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Judith Mackrell
Thursday November 30, 2006
The Guardian


In 1946, Roland Petit’s Le Jeune Homme et la Mort created a delicious scandal. With a libretto written by Jean Cocteau, its portrait of a young painter driven to suicide by a chic but deadly dominatrix fused postwar daring, glamour and decadence in perfect measures. In theory its revival should have been the highlight of Darcey Bussell and Igor Zelensky’s programme at the Wells. Like so much in the evening, however, what was nearly so right ended up being all wrong.
Sixty years need not date a ballet - certainly, the design of this one has retained a stylish historical frisson. But now that Petit’s choreography has lost its original shock value, what’s left appears oddly gauche, full of desperate thrust and graphic detail, yet peculiarly lacking in sex. Zelenksy and Bussell dance with athletic panache, yet they inhabit this period shocker as if it were merely retro fancy dress.
What makes the performance more disappointing is that the two dancers create so few other opportunities to display themselves in greater depth. Concerto Grosso, a solo for Zelensky by Anna Sigalova, is styled with a smart veneer of urban toughness (Zelenksy wearing a beanie pulled low over his piercing gaze), but its knowingly deconstructed parade of muscular poses and whipping turns could be danced by any decent soloist. Alastair Marriott’s duet The Kiss goes deeper in revealing the dark lustre of Bussell’s technique, as, partnered by William Trevitt, she torques her long, plush limbs to spectacular effect. But as with the rest of the programme, including an ensemble piece for Zelensky’s own company, the Novosibirsk Ballet, the lighting is irksome, and the sound quality atrocious.

This evening looks as though it has been staged on a student budget. It is not a credible showcase for two world-class dancers.

Darcey Bussell and Igor Zelensky
Debra Craine at Sadler’s Wells

Two of the world’s leading dancers in their own show for a week at Sadler’s Wells. It sounds like a good idea on paper, especially when those dancers are Darcey Bussell and Igor Zelensky. So what went wrong?

A curious mix of repertoire, shoddy production values and an orchestra that was dismissed late in the day give rise to a feeling that the whole evening was thrown together on the cheap. As a night at the ballet, it does neither dancer any favours.

There are four works: two duets, a solo and — rather incongruously — an ensemble guest appearance by the Siberian National Ballet, the company Zelensky now directs. The music, for the most part, is taped; the lighting is appalling and the costumes are nothing to write home about.

The most successful new piece is Alastair Marriott’s Kiss, a short duet for Bussell and William Trevitt. Set to music by Samuel Barber, it was inspired by the relationship between Rodin and his lover Camille Claudel. Marriott cleverly casts Bussell as both woman and raw material waiting to be sculpted by Trevitt’s impressive strength. But the horrid lighting makes her well-tuned muscles look freakish, an impression highlighted by the deliberately awkward shapes in the choreography.

Zelensky’s solo comes courtesy of the Russian choreographer Alla Sigalova, whose tedious Concerto Grosso is performed to an excruciatingly bad recording of Handel. Inspired by a Russian poem about “the loneliness of a man who is trying to learn infinity’s rules” — perhaps it’s the translation! — Concerto Grosso ties Zelensky up in pointless knots. There are plenty of zippy pirouettes, some nonsense with the lighting equipment and much desperate sign language (what else can Zelensky be doing with his arms?). He deserves so much better.

After the Siberians dance Edwaard Liang’s generic Whispers in the Dark to Philip Glass, a piece they obviously love for its fluid elasticity and suggestive assignations, comes the main attraction. Bussell and Zelensky in Roland Petit’s famous Le Jeune homme et la mort. Back in 1946 this was considered a right little shocker; 60 years later its eroticism is lame.

Zelensky is the distraught painter driven to suicide by the heartlessness of his lover, danced by Bussell in an acid yellow dress and black gloves. Georges Wackhevitch’s old set is fun, especially at the end when Bussell, as the spirit of Death, leads her man over the rooftops of Paris. The organist, Tim Horton, contributes the only live music of the evening (Bach), but the dreadful choreography is embarrassing, the sex is comical and the idea of Bussell as a killer vamp just doesn’t wash.