La Fille Mal Gardee.

ROME OPERA BALLET TEATRO DELL'OPERA, ROME JUNE 13-21, 1997

REVIEWED BY SILVIA POLETTI

Frederick Ashton's ballets are not very well known in Italy. Apart from a few unforgettable occasions lost in time--his Cinderella at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival in 1949 with the original cast, or Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev's yearning vehicle, Marguerite and Armand, at La Scala in 1966--touring companies have not included much of his work. As for Italian productions, the now-disbanded Turin Opera Ballet scheduled an Ashton program with Facade and Les Deux Pigeons, but that was years ago.

Therefore, Rome Opera Ballet's new production of La Fille Mal Gardee has undertaken the twofold task of adding this smiling classic at last to the Italian ballet repertory and confronting Italian dancers with Ashton's demanding style.

If the first part of the Roman company's job was unanimously appreciated, the second was harder to acclaim. Fille tells a simple but sweet story of a young woman, Lise, who defies the wishes of her widowed mother that she marry the rich but dull Alain and marries the farmer Colas instead. The corps danced correctly, with Lise's friends playing coquettish and the boys bold. Salvatore Capozzi, as Alain's father, Thomas, was moderately funny, and Raffaele Paganini, as Colas, showed his genuine self-confidence and a sure technique, although he had some problems with the Bournonvillian aspects of his solo.

Not so convincing were the depictions of Alain and Widow Simone, roles which are fundamental to La Fille's comic effect. Alain and Simone are perfect examples of Ashton's mastery in mixing humor, poetry, and imagination in a story ballet while maintaining the balance between caricature and genuine psychological motivation.

Unfortunately, Luigi Martelletta, as Alain, was miscast: pale and blank, he could not convey Alain's nuances that proceed from dreaminess to a sudden bashfulness. And Piero Martelletta exaggerated the role of Simone to the point of becoming grotesque.

Bright and lively, with sparkling footwork and a cheerful temperament, Margaret Illmann performed Lise on an entirely different level. She displayed Ashton's choreographic felicities with endless panache.