Review: Moscow ballet is no snoozer

The Moscow Festival Ballet Performance of “Sleeping Beauty” at The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts last night showed a lot of get-up-and-go character.

There was no snoozing or resting on any laurels, past or present. The dancing was crisp, expressive and got all the angles right.

It can't be easy for a company on tour in a foreign county to come into a city or town, put up the set, get out all the costumes, perform a technically demanding ballet for one night, then pack up and get back on the road in the morning. How is anyone associated with this tour of “Sleeping Beauty” supposed to get a good night's sleep?

But there was nothing tired about Tuesday's performance, which seemed to impress a close to full house and was presented by Music Worcester Inc.
“Sleeping Beauty” sometimes gets a bit drowsily muddled in people's minds when contemplating the opera. There should be all the trappings, one might initially think, of it being impossibly sumptuous and ethereal. After all, we're dealing with a fairy tale land, a spot of evil-doing that curses the princess when she picks her finger on a spindle, then redemption when after sleeping for a 100 years the princess is awakened by a kiss from none other than Prince Charming, and everyone at court goes back to living happily ever after.

And yet the choreography isn't really overly dreamy at all. The dancing, particularly that of the princess, is sharp, precise, angular and points the way (the work, with music by Tchaikovsky and choreography by Marius Petipa, debuted in 1890) toward the modern.

The Moscow Festival Ballet certainly knew this and knew what they were doing. The principal dancers were pin-point and showed how the almost mathematical poses, spinning turns and leaps can look striking and visually exciting.

It's true that a more elaborately staged production than this one was might have accented more of the fairy tale magic and emotion, but nothing, not even “Sleeping Beauty,” can match “Swan Lake” (seen at The Hanover Theatre a year ago) on that score. Besides, Tchaikovsky's score for “Swan Lake” is more brilliant and emotive.

The Moscow Festival Ballet was founded in 1989 as an independent company with the intent of preserving and offering the original intent of the creators and composers of ballet. The company certainly achieved that Tuesday, with the accompanying corollary that the work came across as new and fresh.

This is not a large troupe, however, and a “grand christening” at court in the prologue sequence might have had one wondering where this kingdom was. Lichtenstein, perhaps?

The dancers had plenty of stage to work with, and they negotiated it well. The setting was simple but effective under the circumstances, the background scenery just enough to look fairly good as a fairy-tale land.

But it's the lead dancers that make all the difference, and the Moscow Festival Ballet displayed performers who are not only technically excellent but have the expressiveness of artists at their craft. There was the pretty, delicate assurance of Elena Khorosheva in smaller roles such as the Fairy of Tenderness, and the delightful arch-villainy of Alexander Daev as the evil Fairy Carabosse. Daev was even able to get across a taunting sarcasm as he danced his way, spindle in hand, to the princess.

The prince and princess (Marianna Chemalina and Ruslan Mukhambetkaliev) were perfectly precise in their roles. The prince had both dash and panache, while the princess was a vision of confidence and clarity. The Grand Pas de Deux near the end was complex but crisply and victoriously conveyed.

All in all, “Sleeping Beauty” kept the audience on their toes with the observations on offer made that were made endearing by the genuine likableness of the overall enterprise. Even if it had been a long day prior to taking one's seat at The Hanover Theatre at 8 p.m., there was no danger of you-know-what happening halfway through act two.