Much of the Royal Ballet's season so far has looked like a two horse race, with its cast lists dominated by the company's newest stars, Alina Cojocaru and Tamara Rojo. With Darcey Bussell only recently back from maternity leave, Cojocaru and Rojo have been taking it in turns to make their debuts with almost every ballet that's entered the programme.
But ubiquitous as they are, comparisons between the two have been exaggerated by their recent arrival in the company, by their relative youth (Rojo is 27, Cojocaru 20) and by their diminutive stature. Their talents are very dissimilar and it is unfair to either dancer to turn their careers into a competition.
Cojocaru's debut in La Bayadère yesterday certainly started out very differently from Rojo's four days earlier, with a fine lyricism that looked almost saintly compared with Rojo's earthy, impulsive interpretation. There was more ecstasy than eroticism in her quivering responsiveness in her love duets with Solor, but, as she danced towards her death, Cojocaru allowed Nikiya's delicacy to be engulfed by a tragic force - the violence with which she arched her back, the reckless height to which she stretched her legs, the vertiginous swoon of her phrasing made her body look literally racked with grief.
It was an astonishingly moving performance, typical of Cojocaru's ability to lay herself out defenceless, but almost as moving was the pure classicism of her dancing in the Shades Act, where she moved with a finesse that was all air, and all light. She was helped considerably by Angel Corella (guesting again from American Ballet Theatre) who as a partner fits her like a glove. Their bodies have a pleasing mutual proportion, their timing is reflex-certain and as stage lovers they appear utterly focused on each other throughout the toughest technical demands.
Dancing on his own, Corella was autocratic Solor, arrogant in the certainty of his own fierce virtuosity, but this is a ballet that obeys its own pecking order. Last night's Gamazatti was Mara Galeazzi and even though her dancing may have been thrown by nerves, when she was acting out the villainy of the haughty, greedy princess, Galeazzi's cold cobra stare was implacable. Corella's Solor may have been tough, but he didn't stand a chance.
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