Sensuality and angularity may usually describe oppositional forms of movement and posture, but they surely combine in the extraordinary work of Nina Ananiashvili, prima ballerina of the 224-year-old Bolshoi Ballet.
Nearly four hours after the advertised starting time for Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” on Tuesday night, the vast stage of the Auditorium Theatre was still filled with the 90 ebullient dancers taking part in the Bolshoi’s first full-blown United States tour in 10 years. And Ananiashvili had revealed to Chicagoans why tickets fly whenever she appears with the Royal Ballet or the American Ballet Theatre. With the Tokyo Ballet, she reportedly commands up to $30,000 an appearance.
If you want to see why, you’ll need to wait until Friday, when Ananiashvili dances Kitri in “Don Quixote.” In Chicago, Ananiashvili’s contract says she dances opening nights only (subsequent performances of “Romeo and Juliet” feature a partially different cast).
She must need rest from physical and emotional exhaustion.
Ananiashvili’s thin body can be so still and straight, it seems to exist only in two dimensions. And yet she also manages to convey extraordinary vulnerability and sensuality. Especially during her intensely powerful scenes with Paris (the splendid Alexei Barsegyan), you’d swear this 37-year-old dancer was in her teens.
Even without such a star, an evening of ballet comes no grander. The huge (and surprisingly young) cast swarms like bees around Petr Williams’ lovably traditionalist wing-and-drop settings. Williams has designed the show around a series of lush, red-and-gold drapes that envelop the stage like oversize Chinese lanterns in a series of horizontal and vertical patterns.
Whatever they say about modernizing the Bolshoi, there are no post-modern concessions here. Instead of the shorter, more familiar Kenneth McMillan version (choreographed for the Royal Ballet in 1965), the Bolshoi re-creates the classic 1938 libretto and choreography of Leonid Lavrovsky. With two languid intermissions and ample pauses, one has to be up for a very long night. Lavrovsky worked in plenty of folkic references, making Verona cheerfully Russian.
The fight and dance scenes are painted in broad strokes, and a few members of the young corps de ballet could be seen checking out the Chicago audience from time to time. But there is some extraordinary work on display. As the Jester, Denis Medvedev has a better leap than Michael Jordan. Dmitri Belogolovtsev is an intense and strong Tibalt and there’s quiet but delightful dancing from Maria Allash as Juliet’s girlfriend.
But Andrei Uvarov’s Romeo needs his Juliet to give him the necessary fire. And it’s mainly Ananiashvili’s emotional honesty that allows this epic performance to transcend its specific cultural milieu.
Given the constant changes in Russia, one should not take for granted that the Bolshoi opera and ballet will always be able to employ 2,500 people and produce at this level. But new freedoms mean that Ananiashvili can enjoy an international career while living in Moscow, spiritual home of her art. We’re all the richer.
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Through Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. Call: 312-902-1500
