Youngsters shine in a colourful zoological adventure
The Cunning Little Vixen; The Two Pigeons Royal Ballet School and Royal Ballet, Covent Garden ★★★
Not since 2010 has a prominent choreographer created a substantial new work for the Royal Ballet School to be performed alongside a Royal Ballet production at Covent Garden. Which makes The
Cunning Little Vixen, by Liam Scarlett, a decidedly praiseworthy idea of company director Kevin O’hare’s, and a jolly big deal for the students. Whatever my misgivings about Scarlett’s past forays into storytelling, this very musically minded 32-year-old from Ipswich is a big name in ballet now, and this is an invaluable opportunity for the pupils (taken here from both the Lower and Upper schools) to gain stage experience.
The 40-minute piece is set to Janáček’s famous opera, stripped of vocals, death, subtext, certain creatures, half its length, much of its plot and all but fleeting glimpses of human characters – none of which, considering the 12-18 age range of the dancers, is necessarily such a bad thing. It plays out on a stage that’s bare except for a large screen, on to which are projected attractive, animated backdrops, and it is here that we see the only menacing traces of the Gamekeeper. On the stage proper, it’s four legs good, two legs gone.
With attractive, colourful costumes by Scarlett, the ballet proves a slight but enjoyable neoclassical confection that pushes the students’ technique intelligently but not excessively. The stage fizzes with zoological life, all cunning canidae, bouncing reptiles and buzzing insects, and although Scarlett’s choreography – for all its apposite nods to La Fille mal gardée and The Tales of Beatrix Potter – never rivals that of Frederick Ashton in terms of helpless creativity, it’s perfectly decent on its own terms, speaks well to story and character, and encourages the youngsters to shine.
They pounce on the piece like ravenous toddlers on a packet of oaty bars, perhaps spurred on by the presence in the audience of the Prince of Wales, president of the school and company. Every boy and girl in Tuesday’s premiere can hold their head high, though if pressed, I would have to single out Daichi Ikarashi’s spring-loaded Frog, tiny Malvina Kolb’s buoyantly musical fox cub, and all four older members of the fox family.
The out-and-out star is Madison Bailey. As Sharp-ears, the titular vixen, the 18-year-old from Tunbridge Wells leads from the front, very much on top of the steps and with a remarkably sophisticated grasp of how to make an audience laugh. Her passage into the Royal Ballet should be a formality.
Criticisms? For all the students’ sterling efforts, proper épaulement is in short supply and, in terms of pure classical, virtuosic magic, I had no “Eureka!” moment – that skin-prickling sensation of having spotted the next Alina Cojocaru or Carlos Acosta.
Still, this Vixen is a fun and fine venture, and on Tuesday night it was in some ways more successful than the company’s rendition of Ashton’s 1961 choreographic masterpiece The Two Pigeons. From the outset, neither the rom nor the com of this enchanting creation registered properly, the fault, I think, lying not with Alexander Campbell (on his game as the feckless Young Man) but with Yasmine Naghdi.
A usually riveting dancer, she plays the Young Girl too broadly, her comic timing lacking crispness. In fact, there was greater alchemy between Campbell and Fumi Kaneko, as the Gypsy Girl (in what proved an overall stronger Act II), even if she lacked the lip-smacking, lock-up-your-husbands quality that Laura Morera brought to the role at last month’s five-star banquet of an opening night: Vadim Muntagirov and a pitch-perfect Lauren Cuthbertson, take a belated bow.
In rep until tomorrow. Tickets: 020 7304 4000; roh.org.uk