United Kingdom Ballet Icons Gala: Dancers, English National Ballet Philharmonic / Maria Seletskaja (conductor). London Coliseum, 19.2.2023 (JO’D)
Comprising eleven male-female pas de deux and 4 male solos, this 12 months’s Ballet Icons Gala was an indubitably glittering occasion on stage and off. The names on the programme represented a ‘something for everyone’ within the London Coliseum’s Sunday night time gala viewers: Marianela Núñez and William Bracewell, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko, Margarita Fernandes and António Casalinho (to checklist however six of the twenty-five dancers collaborating). Among the choreographers, not solely Marius Petipa, Kenneth MacMillan, Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine, but additionally Vassily Vainonen and the modern-day Edwaard Laing and Akram Khan.
To musical accompaniment, for probably the most half, by English National Ballet Philharmonic (carried out by Maria Seletskaja) and for one of many solos onstage pianist Jacek Mysinski; with lighting by Andrew Ellis and set design by Nina Kobiashvili; in costumes that had been usually luxurious or glowing: every dance piece was offered with as a lot sensitivity as is feasible when fifteen various excerpts or brief, full works are to be carried out in fast succession.
Highlights of the night will differ in keeping with style. The first for this reviewer was Katja Khaniukova (her bourrée above all, as all the time) and Aitor Arrieta in a chunk by Liam Scarlett set to Chopin. Then Marianela Núñez and William Bracewell, ‘playing with the music’ within the Grand Pas de Deux from Coppélia. Then Giuseppe Picone giving the UK premiere of a solo, choreographed by the dancer himself, that appeared to look at the aptitude and vulnerability of the performer.
Iana Salenko and Dmitry Zagrebin confirmed supreme technical talent in Don Quixote. Evelina Godunova and Julian MacKay impressed in what The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet (Second Edition) refers to because the ‘acrobatic daring’ of Vassily Vainonen’s Flames of Paris. The viewers as a complete expressed appreciation of Lucía Lacarra, and her accomplice Matthew Golding, for the emotional high quality they dropped at the intricate Borealis, one other UK premiere (to the music of Max Richter), by Edwaard Liang.
Timofej Andrijashenko and Nicoletta Manni, who made her look smoking a cigarette, dazzled in Roland Petit’s ironic and typically sexually express Carmen; Jeffrey Cirio was warmly applauded for his demonstration of hunched, bare-chested agony in Akram Khan’s Creature. If Francesca Hayward and William Bracewell didn’t dazzle, surprisingly, in Ashton’s The Dream Pas de Deux, the presence of this work on a programme with Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (Maia Makhateli and Danil Simkin) threw mild on dance author Laura Jacobs’s definition of Ashton’s choreography as basically croisée and Balanchine’s as basically effacé.
It was on the very finish, when the night may need had its dance all danced, that António Casalinho ran on to the stage to start the pas de deux that was initially a pas de trois from Le Corsaire. A chunk that has been carried out in earlier Ballet Icons Galas (by Iana Salenko and Daniil Simkin in 2020), its couple don’t symbolize lovers. They are a lady and her lover’s slave. The girl, this time, was Margarita Fernandes. The experience, expressiveness and youthful vigour of the 2 dancers made this last piece as recent and glittering as if it had been being danced on the night’s begin.
John O’Dwyer
Manon
Yasmine Naghdi and Reece Clarke
Music – Jules Massenet
Choreography – Sir Kenneth MacMillan
Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux
Maia Makhateli and Daniil Simkin
Music – Piotr Tchaikovsky
Choreography – George Balanchine
Chopin Romance
Katja Khaniukova and Aitor Arrieta
Music – Frederic Chopin
Choreography – Liam Scarlett
Temperament
Sergio Bernal
Music – Joaquín Turina
Choreography – Sergio Bernal
Cinderella
Dorothée Gilbert and Audric Bezard
Music – Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography – Rudolf Nureyev
Borealis
Lucía Lacarra and Matthew Golding
Music – Max Richter
Choreography – Edwaard Liang
Coppélia Grand Pas de Deux
Marianela Núñez and William Bracewell
Music – Leo Delibes
Choreography – Marius Petipa
Don Quixote
Iana Salenko and Dmitry Zagrebin
Music – Ludwig Minkus
Choreography – Alexander Gorsky after Marius Petipa
Moonlight
Calvin Royal III
Music – Claude Debussy
Piano – Jacek Mysinski
Choreography – Calvin Royal III
Flames of Paris
Evelina Godunova and Julian MacKay
Music – Boris Asafiev
Choreography – Vassily Vainonen
Elevarsi
Giuseppe Picone
Music – Max Richter
Choreography – Giuseppe Picone
Carmen
Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko
Music – George Bizet
Choreography – Roland Petit
The Dream Pas de Deux
Francesca Hayward and William Bracewell
Music – Felix Mendelssohn
Choreography – Sir Frederick Ashton
Creature
Jeffrey Cirio
Music – Vincenzo Lamagna
Choreography – Akram Khan
Le Corsaire
Margarita Fernandes and António Casalinho
Music – Adolphe Adam/Riccardo Drigo/Ludwig Minkus
Choreography – Marius Petipa/Joseph Mazilier