Metropolitan Classical Ballet New & Reviews

Posted on Wed., Apr. 26, 2006

SIMPLY UNIQUE

Ballet company stands out with its minimalist interpretation of Paris

By MARILYN BAILEY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

FORT WORTH - As we can't stop pointing out, the talent-stuffed Metropolitan Classical Ballet is like no other company in its Bolshoi-and-Balanchine mix of styles.

But the best moments in the Arlington-based company's Monday night program at Bass Hall came when it branched out still more, with Eddy Toussaint's delightful Bonjour Brel, an extended duet to five songs by French-language composer Jacques Brel.

A Parisian mood was set with nothing more than a street lamp, a bench and two all-black (of course) costumes. Aficionados love Brel for his smart lyrics, but they were untranslated here. For those of us who don't speak French, the pleasures were all in the mood, in Toussaint's meaning-filled gestures and in the performances of the lead couple, the exceptionally fluid Olga Pavlova and the always charismatic Alexander Vetrov.

Toussaint, who made his name as founder of a company in Montreal, was in attendance, helping lend a sense of occasion. That was heightened by a tribute to former Bolshoi artistic director Vladimir Vasiliev, who was also in the audience.

The company presented the U.S. premiere of Vasiliev's Les Promenades, created for the Bolshoi in the late 1970s as an antidote to the heavy, bloated epics then in style in the Soviet Union. It has a whimsical premise: A man in 18th-century plumage -- powdered wig, long coat, stockings -- strides into a contemporary dance studio full of listless, idle dancers and sits at a keyboard, joined by a similarly costumed violinist and cellist. As the three men (Alexei Melentiev, Eric Grossman and Eugene Osadchy) begin to play pulsing baroque music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, dancers don costumes, too, and perform fantasy numbers in various styles.

While some of the humor was not as fresh as it must have been in Brezhnev-era Moscow, the piece still has plenty of charm. Danielle Cohen, Shea Johnson and Mykhaylo Izotov showed their comedic chops, but there were plenty of moments of beautiful dancing by Pavlova and others.

The night opened with Paul Mejia's Brahms Waltzes, a classic "piano ballet" -- a pianist performing lyrical romantic-era music on the edge of the stage, the female dancers in long, flowing skirts. Most memorable were two of the company's major talents, Pavlova and Maria Kudyakova. Kudyakova's expressive legs were shown to great effect in one passage of Mejia's intricate lifts. Pianist Alexei Melentiev was terrific in the set of waltzes from the composer's Opus 39.

The piece wasn't perfect -- one of the dancers stumbled. But some of us in the seats were feeling off-balance, too, what with the cellphone that rang around that time and the insistently talkative toddler in the audience whose every sound was amplified by the hall's great acoustics. They were the only things that broke the spell.

GRADE: A-