San Francisco Ballet’s Swan Lake, February 19 and 23

Swan Lake’s opening lost to Jacques d’Amboise appearance at Nourse
Auditorium so I saw Davit Karapetyan and Maria Kochetkova in the principal roles February 20. On February 23 I paid for a ticket to see Carlo de Lanno and Sofiane Sylve in their second essay as Siegfried and Odette/Odile. I am here to tell you I was glad for each dollar spent on a credit card.

Rita Felciano has written a brilliant commentary for Danceviewtimes on the rationale of the Swan Lake setting, much of which is supported in the programnotes. The physical setting is handsome and, architecturally, more than a little overbearing, clearly the intention. Siegfried isn’t supposed to have many options, and in Act III, the staircase is overpowering and intrusive, diminishing the depth of dancing space.

Inspired by Rita’s observations I went back to Wikipedia’s time line for Russian history and, in particular, Nicholas II, Imperial Russia’s last czar. His marriage as well as the death of his father occurred in 1894. Swan Lake got its Petipa-Ivanov premiere in St. Petersburg in 1895, and the time lines suggest unrest, acknowledged or not in the program. Serfdom had been abolished by Nicholas II’s ancestor, Alexander I, in the 1860’s with not much thought to the ramifications.

In Mongolia or the northern reaches of Imperial Russia there was a tradition of imitating swans. At the 1979 International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Alexandra Danilova urged me to see the second performance of some Chinese guests where the man did a swan dance to boggle the mind at the similarity with Odette’s movements in Act II. Though there is no written verification of Siberian travels, Lev Ivanov may well have seen traveling performers in St Petersburg in this evocative solo and incorporated elements of it into Act II’s haunting Odette solo.

The story is much more medieval and Eastern European than the current production would have you believe visually. With the Queen Mother’s silvery white wig out of Gainsborough and the elegant tones of deep greens and rusty scarlets, as well as the graceful swirl of skirts below Empire bodices, it is definitely early 19th century, quite at cross purposes with the bow bestowed upon Siegfried by his mother. Anita Paciotti gave us an imperious, well-meaning mother, well-meaning in the sense that dynasty must go on.

Paired with Davit Karapetyan and Maria Kochetkova were Daniel Dievison-Oliviera with predartory glances and smouldering postures as Von Rothbart with Gennadi Nedvigin in the pas de trois with Koto Ishihara and Lauren Strongin. For Sylve and de Lanno, their Von Rothbart was an icy, remote Tiit Helimets. the Act I trio included Taras Domitro, Doris Andre and Sasha de Sola.

While dancers are all different, Karapetyan and Kochetkova share the Russian tradition in training, while the Sylve-de Lanno schooling seems more firmly based in Western European lineage with a certain understated directness that nonetheless manages nuance and musicality where the two K’s possess a grander attack. Karapetyan is more clearly the prince receiving homage, de Lanno deferential and vulnerable, both clearly alone facing the maternal demand. Kochetkova dances Odette as a young girl, her Odile a sly vamp, while Sylve’s Odette is youthful if mature, though still trapped, and her Odile focused and calculated.

While I was somewhat relieved not to see six identically dressed princesses dancing the same waltz at the same time, which would beleaguer any young man’s judgment, the choice of transforming four national dancers, with two Russians to make up the roster, struck me as odd. The setting and story implies purity of the prospective brides, but they are partnered and frequently hoisted by their countrymen, scarcely a virginal display in any one of the four styles.

The swan corps, the cygnets and the lead swans were all admirable as was the
level of the production. Swan Lake is clearly a classic; one likes to see what the principals will make of their assignments, but I now find other full length works more absorbing.

Dwight Grell, 6/7/1937- 2/3/2015

The Los Angeles Times printed Dwight Grell’s obituary March 2, 2015. David Colker did a good job summarizing the outline of Dwight’s passion for Russian Ballet, accurate and anecdotal.

But the skein of association and the times when Dwight stumbled upon his
passion, thanks to the 1959 West Coast tour of the Bolshoi Ballet under Sol Hurok’s auspices lingers for those of us who knew him in varying shades of
intimacy.

I first met Dwight during the 1986 USA IBC Competition in Jackson when Sophia Golovina was one of the master teachers in the International Ballet School, Yuri Grigorovitch the Russian Juror and Robert Joffrey the Jury Chair.Two Russian competitors were Nina Ananiashvili and Andris Liepa. These two young dancers shared the Jackson Grand Prix, the first of only three awarded in the Competition. The second was Jose Manuel Carreno in 1990 and Johann Kobborg in 1994.

Dwight Grell, slender to gaunt because of Chrone’s disease, was there with Todd Lechtik, a short, energetic young photographer whose working hours were spent with a UCLA medical clinic. Todd had taken pictures of the exhibits that Dwight assembled when either the Bolshoi or the Kirov hove into view and he soon became the Archives’ official photographer. Todd said Dwight would go to the flower mart at 4 a.m. to select the flowers to throw on the stage, red and gold streamers for the Bolshoi, blue and white ribbons for the Kirov.

Todd said Dwight would instruct him when to send a bouquet sailing across the orchestra pit. In the beginning, the venue was the Shrine Auditorium which had basketball marks on the floor. The physical anomaly must have made those floral tributes that much more welcome.

Dwight’s genius were the gestures, the smallnesses making a dancer smile, to feel cherished. The flowers, his ability to be around to turn pages for the pianist, to run errands, and in return toe shoes ready for the discard became part of a rapidly growing cache of memorabilia

Todd’s skill as a photographer and as a ballet student with Yvonne Mounsey proved invaluable to Dwight’s Archives.

Mounsey danced in Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballets Russes on its final 1946-47 U.S. tour. When George Balanchine revived The Prodigal Son for New York City Ballet, Mounsey danced The Siren..

“We roomed together in Jackson, in London, in Moscow. Word got around about Dwight’s interest and once he was offered 100 postcards on ballet outside the Bolshoi.”

When I was assisting Olga Guardia de Smoak in organizing for the Ballets Russes Celebraton in New Orleans in 2000, Dwight arrived bearing a large, oblong package which revealed an ornate gilded frame. Inside was the ballet program performed at the Bolshoi celebrating the coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow.

If my memory is accurate, one of the principals was Mathilde
Kessinskaya, one time lover of that last Romanov emperor. It gave me a flutter, along with one or two volumes Olga identified. “Those are the year books which Sergei Diaghilev compiled.”

In 2003 Dwight’s balletic treasure were donated to USC, where not only is it a record of a devoted balletomane, but it also reflects Russian ballet history in the mid-late twentieth century.

A year or two later, Dwight joined Pomona College friends, Irene Nevil, Ina Nuell Bliss, and me for lunch. When it was over, Harry Major said,, “ His work should be featured on California Gold.” I am not sure that ever happened, still, there was no doubt that Dwight Grell was himself a treasure.