Metropolitan Classical Ballet New & Reviews

By SCOTT CANTRELL
The Dallas Morning News

FORT WORTH - FORT WORTH – There was froth aplenty for Metropolitan Classical Ballet's season finale Saturday evening. A brand-new ballet by Alexander Vetrov, one of the company's two artistic directors, made Coppélia look like a Greek tragedy, and the program, at Bass Performance Hall, closed with Leonid Lavrovsky's spring-celebrating Walpurgis Night . George Balanchine's Concerto Barocco, hardly tragic fare, at least lent considerable dignity to the proceedings.

In Mr. Vetrov's One Bridal Dress for Two, a poor widow, hoping to marry off at least one of her daughters, buys a wedding dress from a fancy dressmaker. All of a sudden, there is a suitor for each of her daughters, and the girls are fighting over the one dress.

The mother and the dressmaker, meanwhile, start flirting and get caught in a compromising situation. And, at one point, the dress turns up on one of the suitors (!), to the considerable annoyance of the dressmaker.

Whether, at the dawn of the 21st century, we need another 19th century comic ballet, set to Mozart's 29th Symphony, is a question worth pondering. But, with set and costumes in powder-puff colors, the company gave its considerable all, and the audience seemed amply entertained.

Mariya Kudyakova and Svetlana Kuzyanina were the high-spirited daughters, Andrey Prikhodko and Anatoly Emelianov the ardent suitors. Danielle Cohen threatened to steal the show as the big-bottomed widow, a drama queen one moment, a goofy rag doll the next. Yevgeni Anfinogenov was the high-strung couturier.

Walpurgis Night, set to ballet music from Gounod's Faust, had a splendidly lightfoot, mischievous Pan in Mr. Emelianov and a classy Bacchus in Mr. Prikhodko. The latter elegantly partnered Olga Pavlova's gracious Bacchante. A nymph took a tumble in a veil-rustling pas de trois but recovered quickly. Rounding out the cast were contingents of red-dressed, arm-fluttering Maenads and athletic satyrs.

The evening's high point was the central pas de deux of Concerto Barocco, danced with weightless fluidity by Ms. Pavlova and Mr. Anfinogenov, with Ms. Kudyakova rounding out the solo trio. The ensemble of eight women didn't always agree on what to do with their hands, but Balanchine's quirky angles and surprising interleavings still amazed.

The orchestra played capably all evening for conductor Ron Spigelman. Violin soloists in Concerto Barocco, set to Bach's Double Violin Concerto, were Susan Demetris and Ertan Torgul.