The Stage

A Wedding Bouquet

Published Monday 25 October 2004 at 17:15 by John Percival

To open the Royal Ballet’s new season, subtitled Ashton 100 Celebration, what could be jollier than a long-awaited revival of the great man’s witty extravanganza A Wedding Bouquet?

The pithy comments by Gertude Stein defining its vividly self-seeking characters could have been more audibly and incisively spoken than Anthony Dowell managed, but Lord Berners’s exhilarating score was jubilantly conducted by Barry Wordsworth, and Ashton’s animated choreography brought out the best in a cast all new to their roles.

Tamara Rojo was outstanding, bringing a wide-eyed tragicomic exuberance to the dementedly forlorn Julia - even Fonteyn, the role’s originator, scarcely made more of it.¬†Zenaida Yanowsky got great fun out of the tipsy Josephine, and Federico Bonelli soared through the virtuoso solos invented for Michael Somes as Guy.¬†¬† We could do with a sharper character than Deirdre Chapman offers as the bossy housemaid Webster and Alina Cojocaru’s Bride would be funnier if played straight, but Johan Kobborg is pretty well on the ball as the lecherously panic-stricken Bridegroom.

Another wedding, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, deserved its place alongside, since it was Frederick Ashton when director of the Royal Ballet who preserved Bronislava Nijinska’s masterly but until then neglected choreography by getting her to revive it for the company.¬†Christina Arestis and Valeri Hristov are fine as the marrying couple, but we’ve seen the long, crucial ensembles for their friends more strongly cast.

I’m not sure that Kenneth MacMillan’s staging of Faur√©’s Requiem was the ideal choice to complete this mixed bill - its performance lacked fervour.¬†Less than ideal preparation perhaps, since even such dancers as Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta in the leads needed more depth.