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Recent Review

Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010

By Leonard Eureka
Fort Worth Weekly

For people wondering whether or not Metropolitan Classical Ballet can weather the current economic climate and do more than put on an annual Nutcracker at Christmastime, the answer seems to be yes. A mixed repertory program at Texas Hall on the University of Texas at Arlington campus last weekend showed the group to be alive and kicking.

Certainly the revival of co-artistic director Paul Mejia’s Brahms Waltzes, which opened the program, was as fine as anything I’ve seen the company do. Based on the 16 waltzes from the composer’s Op. 39, Brahms Waltzes was a seamless succession of short ballets. Various combinations of dancers followed the music’s ebb and flow, and Vilia Putrius and Mindaugas Bauzys, returning principals from previous seasons, offered some rapturous dancing in back-to-back adagio sequences. The dancers were assisted by pianist Gleb Ivanov’s sensitive acoustic accompaniment, played from memory, offering a gentle, personal look at these wonderful little gems.

The two dancers were also featured in Mejia’s sensuous Café Victoria, set to Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla’s tango music, revealing another facet of the dancers’ personalities: a smoldering intensity that lit up the hall. Accompaniment, electronically amplified and performed by Ivanov, Eric Grossman on violin, and Hector Tito Castro on bandoneón (an Argentine version of the concertino, a member of the accordion family), gave the proceedings more bite.

Mejia also staged a new pas de deux, Valse-Scherzo, using the Tchaikovsky music for piano and violin, for longtime company principals Marina Goshko and Andrey Prikhodko. While they worked diligently to bring it to life, the piece seemed to consist of one familiar dance move after another that showed off the dancers’ skills without going anywhere.

The evening’s most ambitious project was co-artistic director Alexander Vetrov’s staging of Leonid Lavrovsky’s Walpurgis Night, a Soviet-era Bolshoi blockbuster from the 1940s set to the bacchanal music of Gounod’s opera Faust and boasting all the leaps, turns, and impossible lifts of the style. Here, MCB’s budget restraints were evident. The 14 dancers gave high-octane performances, but the piece looked under-rehearsed and wouldn’t hang together. The lighting also was pretty bare bones, not adding much atmosphere. Guest dancer Evgeny Lushkin was competent and secure in his solos, if devoid of enthusiasm. The bright spot was former company member Maiko Abe. I recalled her as pretty and placid. Imagine my surprise, then, when she appeared and took command of the stage, a dynamo of energy in crimson, like some primal forest creature. The transformation was remarkable.

It was good to see MCB back in action and healthy after a six-month absence. Even when things didn’t go as planned, the dancing was excellent. If a costly Bass Hall season isn’t in the works anytime soon, Arlington will do just fine.

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