BORDEAUX OF QUESTIONABLE VINTAGE.

BALLET DE L'OPERA DE BORDEAUX BOB HOPE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER ALUMNI HALL, U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND JANUARY 12, 2000 AND CENTER FOR THE ARTS GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA MARCH 19, 2000 REVIEWED BY GEORGE JACKSON

This provincial French ballet company's long United States tour offered two programs: a Diaghilev quadruple-header from 1906-1912 that still seems modern, and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet from 1938 that was a deliberate Soviet throwback to telling a story in old-fashioned detail. Annapolis got only Romeo, whereas Fairfax had the two bills. What the audiences saw in both places, and appreciated politely, was less vivid than performances by another provincial French ballet troupe, that from Toulouse, which toured a year earlier--not to mention those by France's first company, the Paris Opera Ballet. That the Bordeaux company is led by a well-regarded triumvirate from the Paris Opera Ballet--director Charles Jude, balletmaster Francis Malouik and administrator Anna Faussurier--has had little impact on the quality of the productions on this tour. The dancers, although decently trained, lack uniformly good bodies and fire.

Eric Frederic, as Romeo in Annapolis, did look the part but was tepid in his love for Emmanuelle Grizot's rather mature Juliet. Perhaps Frederic was defeated by the fact that Estonian choreographer Tilt Harm's concept was no more than a pale copy of the Lavrovsky original. Yet the Mercutio, Gregory Milan, and the Tybalt, Salvatore Gagliardi, managed to generate a few sparks. Milan, though, with his broad torso and wild look, wasn't right on the Diaghilev bill for Le Spectre de la Rose, Fokine's evocation of a girl's dream, whereas Gagliardi made his short stature an asset in the title role of Fokine's tragic fairgrounds fantasy, Petrouchka.

Harsh illumination did Jude, who appeared in the title role of Nijinsky's sensual bas-relief, L'Apres-midi d'un Faune, no service; nor did it do justice to Leon Bakst's designs. Bordeaux's poor sound system and lighting undermined Diaghilev's historic insistence on fine music and decor. Still, the program to honor the great director was a notch better than Romeo. Despite the female corps' jarring height differences and uniform lack of passion in Les Sylphides, the principal women--Grizot, Isabelle Boutot, and especially Nataliya Shcherbakova--were well matched and danced with feeling. Frederic, the sole male in this finely stitched and flowing Fokine reverie, was bland again.

It was Petrouchka (with, besides Gagliardi, Boutot's Ballerina, Yeruult Rinchindorj's Moor and Jean-Jacques Herment's Charlatan) that gave the strongest inkling of how potent the Diaghilev repertory can be.