Crazy sanity – Newspaper Kommersant No. 12 (7457) of 01/24/2023

An unusual series of Giselles took place on the Historical Stage of the Bolshoi Theater last weekend: five debutants performed in the main roles. Tatyana Kuznetsova believes that in this way the theater emphasizes the change of ballet generations.

Almost every ambitious artistic director thinks about creating his own galaxy of troupe leaders. Especially Makhar Vaziev, who during his career as a leader made two successful generational revolutions: at the Mariinsky Theater in the mid-1990s and at La Scala in the early 2010s. Since 2016, from the very beginning of his work at the Bolshoi, Makhar Vaziev has shown impatience: not trusting the Moscow school too much, he recruited young Petersburgers as leaders. However, they did not show any special merit and did not win the audience’s love: the acting “school of performance”, the cornerstone of St. Petersburg, historically does not meet with the understanding of Muscovites, adherents of the “school of experience”, ready to forgive a technical blunder for strong emotions. However, Makhar Vaziev did not overwrite the Moscow youth either – he just did not release anyone in leading roles, apparently believing that it is better to make a mistake in an artist than not to give him the opportunity to prove himself. However, only in recent years did the Moscow school give the artistic director a chance for a generational breakthrough: in 2019, Elizaveta Kokoreva joined the troupe, and in 2021, Eva Sergeenkova.

These girls are not competitors, they are antipodes. Those same “cat” and “horse”, according to George Balanchine’s classification, or “ingenue” and “lyric” – according to the old roles. By 2023, lively, frisky, with lovely brisk legs, with a charming, slightly doll-like face, Elizaveta Kokoreva, for whose technique one could not worry from her first performances, danced a dozen important roles and in at least two of them she was original and unique . Eva Sergeenkova, tall, fragile, with elongated lines, a large step and a beautiful rise, managed to perform a couple of “instrumental” parts that do not require acting talent, and the main Russian ballet – “Swan Lake”. In Odette, she demonstrated a touching meekness of temper, the beauty of a great adagio, as well as acting common sense – in the role of Odile, she did not play the fatal beauty, limiting herself to completely innocent flirting. These two young ballerinas, together with the beauty Eleonora Sevenard, the great-grandniece of Matilda Kshesinskaya, who since 2017 has danced in the Bolshoi troupe with a dozen and a half leading roles, Makhar Vaziev presented in the “generational” cycle of Giselles.

For the debut, Eva Sergeenkova was provided with the best partners: the amazing Albert – Artemy Belyakov and Denis Savin in the role of forester Hans – the most subtle artist in the troupe. Both were extremely helpful to the debutante, both set an example of liveliness of reactions, uninterrupted stage communication. Eva also did not sin against naturalness, but her acting range was not wide. Her simple-heartedness, complaisance and artlessness were appropriate in the role of a peasant woman, but not enough for the heroine of the ballet. And the famous scene of madness, carried out by her with the same touching innocence, did not turn the tide of events. In the second, infernal act, her Giselle remained the same obedient girl, ready to do anything for the sake of illusory love (Eve’s purity and innocence did not allow her to suspect that the seducer Albert managed to snatch something more than the first kiss).

Technically, the young ballerina coped with the part – light blots, like a jump on a pirouette in a variation of the first act or when deploying a leg in a la seconde in the second, do not count. And, of course, she was good at adagio (although the lyrical foot to ear is a relic of the 1990s). However, for the flights of the jeep, the ballerina clearly lacks a jump, and it was not possible to disguise this. In the twitchy assemblies and pas de chas of the second act, Eva Sergeenkova was far ahead of the orchestra, although maestro Klinichev, without sacrificing Adam, already accelerated the tempo for the sake of the debutante.

Elizaveta Kokoreva’s conditions were more difficult: her forester (Anton Savichev) turned out to be a rare blockhead, and Albert – Dmitry Smilevsky – was the same inexperienced debutant. The ballerina, however, showed character: technically, her light, confident, polished dance was almost flawless, and the jumps of the second act, which surprised with breadth and amplitude, are simply wonderful. At the pas de cha and assembly, the fragile figure of Lisa silently and easily covered the entire stage of the Bolshoi, and her springboard entrecha with a leg tucked in “in Italian” amazed with height and tirelessness. This little wilis resisted the mistress Mirta without any timidity – at times it seemed that a coup was coming in the other world. But in the first act, the brisk girl was clearly curbed by the teachers, forcing, as is customary, to play shyness and fearfulness. So, at Albert’s request to sit next to the bench, Lisa-Giselle reacted with such confusion, as if he had suggested that she have sex, and in response to the meek mother’s warning about health, she depicted such horror on her face, as if she saw a skeleton with a scythe. The character of the ballerina Kokoreva is much more in line with the contrast of the acts, which Aleksey Ratmansky insisted on: a carefree frolic should be transformed into an infernal creature.

The most convincing in this women’s ballet was the male “introduction”. Dmitry Smilevsky, a graceful brunette who inherited from his father, the premiere of the Stanislavsky Museum Theater, the aristocratic nobility of manners, the role of Albert is extremely suitable. His virtuoso, effortless, graceful and extremely light dance at the recent premiere of the Grand pas from Paquita made the entire ballerina flower garden of this software-female ballet wither. In the role, Albert Smilewski once again struck – with an insane amount of tall entrechat-six (fans counted 39) in the code of the second act, and unconstrained double cabrioles in all directions, and a wonderfully invented double fouette with an inflection on the diagonal of the variation of the second act. With the impeccability of the dance, the thin Smilevsky also demonstrated an extraordinary partnership strength, gently lowering the ballerina from high supports and venturing into the “deceased” when changing the direction of the arabesques in the adagio of the second act (by the way, his senior colleague, Artemy Belyakov, made life easier for himself by replacing this support) . A tiny fly in the ointment, which is easy to remove from the vast cask of honey of a successful debut, concerns the acting: this young Albert is too ceremonious and well-behaved for his age. If Count Dmitry had shown more than just romantic admiration for Elizabeth the Peasant, classmates from the Moscow Academy would have looked much more lively and natural in the old ballet.

However, acting and technical shortcomings, if desired, can easily be corrected at rehearsals, but debuts have fulfilled their task: they showed the world that a new prime minister and prima stars have appeared at the Bolshoi, whose growth is interesting to follow. If we consider them a generation, then this generation is distinguished by the trustworthy thoroughness of the dance and some kind of immature obedience. Perhaps this is how a generation should look like, deprived of new resonant roles and doomed by Russia’s broken international ties to eternal classics and alien Soviet repertoire.