travelswithalice

August 23, 2015

La Bayadère at the London Coliseum

La Bayadère at the English National Opera's London Coliseum.

Led by principal dancer Irina Kolesnikova, this touring production by the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre combines the stars of the Mariinsky Theatre, the Bolshoi Theatre and the St Petersburg Ballet Orchestra.

Having had the good fortune to secure what were probably the last two seats in the house, it would be churlish of me to find fault in the evening's performance. That said, it was disconcerting to see a leg fall out of formation in back of the corps de ballet during a particularly line-sensitive drill.

Oh but principal dancer Kolesnikova was way beyond faultless! It was for me an incredibly awesome experience to witness such exquisite dancing, especially from where I sat at the very edge of the stage. I imagined that I could feel and hear every footfall, every swish of fabric, every movement of air.

I don't have access to the vocabulary of ballet so I struggle to describe the deftness of Kolesnikova's every step, every gesture. The way her foot stroked the floor, as in a caress, when she began to move. The way her toes fixed on the board like they were glued to it right before they lifted weightlessly to whip about and point commandingly at unerringly precise angles. The beautiful long arcs her body traced. The languid grace with which her leaps and turns defied time and gravity.

As my eyes were riveted on the two principal female dancers in the roles of Nikiya and the Rajah's daughter Gamzatti, here danced exquisitely by Ukrainian Natalia Matsak, I fear I hardly noticed the other dancers, including the main male role of Solor played by the Bolshoi's Denis Rodkin.

The lady who sat beside me in the theatre knows her way around the world of ballet; her mother was a dancer. She spoke disparagingly of Rodkin. She said he will never be anything like Nureyev.

At one point, when he was directly in front of us, out of the main action, almost offstage but still dramatically in character, she said, "Look at him, we're probably the only ones who can actually see him...how very Bolshoi of him!"

I defer to her informed appraisal of the evening's performance of the role that served to deify the legendary Rudolf Nureyev.