The corps wind through chain dances kneel stop as friezes for the principals The duets have a flowing sensuality
The corps wind through chain dances, kneel, stop as friezes for the principals The duets have a flowing sensuality. Daphnis guides Lykanion into an arabesque, sliding a hand between her thighs; tremors run through her body as he lifts her. Daphnis swings Chloe round to Ravel’s shimmering climax, coming to rest in a radiant arabesque.Jaimie Tapper is a lyrical Chloe. Ashton’s choreography is gracefully clear, details delicately marked. She’s a modest stage presence, shy of distinctive musical phrasing, and it’s the same with Federico Bonelli’s securely danced Daphnis. There’s more personality from Marianela Nu?s lush Lykanion, and from the sparkling corps de ballet.In revival, Le Spectre de la rose and L’Apr?midi d’un faune are up against legendary performances – both were made for Nijinsky This time, Le Spectre comes out better.
Carlos Acosta takes Nijinsky’s role, the spirit of the rose a girl carries at her first ball. Fokine’s choreography is full of rounded arms, tendril fingers, celebrated leaps Acosta is expansive and fluid, his jumps high and sure. Laura Morera, as the girl, floats through their waltz with dreamy face and bright insteps.L’Apr?midi caused a scandal in 1912. The curtain goes up to Debussy’s dreamy flute, on Bakst’s ravishing set. The faun spies on nymphs, and the ballet ends with stylised masturbation.
Viacheslav Samodurov is stolidly unsensuous: there’s an orgasm in the choreography, but you wouldn’t notice. He also misses the profile poses of Nijinsky’s strange, angular choreography. Any one of the nymphs could show him how to do it.Les Noces is primitive and modernist in one breath. The village wedding is powerfully stylised, with music by Stravinsky and choreography by Nijinska. The corps of peasants stamp and churn, rhythms building to explosive force. Guests pile into groups: a pyramid of tilted faces, a fan of squared arms. Soloists burst out, fists clenched, feet kicking through springy jumps.
The Royal corps gains in power with each scene; by the end, it is unstoppable and magnificent To 25 May (020-7304 4000). If anyone is the patron saint of smoking, it is St Beryl of Camden Town, in the old borough of St Pancras. Devotees burning the holy weed may not have made pilgrimages to her house (which has no number, identified instead, she says earthily, by having “two knockers” on the door), but wherever Beryl went the incense of tobacco trailed behind. She even spent most of the evening at one of her own book launches on the steps outside the venue, as smoking was not allowed inside.