Pete suggests

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Choice pickings

Giannandrea Poesio

Wednesday, 8th October 2008

Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Barbican

Swan Lake
Royal Opera House

Scottish Ballet
Queen Elizabeth Hall

The dance, therefore, was not merely a tribute to where it came from historically, but also provided viewers with a unique insight into the current and, I am happy to say, healthy state of modern dance. It shows that this genre still has tons to offer despite the proliferation of other and somewhat newer choreographic trends. I only wish the dancers had displayed more definition in their action, for the performance was often marred by lack of stylistic clarity and technical refinement. Yet, when the great master himself appeared at the end, the standing ovation was utterly de rigueur, for the evening had been a truly good one.

Swan Lake, too, is a safe choice for the opening of a new ballet season, for it is likely to guarantee a full house, especially when the central double role of Odette/Odile is danced by Marianela Nuñez. Her approach to one of the most difficult parts of the 19th-century repertoire is simply exemplary, and I have no doubt that her incandescent and technically flawless interpretation is destined to be long remembered in history, along with those of other unique artists. It is unfortunate that the lusciously designed 1987 production, which combines philological reverence for the original text with subsequent interpolations, looks already so dated and dramaturgically fussy. Act Three, with its masked ball, is far too similar to the ‘Masquerade’ number in Phantom of the Opera, and the plastic-shiny garments of the swans have long stopped being a controversial novelty and look awfully tacky. Not to mention the fact that 21 years down the line some numbers seem to have completely lost any stylistic and dramatic unity; this is the case with the dance of the six princesses in Act Three, which has become a not-so-aristocratic display of sheer choreographic vulgarity. Had the general dancing been more even and tidy, those flaws would probably not have been so evident. Last Saturday, alas, the Royal looked anything but in good form.