The Russian State Ballet of Siberia returned to Ipswich’s Regent Theatre last night with a sparkling and enchanting presentation of La Fille Mal Gardee, a chaming comic ballet in two acts.
Review: La Fille Mal Gardee, Ipswich Regent Theatre, February 23
The Russian State Ballet of Siberia returned to Ipswich’s Regent Theatre last night with a sparkling and enchanting presentation of La Fille Mal Gardee, a chaming comic ballet in two acts.
Though perhaps not as well known as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, which make up the three presentations at the Regent as the Russian company completes its latest very successful UK tour, La Fille Mal Gardee is nevertheless a very important work in the history of ballet.
Today, as in last night’s superb production, it presents a quite lighthearted and amusing tale of a wayward daughter who disobeys her authoritarian mother and falls in love with a lowly but handsome farmer while her mother wants her to marry the foppish and foolish son of a wealthy vineyard owner.
It concerns the young lovers’ attempts to outwit the mother and, of course, they are eventually successful.
However, it was written in France in 1789 as a revolutionary satire representing the struggle of the people against the aristocracy and was first performed in Bordeaux just 13 days before the storming of the Bastille.
Perhaps in these changing times it still has a significance today.
Japanese ballerina Sayaka Takuda was captivating as Lise, the wayward daughter; capturing the charm, coquetishness and determination of the character.
She danced superbly in beautifully matched style with Georgiy Bolsunovskiy as Colas, the young farmer.
Alexey Balva struck just the right note as her mother, the almost pantomime dame style Widow Simone, ranting and cajoling and even clog dancing in her attempts to get her way.
Maxim Dashidondokov was the domineering vineyard owner and Denis Pogorelyy his childish son, leading a full cast in this delightful and captivating story with music from the Russian State Ballet of Siberia Orchestra under its conductor Anatoliy Chepurnoy.
Be swept away to a fairy-tale world where nothing is quite as it seems tonight when the company performs The Nutcracker. Tomorrow they stage Swan Lake, the greatest romantic ballet of all time, where Odile, the temptress in black tulle, steals the Prince from the pure swan queen.
Chris Mills
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