Australian Ballet. Adelaide Festival Theatre, May 23. Tickets $25-$70. Bookings: 131 246. Until May 26
WITH exhibitions, a symposium and this Australian Ballet season all devoted to the Ballets Russes's 1930s tours, Adelaide is fairly buzzing with dance just now.
Krzysztof Pastor's new version of Massine's 1936 Symphonie Fantastique begins well, rises to success in the pastoral third scene, then becomes dully repetitive as ideas diminish. His intermittent following of Berlioz's narrative of a musician (here an artist) who has visions of his beloved, from a virginal young beauty to a vengeful witch, is swamped by too many spins, too many lines of dancers advancing and retreating, and forests of waving arms.
Adam Bull does his manly best to give the artist some kind of personality, and Stephanie Williams, newly promoted to coryphee, tackles the challenging role of his beloved with delicate grace, but as yet insufficient emotional expression. With the best choreography, Remi Wortmeyer and Rachel Rawlins bring warmth and wonder to the pastoral couple.
The faun in Jerome Robbins's 1953 take on Nijinksy's sensuous L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune of 1912 is a young male dancer asleep in an airy studio. He wakes and begins his practice, warily watching himself in the invisible mirror between himself and the audience. A girl enters and begins hers. They dance together, eyes always on the mirror until he can't help himself. He kisses her on the cheek. She touches the spot, but leaves. He lies down again, and sinks into sleep.
Robbins gives choreographic nuance to every phrase of Debussy's music in this highly polished gem of a ballet, which has a flawless performance by Amber Scott and Luke Ingham. They infuse it with innocent wonderment and, in Ingham, a sweet sense of yearning.
The evening ends exuberantly with Ballet Imperial, Balanchine's homage to choreographer Marius Petipa. Though the male soloist has small chance to shine, the leading women have fiendishly fast and difficult things to do. The corps de ballet needed sharpening up, and principal Danielle Rowe and second lead Lana Jones started with wobbles, but both came good, with sparkling results.
Robert Curran brings a poetic edge to the slow movement and incisive attack to his solo. He and Rowe combine with fine chemistry.
Hugh Colman's tutus daringly mix various blue tones not entirely successfully with the men's sea-green uniforms, and his stormy backdrop (symbolic of 1917's revolution?) sits oddly with the music, Tchaikovsky's scintillating Piano Concerto No. 2. The star of the evening, however, is the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under Nicolette Fraillon.
Alan Brissenden | May 26, 2008 The Australian