Swan Lake
Romeo and Juliet

The Kirov is the temple of classical ballet, the treasury of its disciplines, the depository of its traditions, the school of its excellence. Its dancers, down to the most junior of its corps de ballet, are outstanding. No language has superlatives enough for this company and what it does; criticism, if it is to be attempted, has to start with the premise that a Kirov performance is about perfection; and then one can fasten for comment on a momentary adjustment of balance, a fractional imperfection in the synchrony or symmetry of the corps' ensemble dancing. These are rare enough to attract comment, if such comment were not mere cavil.
      The far more important point is that an education in the appreciation of ballet demands that one see the Kirov as often as one can, to understand what ballet is at its greatest and best, produced and performed by people - from teachers and directors to the dancers themselves - for whom ballet is life itself; who are marinated in its essence, who think, live and breathe it, and who have done so from early childhood, so that they quite literally and unequivocally embody it.
      One sees this in the precision and perfection of arm and hand movement, of line, of chin height, of the larger, more graceful reach and arch in every movement, of the elegance achieved even in stillness, in the infinite care taken to articulate the least gesture, in the clarity and distinctness of every step. There is not one movement or pose, whether for the ballerina at the back of the corps or for the principal at front stage, which is not consciously studied down to its atoms and beyond, so that it can be perfectly achieved. Put every such moment of absoluteness together in sequence, and you have the Kirov. They make every other ballet company seem woefully under-rehearsed in comparison. And the magic is attained by something profound and subtle, part of which involves a way of positioning the attack of each movement at a point just before the pulse of the music, so that it has an enlarged space in which to unfold - unhurried, deliberate, and beautiful.
      All this is intended to state the grand obvious: that the Kirov is exquisite, and has performed exquisitely in this rich season in London, taking the breath away with sumptuous and exhilarating productions of Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, La Bayadere and more. For this reviewer two of many high points have been Daria Pavlenko as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake and as La Bayadere, and the truly admirable Leonid Sarafanov, who as Solor in La Bayadere seems the very incarnation of ballet, so quintessential is his poise and shape, and as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet took every eye when on stage. He is pure delight to watch.

Swan Lake
Part of the lore about this most popular of ballets is that performers of the leading role curse the memory of Pierina Legnani for obliging them to achieve thirty-two successive fouettes, the piece of technical virtuosity that does little for the psychological texture of the role, but has kept Legnani's name in the history books. A more significant piece of lore is that the difference between Odette and Odile is a demanding one; the transition between them requires not only acting skills of a high order, but a difference of technique - for where Odette is lyrical, Odile is assertive; in her Odette character the dancer must range widely in her emotions, and has to inhabit the tenderness and joy of the supremely lovely pas de deux in the second act; while as Odile she needs virtuosity, vigour, a hard sardonic edge - while yet remaining credible to the Prince as the girl he loves.
      Daria Pavlenko is a triumph in this challenging role. She seems always to be dancing within herself, so effortless and light is she as Odette, so definite and disdainful as Odile. Was it Petipa who said, ëballet is woman'? If so he has made a vehicle for dancers of the calibre of Pavlenko to show that ballet is also sculpture in action, and one of the most delicious and poignant ways of exploring emotion.
      Pavlenko is ably partnered by Igor Kolb, and the swans, the Spanish and Hungarian dancers, the Neapolitans, and the dancers of the mazurka, all excel. This was a model Swan Lake, and beautiful to see.

Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a grand narrative ballet apparently constructed in the nineteenth century tradition of Swan Lake, Giselle and La Sylphide , but built out of twentieth century materials. This is true not just of the music - it is no coincidence that Prokofiev was one of the librettists as well as the composer - but the sensibility. This is why the Montague-Capulet conflict is given such dramatic emphasis in the general fighting in Act I, and later in the amazing hand-to-hand combat between Tybalt and Mercutio. Paralleling the bitterness of that feud is the urgent passion of the young lovers across the same divide, a dramatic feature of the ballet which, in fully modern fashion, requires a genuine rapport between the two lead dancers.
      Diana Vishneva and Andrian Fadayev achieve that rapport in this exquisitely staged production. Vishneva in particular is an actress of quality. She gives what an older generation of critics would call a ëfeeling' performance; how apt a term, if it were not once a clichÈ, because she genuinely feels her way from moment to moment, dancing by her instincts and in response to the music - a necessity in a modern work, where mimetic forms are overwhelmed by the possibilities of the music, so much less formulaic than the showpiece scores of (say) Minkus and others, and by the same token endlessly inspirational. Vishneva and Fadayev dance to the music, and it is in their sensitivity to it that the poignancy of the tragic tale is felt.
      Leonid Sarafanov is a marvellous Mercutio, elegant and spirited, a show-stealer, making Mercutio almost more dazzling and vivid a presence on stage than Romeo. Apart from the Mercutio-Tybalt-Romeo fight, the scenes that took the breath away were the set pieces of the courtesans and the folk dances, and of course the morning after the lover's one marriage night. The most touching is, as always, the final scene in the tomb - more a great moment of drama than dance, economical and unfussy, but in the perfecting hands of two Kirov principals, deeply moving.
AC Grayling