National Ballet of Spain.

CITY CENTER FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 10, 1996 REVIEWED BY CAMILLE HARDY

Watching the dancers of the National Ballet of Spain generates great admiration for the blend of passionate bravura and splendid technique that resonates from the entire ensemble. Led by an artistic troika, the troupe is perhaps so polished because three gifted women, rather than a single director, mine the collective talent. Aurora Pons focuses on artistic coordination, Nana Lorca heads programming, and Victoria Eugenia, ballet mistress since 1980, choreographs on a regular basis. The two programs represented a range of styles within the bold traditions of Spanish dance. Yet throughout, similarities between ballet, flamenco, and the measured stances of the matador emerged in a series of powerful images that gave interesting cohesion to the national heritage.

With the opening work, Danza y Tronio, sequences from the eighteenth-century bolero school revealed the ballet vocabulary as practiced in Spain at the time. Soloists and members of the corps wore tights but no slippers, allowing spectators to admire the steely articulation of the dancers' feet and their airborne batterie. As Mariemma's choreography segued into a fandango, lengthy and flexible torsos--still held in haughty epaulement--were supported by the rapid-fire footwork and clicking heels that ground this style in the earth. Visions of the nineteenth-century ballerina Fanny Elssler came to mind, for here were the roots of her inspiration. Marius Petipa, too, borrowed from this source, which he studied during a sojourn in Madrid in 1845. The small scale usually associated with bolero has been thrown wide open in a production that seems to include a majority of the company's fifty-odd dancers.

The first program also presented Zapateado, a manly solo by Felipe Sanchez for Luis Ortega; Flamenco, a collection of four fiery dances accompanied by three wonderful singers; and Jose Granero's Medea. With a score by Manolo Sanlucar, Medea was seen during the ensemble's SRO engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1988 (when it was billed as the Royal National Spanish Ballet). But the work never looked like this. As the seductive protagonist, Lola Greco was simply spectacular. The power of her tenderness and the deadly focus of her fury built a performance that was striking both for economy and for blasts of passion. Granero's images are kaunting. At one point Medea lifts her black silk shawl across her breast and stretches it with extended arms behind her, swooping toward her children like the dark angel of death that she becomes.

Greco was also the centerpiece of Granero's Leyenda (Chronicles of an Unconsummated Love), with Oscar Jimenez and sixteen gorgeous dancers. The music, by Isaac Albeniz and Jose Luis Greco, supported this blend of ballet and flamenco that used a moving wedge of male dancers to erotic effect.

At the opposite end of the spectrum were two subtle solos. Antonio Marquez in Eugenia's La Oracion del Torero ("The Bullfighter's Prayer") gave a tour de force presentation of theatricality. Reminding spectators that the matador's lunge is very like fourth position and whirling his cape with classical finesse, Marquez's static poses were as electric as his movement. Principal Maribel Gallardo followed in Chacona, a delicate and feminine solo inspired by the eighteenth-century dance form.

Two more blockbusters filled out this bill. Granero's Bolero, to the Ravel score, features men and women in black, gray, white, and, finally, crimson, pulsing in a sexy spectacle replete with red smoke. A Ritmo y a Compas couldn't match Bolero's emotional decibels. Yet in this series of flamenco dances, set in a tavern courtyard where "all but a few are in love," the stylish Mila de Vargas conquered all.