Ballets of Mikhail Fokine

Chopiniana
Mikhail Fokine's Chopiniana was first devised for students of St Petersburg's Imperial Ballet School, who staged it in the Spring of 1908. It thus began life as an exhibition piece; but it has the stamp of genius all over it, and was destined not to be a mere academy showpiece for long. A year later, renamed Les Sylphides, it was performed in Paris, and was an immediate hit. Although the programme notes give the setting as "a forest glade at night," the set of eight dances has no theme and tells no tale; it is an abstract evocation of romance, illustrating Fokine's mastery of gesture and pose, of tableaux and pattern. In most of the pieces the corps de ballet takes a fixed stance, providing a frame for the soloists to unfold the eloquence and fluidity of Fokine's conception
    The pieces require genuine elegance and the highest refinement of poise, both of which are second nature to the Kirov's dancers. Their ensemble work is close to perfection, and Janna Ayupova in the Mazurka is, as she invariably is, exquisite. She is a dancer who establishes an immediate intimate rapport with her audience, and conveys to them a sense of what always seems her deep delight in turning, flying and floating through the space before them. Ayupova is ably seconded by the other principals in their own roles, Irina Zhelonkina in the Waltz, Daria Pavlenko in the Prelude, and the tall, stately Igor Kolb. He is a young man cut out by nature for princely parts in white ballets, but is a far better dancer than that relatively undemanding future needs

Scheherazade
This sumptuously erotic ballet is tailored for dancers of passion and fire. It might have been written for Faroukh Ruzimatov, who has exactly the face, figure, virile athleticism and brooding emotional presence required for the role of the Golden Slave. He dances it magnificently. It is hard to forget the vivid sexual electricity which flashed between him and the incomparable Altynai Asylmuratova on past occasions, but in Diana Vishneva he has found a worthy new Zobeide. She is not as animal in her eroticism as Asylmuratova could be, but she is seductive, inviting, joyfully sensual, and a dancer of rare and beautiful talent. Between them Ruzimatov and Vishneva make a sculpture of desire out of their mutual heat, and leave the story nowhere to go but its tragically logical end.
    In Fokine's choreography passages of great narrative drive impel the story along. Fokine premises his version of the tale on the idea that a harem is a crucible of uncontainable desire. The premise is stated by the dance of the odalisques at the outset, and finds ample support in Rimsky-Korsakov's dramatic score. When the Sultan and his sceptical brother decide to test the women's fidelity by pretending to go on a hunt, the women fulfil the odalisque's promise of abandon, giving themselves unreservedly to the male slaves who gain admittance to their sanctum. Chief among them is the Golden Slave, lover of Zobeide.
    But although he desires her passionately, he is also tenderly in love with her – and it is in the blend of hunger and profound romance that the essence of their relationship lies. The portrait Ruzimatov and Vishneva give of that relationship is richly textured and full of earthy power; and it is moving too. Because Zobeide is the delicious and tempting concubine of a Sultan, their love is an act of treason as well as betrayal. The Golden Slave has to die; but the Sultan is tempted to forgive his beloved Zobeide, until prompted by his brother to revoke his clemency. Zobeide plucks a dagger from the sheathe in his belt, and stabs herself. In dance of this intensity and quality, as in comparable opera, only the ultimate in endings is possible.

The Firebird
In The Firebird Fokine displays little of the narrative skill he shows in Scheherazade. The Kirov dancers, their brilliant costume designers, and Stravinsky's celebrated music make The Firebird a wonderful spectacle, which almost but not quite rescues it from being unsatisfying in the end, through no fault of the dancers. It is unsatisfying because the story is weakly told – a lost opportunity, for it is the perfect ballet tale – and too much is lost to mere ornament.
    In this production the skilful lighting – a stage bathed in a red glow every time the Firebird is present – and the costumes do much to help matters.
AC Grayling