his own story. He's the rebellious adolescent who can't wait to get away from his father's constraint into the big bad world. The boy's defiance is expressed in boldly executed ballet leaps; he may be naive but he's no dolt. He meets up with a gang of skinheads as bald as he is curly haired. Anonymous, scuttling monsters, they will strip him of everything, even his dignity.
His undoing is Sylvie Guillem as the Siren. She's a snake goddess, cold-bloodedly coiling her long limbs around him. Mesmerised, he's initiated into several acts of acrobatic sex. He is still in awe of her when she returns to disillusion him, stealing his medallion like the venal whore she (partly) is. Guillem is a touch too knowing, not impersonal enough in her relish of power over him and her horrible minions.
The trickiest part of the ballet is the humiliated rebel's long crawl home. Acosta, perfect as the iconic figure of a martyr, can't dwindle convincingly into an abject heap of rags. But the patriarch's forgiveness is still overwhelming, as he folds his tall son in his arms, cradling him like a child.
By the time of Agon, Balanchine could collaborate with Stravinsky as an equal. Together, they chose 12 dancers for the 12 sections of the score. The dancers are part of the music: they contribute to the percussion, clapping their hands or tapping their toes; they make the orchestration visible. No costumes, other than uniform practice dress, distract from the clarity of action.
The four men who open and close the ballet appear to wash clean the blue cyclorama behind them, a window on to space. They swagger, heel first; the women strut on pointe. Both sexes are athletes, daring and dismissive. Their contests end in a shrug or a flippant pose, though they're always courteous to each other. Johan Kobborg bows his thanks to the excellent conductor, Paul Hoskins, for keeping pace with him in the first pas de trois.
Zenaida Yanowsky seems the Siren's benevolent sister in her jaw-dropping pas de deux with Federico Bonelli. She takes the role of initiator, guiding him in how to handle a woman. He's brought to his knees, like the Prodigal. She leans over him in a sky-high arabesque, checks his heart and embraces him. He'll do.
Lauren Cuthbertson is the fun ballerina in her pas de trois, thrown about by her partners. She accomplished her high-wire act on Wednesday with aplomb, then nearly lost a shoe in the finale. A disaster in such a tautly constructed ballet, it must have shaken her confidence. She couldn't quite deliver as the mysterious, idolised ballerina in the second movement of Symphony in C, so the ballet lost its heart. Nevertheless, it worked as a spectacle, sparkling white against the newly washed sky. Alina Cojocaru and Ivan Putrov glittered in the first movement and Tamara Rojo was the icing on the wedding cake in the last. Stodgier debutantes in the middle will lighten up as they, too, learn to do justice to Balanchine and Bizet.
Three to see
Blush - Wim Vandekeybus and Ultima Vez
Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield (Tues), Sadler's Wells, London EC1 (Sat & Sun)
Belgians tour intensely physical dance to rock soundtrack.
Flamenco Festival
Sadler's Wells, London EC1 (opens Thurs, then 9-17 Feb)
Free sherry and tapas in the bars.
Shobana Jeyasingh
Gardner Arts Centre, Brighton (Tues), Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells (Fri)
Award-winning company present their new work, Transtep.
