THE RUSSIANS CAME, : THE RUSSIANS CAME! : Afterthoughts on the Bolshoi Ballet

The mighty Bolshoi is back in the lap of Mother Russia now. Aeroflot has reclaimed our soaring balletic benefactors. But the exquisite hysteria engendered by the Soviet visitors may still be raging at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Last Sunday, after the final performance of the vastly popular three-week season, the Music Center resounded with the sort of cheering, yelling, stomping, crying, ooh -ing, aah -ing and whistling one normally associates with rock orgies. The furor didn’t want to end. (The well-meaning whistlers apparently didn’t know that their acts of ear-piercing homage would have been regarded as the equivalent of booing back in the Old World.)

During the performance, there had been even more sighing, gasping, bravo -ing and bravi -ing than usual. Massive ovations--standing and sitting, spontaneous and calculated, deserved and undeserved, timely and premature--had punctuated the valedictory outing of Yuri Grigorovich’s “The Golden Age.”

It was an interesting phenomenon. A modern American audience had paid up to $67 per ticket in order to register wild approval for Russians performing a primitive period-saga that celebrates the triumph of Soviet purity and strength over capitalist decadence.

The audience watched enthralled as the humble but muscular hero persuaded the idealistic if not-so-innocent maiden of his choice to join him as a member of the Komsomol--the League of Young Communists. The crowd went crazy when, at the final curtain, the good guys and girls dashed around the stage waving red banners to the thumping tunes of the young Shostakovich at his most banal.

It could be argued, of course, that it was the dancing per se that had ignited the emotions out front, not the vehicle. Who cared if the Russians thought this ludicrous indulgence represented a significant social statement, a fierce satire or a step toward meaningful modernism? It didn’t matter.

The wondrous Irek Mukhamedov had flown and flipped through the air with impossible nonchalance. The lovely Ludmila Semenyaka had defined the duties of the dancing damsel in distress with marvelously cheeky bravado--bravado cloaked in silken, sexy finesse.

It also could be argued that the resident enthusiasts responded to the frantic, redundant, athletic, cliche-oriented choreography as if the Bolshoi were just another purveyor of show-biz glitz and circus stunts. The sponsor of the local season, after all, was Civic Light Opera, and choice tickets had been sold as part of a package that also included “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Cabaret.”

Fun, da . Art, nyet .

Los Angeles certainly loved the Bolshoi. The bona-fide aficionados--some might even include critics in that minority--may have insisted on making distinctions between the dancers and the dance. Loved them, hated it. The majority, however, embraced the glamorous visitors and their fancy product in toto , with unabashed gusto.

When the curtain finally fell on that last performance of “The Golden Age,” the house all but caved in. When the curtain rose again, the “Golden Age” principals shared the applause with other members of the company dressed in elegant mufti, with technicians and coaches. Grigorovich, the controversial paterfamilias , brought out Galina Ulanova, the prima ballerina assoluta in excelsis who had captured American hearts as Giselle and Juliet back in 1959. Now 77, she serves her alma mater as a ballet mistress.

Dwight Grell--the Bolshoi’s foremost Western archivist, self-appointed cheer-leader and curator of a splendid memorabilia collection that had graced the upper foyer throughout the season--tossed bouquet after bouquet at the adored ones. Everyone beamed, blew reciprocal kisses and waved.

Mukhamedov, possibly the most quietly potent export from Moscow since vodka, showered his colleagues with Grell’s flowers and clasped his appreciative hands above his head, Rocky style. Somehow, he garnered special, private ovations in spite of himself and the chaotic surroundings.

Your faithful but tired scribe left after 19 minutes of blissful pandemonium. There was no end in sight.

The press did not respond to the Bolshoi with inevitably unanimous fervor. Many ungrateful skeptics of the Fourth Estate found the company more shallow than was hoped and less refined than was expected. The leading dancers were deemed uneven. The “new” ponderous choreography, often teetering on the brink of mindless abstraction, was labeled old-fashioned, vulgar, frenetic and, worst of all, dull.

The cavils didn’t just come from this newspaper. They came from other Los Angeles papers, and they came from New York, Washington and San Francisco.

Grigorovich acknowledged the slings, arrows and contradictions. He told Army Archerd of Daily Variety that he was most happy with Los Angeles audiences even though “some critics poured acid on us.”

It is possible to explain the discrepancy.

The Bolshoi is a highly touted brand name, and an exotic one at that. If it dances and it is big and and it is Russian, the reasoning goes, it must be great.

The infectious spirit of glasnost makes everyone want to admire ambassadorial gestures these days. The Bolshoi dancers, furthermore, are dazzling salespersons. They know how to score points, and they milk applause even better than they execute grand jetes.

