Boris Eifman is the extraordinary choreographer, founder (1977) and driving force behind the St. Petersburg Eifman Ballet Company. The Company promises a performance of ‘a visual feast of passion, entertainment and drama’. And they deliver with this superlative production which presents a whole new level of dramatic sophistication in ballet story-telling.
The production is a refreshing departure from the rigours of classical ballet in Australia. The Program notes explain the Russian Company’s expectations of a ballet audience:-‘the audience wants to receive from a ballet performance, first of all, a cartharsis, a deep emotional shock.’
Boris Eifman has beautifully delivered his ballet theatre of dramatic shocks based on the story of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Eifman’s choreography exposes the unconcealed emotional feelings between Anna, her husband Alexey Karenina, and Anna’s lover the much younger Alexey Vronsky.
Using their tryst as a navigational force for the story-telling dances Eifman extracts raw emotions from his his Soloists and Corps de Ballet. His wonderful repetoire performance exposes visceral emotions. For instance,- under the back-drop of high society women spinning peach parasols on a golden arched balcony – Anna’s timid embrace by Vronsky with her husband promenading across the balcony and observing the passion of his wife dancing with Vronsky. Anna reacts with elusive gestures and is repulsed so much by her husband’s romantic overtures – that their cloying intimacy straddling the brass bedstead is an emotional forgery!
Set Designer Zinovy Margolin and Lighting Designer Gleb Filshtinsky unite their talents to create atmospheric magic – in the confrontation scene where Alexey Karenena begs his wife to discard her lover Vronsky the background turns a dramatic eerie midnight blue.
The Corps de Ballet dance with restraint precision. Anna is draped in ice mint chiffon tunic and dances timidly to the industrial tinkerings of resonant sound effects by Leonid Eeremin. Anna recoils from Karenina who is angry and sad. He is left marooned on an uninviting horse-hair sofa flotsamed from his and Anna’s brass marital bedstead.
The audience shares Karenina’s anguish as he passes up and down in the golden cold glow of early dawn when Anna returns with a flourish of her long black cape. Anna’s affair has meant her son is wrenched away by Karenina, as bleak snowflakes fall as tinkles on an xylophone.
In Act 2 Anna and Vronsky have been shunned by Russian Society so they flee to Italy. Anna and her lover Vronsky engage in a narcissistic relationship which fits Boris Eifman’s mould of presenting psychoanalysis on stage.
The lovers struggle to find a social niche and cannot socialise with Russians of their own class. So their relationship falters – Vronsky’s tankard is empty. He is inebriated and legless! (on stage) as the youth troupe showcase their vitality with cossack influence while Vronsky cobbles together a poignant solo.
Anna is sitting on a chair incarcerated by her predicament and wrapped in a vermillion dress – perhaps the fallen scarlet woman? Two men have a symbolic and shambolic battle for Anna. Vronsky clad in sage green coat-tails with emphatic double-breasted buttons and Karenina with silver hair and clad in charcoal grey coat-tails. Against this backdrop of despair Anna dances a heart-broken solo.
By contrast, the next scene is Slava Okunev’s triumph of costume design – the masked ball ensemble – with an audible collective gasp of amazement erupting from the audience. The Corps de Ballet present an amazing and thrilling cornucopia of dance and venetian masks with jesters, harlequins, wolf mask, fan mask, tyrolean hat with plumes and sparkling bunting skirts. Anna and Vronsky are in disguise and are de-masked with midnight blue backdrop with golden columns and candlelabras. But the climax of the masked ball is the moment when Anna finds a child’s toy in the costume box and she sheds tears pining for her son Sergey. Bored and restless the jaded lovers return to Russia.
Anna is shunned by gossip and is ostracized by his social circle. Despite Anna’s grievances and her grasping and begging to Vronsky the lovers cannot reconcile. Anna has risked everything and lost everything, as the ominous snow falls and the furtive sound of a chugging steam-train echoes from the wings.
You must see this outstanding and beautifully dramatic Russian Ballet.
The Eifman Ballet’s ANNA KARENINA plays at the Capitol Theatre until the Sunday matinee performance at 2pm on Sunday 19th August and is then followed by the Company’s production of TCHAIKOVSKY that runs from Wednesday 22nd August at 8pm with its final performance on Sunday 26th August at 2pm . For more information visit www.eifmanballetaustralia.com.au
© Esther Rothfield
17th August, 2012
Tags: Sydney Dance reviews- ANNA KARENINA, EIFMAN Ballet, Capitol Theatre Sydney, Sydney Arts Guide, Esther Rothfield.