A rather fawning farewell to Covent Garden’s lofty diva
After a string of narrative misfires, it’s good to see that talented young choreographer Liam Scarlett is at least back on safer, abstract territory. Which is not to say that his new piece isn’t a strange beast. Set to and named after Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances (1940), and following that suite’s three-movement structure, it’s a love-letter-cum-farewell to Amazonian principal dancer Zenaida Yanowsky, who retires this season after 23 years with the company. This is perhaps why the girls’ corps feels largely incidental.
For this feels, above all, like an elaborate exercise in diva-worship. Its second section calls to mind that famous 1985 video for Madonna’s Material Girl, as well as the even more famous passage that inspired it, Marilyn Monroe’s rendering of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.
In the first part of this Yanowksy show, James Hay (take a bow) tentatively but brilliantly dances for her; in part two, she’s fawned over and ferried about by an octet of boys. Not until the climax is she fully engaged with on equal terms.
Also fundamental to the piece is the way Scarlett plays with ballet’s gender norms. Here cutting a haughty, androgynous figure, Yanowsky towers above Hay, even when not en pointe. When he performs for her, she stands stock-still as she scrutinises him, and when she exchanges a magnificently billowing red dress for a trim waistcoat, the boys come on in similarly billowing skirt-like confections.
Yanowsky carries the piece. Always such a smart and dramatic performer, she dominates the hollowed out, noirishly lit stage, and later forms a compelling partnership with the similarly lofty rising star Reece Clark.
Scarlett’s ability to fill a stage with unforced, elegant movement is also very much in evidence throughout – my complaint is how little it all adds up to. A sexless chill hangs over the entire creation, and I struggled in vain to feel thrilled, or for my heart to be even remotely tugged at.
Earlier, on a generous bill, is Christopher Wheeldon’s portrait of a scandal, Strapless. Starring, as in 2016, a sparkling Natalia Osipova as Amélie Gautreau, the society woman shamed by a painting of her, and Ed Watson, excellent as the artist responsible, John Singer Sargent, it feels a fraction pacier than last time. However, it’s still hampered by Mark-Anthony Turnage’s intelligent but unlovable score, and, although it makes us grasp why Gautreau was shunned by Le Tout Paris, it doesn’t make us feel it. Its events unfold as if at a great distance.
Opening this neoclassical evening is William Forsythe’s electrifying study in perpetual motion for five dancers, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, from 1996. Of the three girls on opening night, only the resplendent Marianela Nuñez looked at ease with its punishing technical demands. As for the boys, Steven McRae was beyond reproach in terms of speed and agility, but one’s eye was repeatedly drawn away from him by the unflashy classical line of Vadim Muntagirov.
The highlight, though, is the intoxicating little shot of grappa that is Balanchine’s Tarantella (1964). Rekindling the sun-dappled magic they brought last autumn to La Fille mal gardée, Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé are just stupendous. Both so musical, so breezily scornful of terra firma, so (like Nuñez, earlier) utterly on top of the piece’s fiendish variations on classicism, they’re remarkable here when dancing solo, but more bewitching still when together.
Their technical bravura and warmth of spirit make this 10-minute choreographic whirlwind well worth the detour. In rep until May 31. Tickets: 020 7304 4000; roh.org.uk