WOULD she or wouldn’t she? Could she or couldn’t she? Should she or shouldn’t she? A fog of drama swirled round Svetlana Lunkina’s local debut in “Giselle” at the New York State Theater on Saturday afternoon.
Lincoln Center Festival 2000 had brought Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet back to New York after 10 years, and one of the major attractions proffered by the engagement was the U.S. debut of Lunkina.
This 20-year-old is probably the most touted up-and-coming Bolshoi ballerina since Ekaterina Maximova 40 years ago.
I first saw the wonder girl – and she is just that – in London last year dancing Kitri in “Don Quixote.” But she did not appear on this summer’s U.S. tour, the company seemingly holding her back for New York.
Lunkina’s debut should have come on Wednesday, dancing the first movement of George Balanchine’s “Symphony in C,” but she was injured and her role was brilliantly taken by another Bolshoi newcomer, Anastasia Goriecheva.
On Thursday night, Lunkina, although still injured, finally took her place in the “Symphony in C” lineup and, true to form, she was terrific.
But come Friday it seemed that she had returned too soon, and she withdrew from that night’s “Symphony in C,” leaving the question of her major debut, the title role in “Giselle,” absolutely up in the air even early on Saturday morning.
She danced, and you could instantly see why Vladimir Vasiliev, director of the Bolshoi Theater and who staged this new Bolshoi “Giselle,” produced it for her – she had danced its premiere when she was just 18.
Carefully coached by Vasiliev’s wife and longtime partner, Maximova, Lunkina is a dream Giselle, dancing with an innate command of Romantic style, instinctively acting with an understated passion and total conviction, she is already a great interpreter of the role.
Understatement was hardly the word for her partner, the slightly epicene Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who is the most egregiously flamboyant Albrect I have seen since Serge Lifar. He dances well, but could do with a haircut and perhaps boot camp, although come to think of it he’s rather camp already.
On Saturday night the exquisite Nina Ananiashvili returned to the role of Giselle, partnered this time by a new Albrecht, Andrei Uvarov.
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GISELLE
Lincoln Center Festival 2000. New York State Theater.