Although Grigorovich has toned down some of the overt theatricality that once, for better or worse, made the company famous, the Bolshoi still exults in showy effects. This still is the home of the climactic one-arm lift, the spectacular crotch lift, the dizzying fouette marathon, the kick administered by a dancer to the back of her own head in moments of supreme agitation, and the gasp-producing running catch of the ballerina in rapid transit.

This still is the company where the men--well, most of the men--are oh-so-manly, and the women, for the most part, are preening, weightless sylphs.

Even Ed Sullivan liked that sort of thing.

The leading Bolshoi dancers, moreover, project personalities. Los Angeles lost its heart to Mukhamedov, as did the rest of the country. Everybody loves a superman. Still, he wasn’t lonely here. There were plenty of advocates for the noble, muted power of Alexei Fadeyechev and for the somewhat mannered, boyish elegance of Andris Liepa.

Grigorovich does not tend to give the women comparably glamorous or revealing opportunities. Nevertheless, it was easy to surrender to the mercurial charm and technical perfection of Semenyaka, not to mention the soulful lyricism of young Nina Ananiashvili.

Sophisticates may have been a bit confused when the crowds went equally wild over the rather bland Yuri Vasyuchenko, the rather bluff Alexander Vetrov, the rather brittle Nina Semizorova and the rather pallid Alla Mikhalchenko. Enthusiasm in this special context, however, is contagious.

Bolshoi means big . The cliche definition fits.

One may not like the new inventions, and one may regret the current fashion of streamlining and steam-rolling the classics. Even so, one can be impressed by the shear magnitude of the operation.

The Bolshoi doesn’t have to worry about financial tribulations or the restrictions of labor unions. That is a fine political paradox. It can afford huge casts, elaborate (usually literal and ugly) decors, generous rehearsal schedules, a huge staff of technicians and teachers. Audiences accustomed to the great American way of cutting corners in the arts must appreciate that.

After seeing the rival Kirov Ballet of Leningrad in the dark, dispiriting, gargantuan ambiance of Shrine Auditorium, we also had to appreciate the relative sophistication and intimacy, not to mention the advantageous sightlines, of the Pavilion. The dancers complained--they invariably do--that the floor was too hard and the stage too small. They would have preferred to dance on a rake, as they do in Moscow. Nevertheless, the Music Center turned out to be a welcome and reasonable home away from home.

The Bolshoi did give us two unforgettable “Raymondas” with Semenyaka in the title role, once opposite the noble Fadeyechev and once opposite the passionate Mukhamedov. There was at least one memorable “Giselle,” thanks to the poignant Ananiashvili and Fadeyechev. For all its theatrical oversimplification and gotta-dance-dance-dance mentality, the first act of Grigorovich’s “Romeo” exerted a certain propulsive urgency.

During the divertissement sections of the mixed bills--sections drastically shortened and refocused since the opening of the tour in New York--audiences could catch a tantalizing glimpse of Natalia Bessmertnova in the waltz from “Les Sylphides.” Later she danced Phrygia in the “Spartacus” love duet. The senior ballerina had to relinquish her more strenuous assignments because of an injury, but her authority and delicacy of phrasing illuminated these token appearances beyond the appeal of mere nostalgia.

In another vaudeville pas de deux, Mukhamedov--partnering either Semenyaka or Ananiashvili--ignited the flashiest of “Don Quixote” sparks.

Such pleasures were offset, however, by a shameless junk duet from “The Talisman,” by a subdued “Dying Swan” that did a horrible disservice to the memory of Maya Plisetskaya, and by the monstrous kitsch of “Spartacus” itself. This year, we got only Act II of Grigorovich’s outrageous ode to selfless Roman slaves, strutting aristocrats, slinking courtesans and slurping strings, but that was one act too many.

The “Spartacus” strings were slurped splendidly, it should be noted, by an unusually inspired pit orchestra that enlisted Bolshoi musicians in key spots and local recruits in others. The veteran conductor Alexander Kopylov enforced solid routine when he was in charge. More galvanizing, however, was Alexander Lavrenyuk, who brought incisive wit to the platitudes of “Golden Age” and quasi-Wagnerian grace to “Raymonda.”

Lavrenyuk’s special sympathy for the stage may be traced to his unusual background. Before taking up the baton, he happened to be an imposing caracatere specialist at the Bolshoi. In 1974, he danced Rothbart in “Swan Lake” at Shrine Auditorium in company with Maya Plisetskaya and Alexander Godunov. This is one conductor who has paid his dues, and paid them handsomely.

It was a long season by local standards, a season with long ballets, long waits at the metal detectors in front of the doors, long waits between the acts.

It was a season marked by aesthetic disappointments, hype, hysteria, endless cast shifting, strange artistic compromises and dubious local management (did anyone who speaks English bother to proof-read those programs?).

It also was an exotic and exciting season. Amid the puffery, the inequities, oddities, distortions and absurdities, the Bolshoi offered hints of greatness--greatness involving the past and greatness pertaining to the future.

Perhaps next time. . . .