Carmen-Suite / Scotch Symphony / Etudes
Fernando Alonso, George Balanchine, Harald Lander
Mariinsky Ballet
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
December 28, 2010
Few would picture Ulyana Lopatkina, the Maryinsky’s hieratic queen, as Carmen, and yet her turn in Fernando Alonso’s Carmen-Suite was the one fully realized performance of the Gala that closed the Maryinsky’s traditional Christmas tour to Baden-Baden. Her defiant lines when the curtain rose on her still body set the tone for an unusual corrida, a game of bullfighting with passion at stake. In place of lust, Lopatkina’s is a deliberate, merciless sensuality, shrewdly tailored to her style. Both torero and prey, her Carmen has learned to use her arresting legs for power or pleasure, and she is caught in her own game.
Alonso’s 1967 ballet seemed better for her rich portrayal, and the simplicity of most variations and pas de deux is a welcome change from today’s trends. Complex lifts are few and far between, and what the production lacks in fluidity it makes up for in metaphors, from Carmen’s expressive feet, flexing and stabbing into the floor, to the arena delineated by the sets. Danila Korsuntsev’s José may not look Spanish, but all the soloists did justice to this underrated work. (…)
» Read the full review in Dance Magazine
And a few photos of this very welcome triple bill:
Ulyana Lopatkina in Carmen-Suite © Natasha Razina
Anastasia Matvienko and corps de ballet in Scotch Symphony © Natasha Razina
Viktoria Tereshkina & Vladimir Shklyarov in Etudes © Natasha Razina
