Eifman Ballet
of St. Petersburg
presented by
Cal Performances
Zellerbach
Hall, Berkeley
May 10th,
2013
Both visits
that I made to the ballet last week had a common denominator: love. First came
the youthful, hopeful, ‘happily ever after’ of Cinderella and Prince Guillaume
at San Francisco Ballet. Fast forward three days to a different venue, a
different ballet company and a very different love story, that of sculptors
Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel. Boris Eifman has envisioned this hypnotic
love story into “Rodin” - an evening–length narrative filled with his daring
choreography. The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg’s Bay Area premiere of
“Rodin” was a dramatic and stunning finale to the Cal Performances dance
season.
The curtain rose
to reveal the women of the asylum, all costumed in white. Tortured, frenetic
movements spoke of frayed psyches; the masses looking like an institutionalized
version of the Wilis from “Giselle”. Camille, danced by Lyubov Andreyeva,
emerged from the center of the crowd, eyes wide with depth, fear and obsession.
In one instant, she appeared almost childlike, and then in the next was totally
detached from reality; completely distant from the present. Andreyeva is a
mesmerizing mover, yet she is equally skilled as an actress – her face and her
haunting eyes spoke volumes.
“Rodin” did
not follow a linear timeline; instead opting to toggle between scenes in the
mental institution and vignettes from Rodin and Camille’s past. Eifman likely crafted
the work (and brilliantly so) in this haphazard chronology to reflect the
unbalanced and volatile nature of Rodin the man, his relationship with both
Camille and Rose, and the mental state of all three main characters.
Company members of Eifman Ballet perform "Rodin Project" Photo courtesy of Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg |
During his
opening solo, Oleg Gabyshev constructed the character of Rodin as a manic, tortured
genius, which carried into Rodin and Camille’s first pas de deux. As Debussy’s
“Clair de Lune” played delicately in the background, Gabyshev and Andreyeva
created a living sculpture with their partnering, lifts and poses. Passion and
tumult were the primary emotions; expressed in their work, for each other and inwardly
toward themselves. Rodin and Camille’s abandon was visceral, so much so that
they became completely intertwined and utterly damaged. As Eifman’s gorgeous
pas de deux came to a close, his message leapt from the stage: here were two
individuals who spent their whole lives obsessed with sculpting the landscape
around them, yet were powerless to control the consequences on their respective
mental states.
Though the
character of Rose Beuret (Nina Zmievets at this performance) was certainly
present in “Rodin’s” first half, her role as his ‘other love’ was much more
prominent in Act II. While Rodin and Camille were fiery and out-of-control,
Rodin and Rose were genuine, perhaps even gentle at times. And as the lights
dimmed, the truth shone. Rodin may have truly loved both Rose and Camille, but
he was always trying to sculpt them into who he needed them to be.
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