Robert Garis
BALLET 66
Plisetskaya is the Joan Crawford of ballet. I thought this was
a pretty good joke of mine after the first act of the Bolshoi's
Don
Quixote,
and I still like it, but I didn't really intend to quote it here.
Then as I watched the rest of
Don Quixote
and many other things, night
after night, it occurred to me that my wisecrack had solved the mystery
of the entire Russian people's intense dedication to classical ballet. The
Bolshoi is the MGM of ballet: the spirit of Louis B. Mayer has found
a resting place. It takes just his kind of showmanship to sponsor what
my at first unbelieving eyes saw in
Don Quixote:
Plisetskaya's vulgar
smashing vehemence, her unabashed mugging, the rambunctious but
good-natured, clean family-style jokes, the expert brassy efficiency of the
Spanish numbers, the trashy nightclub moodiness of the gypsy numbers.
The Bolshoi show does take its departure from the vocabulary of classical
ballet, true, but then many of Mayer's shows took their departure from
serious drama and fiction. Efficient mass-appeal entertainment can use
a culture tie-in because it knows how to keep culture in its place. No
wonder the Bolshoi was such a hit in America.
This smash-hit style is most attractive in the "Highlights" program,
where its intentions are most transparent and vulgarity can sometimes
turn into genuine popularity. Most of the highlights get just the amount
and kind of applause they ask for, and some of them deserve a lot. A
terrible little number called "Melody" (music: Dvorak's "Songs My
Mother Taught Me"; choreography: Radio City) got hearty respectful
approval-this was high art. But a breezy acrobatic number called for
some reason "Dunayevsky Waltz," danced with the most winning boast–
fulness by those two wonderful kids Vlasov and Vlasova, got wowed
stamping and hollering-this was
fun.
I thought so too. Koshelev's resil–
ient, spontaneous "Gopak" was a big hit Saturday evening, but his un–
announced substitute's coarse performance had been just as big a hit at
the matinee. The MGM approach blunts the audience's sensibilities to
