sarma

There ought to be something to which I could compare the Bolshoi Ballet's production of Spartacus just to clarify its effect.... Perhaps it reminds me of an orator who drops clusters of ripe, burnished phrases, the meaning of which I can never quite remember later? Or perhaps of a vehicle, draped in flower garlands and spouting fireworks, inching along in a parade? It would be a mistake simply to call SpartacusAram Khatchaturian's prize-winning score is gestural, rather hollow-depending on flamboyant orchestration for its effects. The choreography, by the Bolshoi's artistic director, Yuri Grigorovich, while somehow sturdier than the music, is also flamboyant. There seems to be no limit to the amount of innovative leaping, jumping, whirling phrases Grigorovich can devise. And the plot oozes along, laden with grand gestures that are more like exhortations to action than action itself.

All of the principal characters (Spartacus, the leader of the slave revolt; Phrygia, his wife; Crassus, the scoundrelly Roman commander; his concubine, Aegina) perform "monologues"-solos in which they dance out their feelings. Interspersed between these passages and a few brief encounters between the principals are many huge unison dances that telegraph their messages in bold, heroic terms. Entire sequences are like metaphors for Oppression, Heroism, Corruption, etc. Few of them have the jaggedness of dramatic action. When a Roman soldier stage left mauls a slave, you can be sure that his stage-right counterpart is doing the same thing. The final battle consists of squadrons of Roman soldiers leaping across the stage and exiting, then slaves leaping across and exiting. The whole thing is cross-cut like a film, leaving the actual encounter to your imagination. The curtain fails on a great wedding cake of people: Spartacus's laid-out corpse held aloft by his comrades, surrounded by supporters, and topped by his grieving widow (invisible arms hoisting her up behind the group).

One of the few moments of genuine dance-drama occurs when Crassus, lusting to see a little blood spilled, orders a duel between two gladiators. The doomed fighters (one, of course, being Spartacus) blinded by huge helmets, circle the stage warily, thrusting their swords into the air. Khatchaturian has provided a suspenseful tremolo, in C. B. deMille epic style, and the whole thing is quite thrilling.

Perhaps one of the reasons Spartacus seems more like a pageant than a ballet is that it's psychologically static - a series of vivid, simple posters. Roman soldiers are strong, but effete; they goose-step like proto-Nazis. Roman women have curly golden wigs and dance pretty, stilted balletsteps. Slaves are handsome, vigorous, and confident, and the female slaves all wear becomingly tattered tunics, like Moonbeam McSwine. Watching the ballet, you're carried away by the bravura dancing, but because there seems to be so much more of it than necessary you're also aware of wheels spinning in place. It's a curious effect.

Spartacus is a ballet for men, and I never thought I'd succumb with so much pleasure to unending exhibitions of noble virility. But when twelve slaves and/or shepherds start hurling themselves across the stage, my pulse leaps wildly. Part of this is caused by Grigorovich's cleverly constructed phrases: often, movements fold in or double up, so that a subsequent leap looks like a real explosion. But most of the excitement is created by the dancers. If you take time to scan the men in the corps de ballet, you see that each one dances with the conviction and intelligence of a soloist. In Spartacus, where vigor is the thing, they don't concentrate on "correct" positions at all - not even in transit. What they do is to show you the impetus of the dancing, how it can be curbed, unleashed, diverted. Often they control a gesture almost to its conclusion and then fling or flip it away, giving an illusion of freedom and daring. Although Spartacus is showy, the dancers don't play to the audience at all but treat the noble, hackneyed ideas with touching commitment. And, for all their virtuosity, the men don't have that sleek, deliberate, infatuation-with-own-muscles air that some male dancers do.

On the company's opening night at the Met, Spartacus was played by Vladimir Vasiliev and Crassus by Maris Liepa, both of whom won Lenin prizes in 1970 for their performances in these roles. Vasiliev is amazing - he looks a little the way Erik Bruhn might look if he'd been eating heartily and working out with weights. His dancing is huge in scale: I haven't seen a man encompass so much space with his gestures since José Limón. His leaps have a leonine ease and fearlessness. Liepa's Crassus is a carefully worked out portrait of a sneering, but militarily correct villain; every gesture, every leap becomes a jab or a thrust. Nina Timofeyeva, who created the role of Aegina at the premiere of Spartacus in 1968, is an admirably hardworking voluptary. Natalia Bessmertnova, a delicate, vulnerable dancer, makes Phrygia's every gesture beautifully elegaic. I'd heard so much about her that I was slightly disappointed by a trace of ballerina mannerisms - lifting shoulders and fancy, detached hands. Shamil Yagudin, as the defeated gladiator, and Vyacheslay Gordeyev, VIadimir Doshelev, and Victor Kozhadei, as three big-wig shepherds, stood out among all those outstanding men.

Grigorovich's blood-and-thunder Spartacus is the fourth version of the same tale that the Bolshoi has mounted in the past twenty years. I was taken aback by its unabashed romanticism: the hero, with the man-to-man geniality of a John Wayne, allows a dangerous captured enemy leader to saunter away, scotching the revolution and sealing his own fate.