A year ago at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala the ballet company scored a hit with its restaging of that difficult piece Raymonda. The ballet’s improbable story, with a lack of obvious dramatic push, can make it seem lacklustre. Therefore when Rudolf Nureyev’s version for Paris hit the stage in 1983, with Jean Guizerix’s brilliantly macho Abderam making poor Yvette Chauviré quake with fear, the ballet really came alive, and the company danced til they dropped.
La Scala’s ballet director Makhar Vaziev (and ex-director of the Mariinsky) took a different approach and asked fellow Russian Sergej Vikharev to try and recreate the spirit of Marius Petipa’s original 1898 production. Vikharev, who has become a specialist in such recreations, wanted to go back to the original set and costume designs too, and the result was magnificent. Like seeing an old ballet print come alive, the vivid colours of the costumes stood out against the duller beige of the painted drops: necessary under the low lighting conditions of a century ago, but dazzling with today’s banks of spotlights. The stage was awash with trumpeters, cherubs, knights, and Saracens. Very satisfying.
So a year later, the production is back with Olesya Novikova and Friedemann Vogel reprising their roles. How exciting, I thought, to see how it’s all come together after some of the shakiness of the première something easily forgiven seeing that the ballet comes in at over three hours.… continue reading
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