The Stage

Stravinsky! A Celebration 2006 - Apollo/Pulcinella/The Firebird

Published Friday 5 May 2006 at 10:55 by Pat Ashworth

Robert Parker is born to dance the young god, Apollo. From the dramatic opening of his birth and the slow freeing from his bindings, he dances first in a restrained and exploratory way and later with a power and assurance that exults in the creativity he discovers and the almost hypnotic control he has over the movement of the three Muses. The pas d’action with Elisha Willis, Nao Sakuma and Ambra Vallo is seamless.

Parker was showing evidence of a bloodied knee towards the end of Apollo and Valentin Olovyannikov replaced him in the lead role of Pulcinella, the universal underdog desperate to sleep after carnival revels. It is a spirited ballet and Pulcinella is a very physical role, characterised at first by ungainly movement.

Stravinsky based his music on Pergolesi, which gives the ballet its appropriately 18th century carnival feel. It is thrillingly operatic. Voice solos from the pit match the passion of the dancers as Pulcinella’s clumsy and self-mocking stance melts into a rapturous and abandoned pas de deux with Ambra Vallo as Pimpinella. Brawling and fighting gives the ballet an urban, even subterranean feel.

Everything about The Firebird, danced with the utmost sensitivity by Nao Sukuma, is extraordinary, from the huge crowd of masked monsters and courtiers released in a flood of sunlight, to the fearsome Immortal Kostchei, jabbing his bony finger to shivering chords of brass. It is epic. The co-ordination and configuration of so many bodies moving as one body is awesome and the big Russian finale just takes the breath away.