No one
who has seen the film of Lavrovsky's Romeo and
Juliet could forget the dewy close-ups of Ulanova's face as
Juliet falls in love, then realizes the cost. In reducing
the stage work to the screen, the ballet became
paradoxically monumental and transformed Ulanova into
something of an anachronism: a star of the silent screen.
That view of the ballet -- its grandeur and the
immediacy of its pathos -- seemed irrevocably lost until
Margarita Kullik made her début as Juliet early in March.
Kullik is her own blend of anachronisms. Her solid
terre-à-terre technique and natural incandescence link her
more readily to the ballerinas of the nineteenth century
than to those of the twentieth. She is a 'variations queen' with a
vivacity that telegraphs to the last rows of the gallery,
where her considerable public greets every onstage
appearance.
Kullik's exquisite petite batterie conveyed a
teen-ager's verve and fearlessness in her entrance with the
nurse. Yet the exhilaration Kullik brought to the scene
made ballet's finale all the more tragic. As her character
became a victim of fate, Kullik's articulate, open face
registered Juliet's vulnerability, conveying her horror to
the audience in a series of haunting silent-film images.
Here, once again, was the delicate balance of exquisite
dancing and perfect, tragic stillness we remember from the
film.
© 1997 Tim Scholl Mariinskii teatr, 3-4, 1997
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