MARGUERITE & ARMAND REVISITED.

MARGUERITE & ARMAND REVISITED

ROYAL BALLET ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN LONDON, ENGLAND, U.K. FEBRUARY 29-MARCH 16, 18, 22, 2000

This spring, The Royal Ballet paid homage to its founder-choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, with the revival of three of his classical one-act ballets (and the Thais pas de deux). Displaying Ashton's genius and understanding of academic tradition, the program showed his gift for expressing in dance form the deepest feelings. Most eagerly awaited was the return of Marguerite and Armand, which he had created especially for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in 1963.

Based on Alexander Dumas's tragic story of La Dame aux Camellias, the thirty-minute ballet tells of the love and passion of the courtesan Marguerite Gautier and her lover Armand (though some ballet audiences preferred to read into it a real-life romance between Fonteyn and Nureyev). At its premiere, the interest surrounding the ballet and its stars caused Clive Barnes to write that "there was enough publicity generated to win a general election," and after its tumultuous reception at the Royal Opera House, the two continued to dance the ballet all over the world until 1977. The ballet is preserved in two films: Nureyev's I Am a Dancer and Fonteyn's The Magic of Dance. Although the two understudies, Christopher Gable and Lynn Seymour, also could have done the ballet justice, it became so identified with its creators that no one else has ever danced it --until now.

Superstar ballerina Sylvie Guillem and a fellow Parisian, the tall, elegant Nicolas Le Riche, have once more brought the ballet to life. The Royal's talented French guests proved worthy successors to the legendary Anglo-Russian couple. At 35, Guillem's extraordinary technique has become tempered with acting that reaches deep into the soul. She embodies the role of Marguerite with genteel and passionate emotion, making it her own and not a carbon copy of its originator's. She specifically chooses to be the heroine of the novel, a young woman, and not, as with Fonteyn's Marguerite, an older woman falling for a younger man.

Guillem's natural beauty and wonderfully expressive body spoke vividly, not only of unquenchable and impossible love, but also of progressive illness. She mesmerized with her interpretation of the captivating courtesan, stretching those luscious limbs effortlessly up and around Le Riche in great waves of passion before succumbing to his reckless lifts and throws. At other times, Guillem presented the pathos of the role, leaving lasting images of the tragic heroine--in her trembling and stilted walking on pointe as she despairingly left the scene with the father, in her stillness and piercing gaze at first sighting of Armand, and in her final upreach in his arms before falling lifeless.

In his first appearance with the Royal Ballet, Le Riche made a powerful and believable lover, evidencing a strong stage presence and bold bravura technique. An etoile with the Paris Opera Ballet since he was 21, he was coached by Nureyev in his early days in the company. Though taller than Nureyev, he danced Armand with such conviction that it often seemed as though the Russian legend were back again on stage. His rushing in with billowing black cape, like Ulanova's Juliet, brought a lump to the throat, and his anguish at Marguerite's death was truly heartfelt and left very few in the audience dry-eyed.

The designs--the sparse circular wrought-iron frame depicting a gilded cage and the exquisite ball gowns--were the originals of Cecil Beaton. Franz Liszt's atmospheric Sonata in B minor was beautifully played by pianist Philip Gammon and accompanied by the Royal Opera House orchestra. Those of us who had never seen the ballet before left feeling that we had surely experienced that same magic felt by audiences of Fonteyn and Nureyev.

The evening's homage to Ashton opened with Les Rendezvous, his first ballet created for the young Vic-Wells Ballet, the chrysalis of today's Royal Ballet. Created in 1933, it is set in a park and offers a charming, sunny collection of meetings and partings, where the men in striped blazers and straw hats partner polka-dotted, elbow-length-gloved ladies whose natty spiral hats quiver deliciously with their dancing. The new designs are by Anthony Ward. Darcey Bussell, in shocking pink, was suitably perky, offering dazzling pirouettes and turns that ended in backbends; while Jaimie Tapper, taking the role created by Ninette de Valois, was enchantingly cheerful in the nonstop-prancing pas de trois.

Leanne Benjamin and Jonathan Cope demonstrated Ashton's creamy, seam-free choreography in the Thais pas de deux, while Bruce Sansom and Johan Kobborg, a new recruit from the Royal Danish Ballet, offered sublime glimpses of their academic schooling in the pure dance ballet Symphonic Variations. An added bonus to the performance was the technically strong dancing of 18-year-old Romanian Alina Cojocaru in the Fonteyn role. Musical and dainty, she is going to be a dancer to watch. Ashton would have snatched her up.