The public has already bought enough tickets to ensure financial success, but from an artistic point of view the result is mixed. Gala programs might be easy to sell, but they're the devil to pull off well.
Between them, the Thursday and Friday performances produced enough wonderful dancing to make one strong gala, with the honours tilted somewhat in favour of Friday.
Overall, though, the company didn't show the consistent blend of technical mastery and personal charisma that carries the day in such an exposed setting. While Paquita's string of pas de deux and divertissements operates on one level, as pure entertainment it's also a brutal test of company standards as a whole and those of individual dancers.
In a few pas de deux there were partnerships that didn't gel, some casting that raised eyebrows, and an accumulation of small blemishes -- a muffed turn here, a noticeable running out of steam there, untidy landings and so on -- that took the gloss off.
On the plus side there was a sparkling Paquita grand pas on Friday night with Lucinda Dunn, Robert Curran and splendid female soloists, as well as the chance to see Asaf Messerer's Spring Waters from 1957 and Agrippina Vaganova's delectable 1935 Diana and Acteon.
In Thursday's Diana, Dunn was a luscious huntress who hit every target. In Spring Waters, which is two minutes of exhilarating Soviet-style showing off, Madeleine Eastoe flowed like a leaf on a stream (Friday). Both women had the heroic Curran -- manly, sensitive and assured -- as their partner.
Curran is, in fact, everywhere. Due to a variety of circumstances he is the only male principal artist the AB can field in this program and he's dancing almost every day. It's great news for ballet fans as Curran is the heir to Steven Heathcote's mantle of heart-throb and partner extraordinaire, but it's not ideal, to put it mildly.
Up-and-coming men such as Luke Ingham and Tzu-Chao Chou were pretty good in their performances of Diana and Acteon and La Favorita respectively. Adam Bull acquitted himself nobly in the Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake, and Nobuo Fujino and Paul Knobloch tore up the stage in Le Corsaire on successive evenings.
Among the many terrific women in the middle ranks, Leanne Stojmenov, Gina Brescianini and Lana Jones (no relation, unfortunately) always catch the eye. Amber Scott recovered from a slip at the beginning of Le Corsaire on Friday to give a sizzling ending.
The curtain-raiser, Knobloch's new work Valetta, is a brave attempt at glamour. It tries to do too many things in too short a time and looks fussy, but Stojmenov and Marc Cassidy gave it plenty of oomph on Friday.
Orchestra Victoria, conducted by Paul Murphy from Birmingham Royal Ballet, made some very odd sounds on Thursday. They had thankfully improved significantly by Friday.
The Australian:Deborah Jones June 11, 2007