Bright, and batty

The Bright Stream is a ballet about a collective farm. Forget everything you know about collectivism — the failed harvests, the famines — this is Soviet agriculture without mud or hunger. The Bright Stream, which opened in Leningrad in 1935, was Dmitri Shostakovich’s attempt to write a ‘socialist realist’ ballet. Our heroine is Zina (Daria Khoklova), the Bright Stream Collective’s Morale Officer. The curtain rises on a scene of sunny, saturated bounty: hay stooks, horns of plenty, pumpkins as big as cartwheels. Tractors soar across the backcloth like three flying ducks. This is collectivism in white tights and Liberty print.

The plot is batty. Ekaterina Krysanova and Ruslan Skvortsov are the Ballerina and the Classical Dancer arriving from Moscow to jolly along the Bright Stream’s harvest festival. Pyotr (Igor Tsvirko), agricultural student and husband to Zina, takes a shine to the Ballerina. So too does the Old Dacha-dweller (Yuri Ostrovsky). The Old Dacha-dweller’s wife (Anna Balukova with comedy bosom) fancies the Classical Dancer. Chaos ensues en pointe. Ingenious choreography, reimagined by Alexei Ratmansky in 2003, makes this a production of daffy charm and diabolo tricks.

The central quartet — Khoklova, Tsvirko, Krysanova, Skvortsov — are a joy. If the synchronicity between Khoklova and Krysanova is occasionally iffy, individually they are immaculate: Khoklova’s Zina is adorable, doll-like, romantic; Krysanova’s Ballerina lighter, sprightlier and, in her ‘breeches’ dance, more mischievous and tomfooling. The prize marrow award goes to Skvort-sov, who as the Classical Dancer dressed as a sylph (décolleté dress over hairy chest), dances a gorgeous tour de force. He minces on tippy-toes, he blushes, he swoons, he accidentally manspreads. You could hardly hear the orchestra for laughter. Bravo! Or should that be brava? Denis Savin as the Accordion-player is electric and elastic, all bendy back and bandy knees.