BALLET COMPANY OF THE STANISLAVSKY & NEMIROVICHDANCHENKO MOSCOW MUSIC THEATRE.

BALLET COMPANY OF THE STANISLAVSKY & NEMIROVICHDANCHENKO MOSCOW MUSIC THEATRE

OPERA HOUSE, THE KENNEDY CENTER WASHINGTON, D.C. DECEMBER 9-20, 1998

Second-largest, second-oldest of Moscow's ballet companies, the Stanislavsky differs from that city's premier troupe, the Bolshoi. It is less conservative than its big brother and is expected to have popular appeal. Its dancers mostly come from the Bolshoi's school, but undoubtedly this company gets second dibs.

A roster of sixty-three, half the home number, took part in this American debut, performing three programs. Two were full-lengths, remakes of classics that have become traditional in Russia. In the third, a mixed bill presented under an umbrella title, each ballet was seen as a separate facet of a single idea.

The season's opener, The Nutcracker, could have made a case--but didn't--for choreographer Vasily Vainonen as the Balanchine who stayed home, and for the Stanislavsky as the [Antony] Tudor dancers of Russia.

Mikhail Krapivin's staging of the choreography sometimes looked contrived, and psychological insight into the characters was negligible. In 1934, Vainonen saw the story through a teenage girl's eyes and dreams, but now this was hard to decipher. Snowflakes' gliding and tumbling conveyed the weight of Russia's winter, not the icy brilliance other companies have found in Vainonen's steps. In Act II's Waltz of the Flowers, delicate poses and vigorous hoists were braided into intricate, sweeping arbor formations; missing from the Adagio, however, were the ballerina's four subsidiary partners, which diminished the choreography's complexity and grandeur.

The Stanislavsky's own version of Swan Lake [1953] still has impact. Drama and dance always combine to propel the audience from conflict to conflict. Vladimir Burmeister's Prologue uses pliant natural movement for the human Odette, who is swept away in Rotbart's wings. Act I focuses on the tension between Siegfried and his mother, the Queen. More implacable than in other versions, she frowns on her son's frolics with peasant girls and gives him no gifts, only orders. However, she doesn't object to some of her ladies remaining to dance with the court's young men. Burmeister's choreography for these dances, while not as distinctive as Vainonen's neoclassicism for The Nutcracker, is step-rich compared to the Soviet norm.

For Act II, Pyotr Gusev staged the traditional swan choreography, presumably by Ivanov. It builds symphonically to a climax: dancers surging forward, wave upon wave, as in Balanchine's Symphony in C finale. Even such "pure" dance serves a dramatic purpose--as manifestation of the power and limits of Rotbart's spell. Burmeister's Act III contrasts the formality of the Queen's court with the sinister excitement of Rotbart's retinue. Odile appears and disappears among the national dancers like the magician's illusion that she is. In the last act and Epilogue, Burmeister resolves the ballet's stylistic and dramatic themes. His swan choreography is more curvilinear than in Act II; his ending unites the true lovers, but their happiness is not without melancholy.

The new entity--the "Romantic Ballet Night"--consisted of Michel Fokine's Chopiniana (Les Sylphides) in an imposing but tortuously careful and slow rendition, Anton Dolin's Pas de Quatre with irony and charm in fine balance, and The Spirit Ball by company director Dmitry Bryantsev. Only Spirit Ball, to Chopin, was unfamiliar. Reminiscent of Jerome Robbins's In the Night (which the Stanislavsky also dances) and long (five couples instead of Robbins's three), Bryantsev's choreography is, nevertheless, inventive.

As a group, the company's classicists are meticulously rehearsed, but many have a blemish--in body, beauty, or quality. The princes, though tall and aloof, are too loose when the dancing becomes demanding. The corps women are short, moving with an undue gravity that seems to come from minimal torso pull-up. The ballerinas are diverse in their attributes; my favorites are the senior Svetlana Tsoy, a fine stylist though gnarled, and baby-faced, unblemished Natalia Krapivina, who, like most of the character soloists, is first-rate. Teamwork made these Stanislavsky performances memorable.