Love triangle smothered by its score
There’s no law decreeing that ballet music has to be conventionally pretty. Stravinsky thunderously proved this a century ago with The Firebird, The Rite of Spring and Les Noces. And since then, composers such as Arthur Bliss
(Checkmate), Hans Werner Henze (Ondine) and Benjamin Britten (Prince
of the Pagodas) have all written superb scores for new ballets that are, nevertheless, unlikely to become cornerstones of Classic FM playlists.
What all these scores have in common, however, is complete suitability for dancing and, above all, for the drama in hand – and it is here that Rodion Shchedrin’s, for Anna
Karenina, falls down. He wrote it in 1971 for an adaptation of Tolstoy’s famous tragic novel by his wife, the Bolshoi’s prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya, whose father was murdered in Stalin’s Purges, and who repeatedly fell foul of and defied the Soviet state. She may well have brought a unique resonance to this dark tale of the perils of defying society’s established norms, one that made everything cohere. But this isn’t the case with Alexei Ratmansky’s 2004 version to the same music, created for the Royal Danish Ballet but since adopted by the Mariinsky (who last performed it here in 2011).
An inevitably drastic filleting of the Tolstoy, the show has its strengths. With slick, if perhaps over-zealous use of cloud and train-filled projections – and a coup de théâtre of sorts from the set – it’s elegantly costumed and zips along, and you’ll have no problem either differentiating the characters or following the plot (essentially, the love triangle between Anna, her husband Alexei, and Vronsky). Probably the most in-demand neoclassical choreographer in the world, Ratmansky serves up plenty of carefully crafted, intense clinches between Anna and her lover, as well as dynamic ensembles for the boys. There are also some nicely conceived set pieces – see Anna’s crushing, very Dangerous Liaisons-ish rejection from polite society – and he charts Anna’s fall from grace and crumbling mental state with complete clarity.
But true choreographic surprises are in short supply and, even more damagingly, the score is an abrasive, doom-laden fright, as romantic as a claw-hammer. On Thursday night, Diana Vishneva – more luminous than ever at 41 – deployed every last ounce of her world-class technical refinement and long-won emotional experience as Anna, “speaking” in long, lyrical, expressive sentences and making the anti-heroine every bit as irresistible as the character needs to be. Meanwhile, Viktor Baranov (a late stand-in for Isolm Baimuradov) conveyed the stolid respectability of her spouse, with Konstantin Zverev a contrastingly virile Vronsky, taking splendidly to the air, and a count definitely worthy of Anna’s ill-fated attentions.
However, much of the score is rhythmically unremarkable, and more or less all of it errs towards the nightmarish. The latter is particularly
‘More luminous than ever at 41, Diana Vishneva makes the anti-heroine as irresistible as she needs to be’
noticeable in the music that accompanies the lovers’ meetings – the largest and most fundamental portion of the ballet – which constantly seems to shriek “This isn’t going to end well!” as if wanting to whisk us straight to the tragic end rather than usher us into their heads as they entwine. Towards the close, it does at last seem an apposite reflection of their increasing mental turmoil, but by then it feels like just more of the grating same. Mightn’t the couple have been granted some seductive passion and rapture earlier, for the sake of dramatic coherence and chiaroscuro?
The entire company looks on fine form here, with a special mention due to the boys’ corps and to Svetlana Ivanova, who allows Kitty to grow considerably from spurned ingénue at Vronsky’s hands to a force to be reckoned with. Despite their noblest efforts, this is a tragedy that – although holding the attention – ultimately tires the ears, without piercing the heart.