Los Angeles is famous for its movie premieres. In recent years, the vitality of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Opera Company have also attracted their share of premieres. Still, I was excited to attend the world premiere of a ballet, Isadora, inspired by the life of Isadora Duncan, choreographed by Vladmir Varnava with Royal Ballet Principal dancer Natalia Osipova in the lead role, as performed a few weekends ago at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.
Sergei Danilian, the Sol-Hurok-like impresario who brought Russian dance and Russian dancers to the Segerstrom in past seasons, was instrumental in developing this ballet for its premiere at the Segerstrom. Danilian had worked with Varnava and the Mikhailovsky Theater in the past, and Varnava had appeared at Segerstrom as a dancer in one of Danilian’s productions. Danilian encouraged Varnava to develop as a choreographer and create an original full ballet with supported from Segerstrom donors and other like-minded balletomanes.
Natalia Osipova, formerly of the Bolshoi, and known for her emotive performances as Giselle, had wanted Varnava to create a work for her. When Osipova and Varnava discussed creating a new ballet, Osipova spoke of her love for Prokofiev’s Cinderalla score. Varnava was interested in the story of American modern dance icon Isadora Duncan, particularly her connection to Russia. So Varnava decided to choreograph what he calls, his dream of Isadora, to Cinderella.
Osipova has said that Cinderella, the theme of transformation is “not unlike that of Duncan and magic she performed on the world of dance” and that they are both stories about “a young woman who searches for beauty and sense of individuality amid tremendous tragedy.”
Osipova is right to recognize in Duncan’s life a maverick independence as well as great tragedy. Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) was born in California. Her father lost all the family’s wealth and then left the family itself. Isadora, already rebelling against the strictures of classical ballet supported the family by offering dance classes. Duncan found expression in classical Greek poses, adopting the flowing robes of the ancients instead of the corsets and tutus of ballet. Personal expression and personal freedom was central to Duncan. She danced barefoot and searched in her movement to create a modern dance idiom from more natural movement. Duncan was unconventional in dance and in her personal life. By the time she was 20 she had traveled to Europe been acclaimed and inspired followers and admirers. Among the admirers was the sewing machine heir Paul Singer, with whom she had two children out of wedlock. Tragically, the children were in a car with their nanny when the driver lost control and plunged the car into the Seine drowning them.
Seeking a refuge, a new beginning and inspired by the promise of a revolutionary new society, Duncan traveled to Russia in the early 1920s, where she opened a dance school, performed, and married the much younger Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. After their breakup, Duncan remained a Russian citizen but returned to Paris where she met an untimely death, in a horrific car accident in which her scarf became caught in the wheel-housing causing her to be strangled and flung from the car.
In Varnava’s ballet, Isadora does not have cruel step-sisters, but fate does deal with her cruelly, losing her father, rebelling against classical ballet, and achieving some success, only to have tragedy strike again with the death of her two children. That is essentially the first act of Varnava’s ballet.
Varnava uses the second act to focus on Isadora’s time in Russia. Lenin himself is portrayed as a charismatic, even seductive, larger-than-life figure, who dances Isadora to a life in the new Republic. Isadora falls for the dashing poet Yesenin but is ultimately betrayed by Yesenin’s philandering and drunkenness. Duncan leaves Russia and returns to Paris where she meets her untimely end. Yet in Varnava’s final scene, Isadora seems to ascend to a paradise, or apotheosis of free movement, where she and her followers dance on and forever.
In a brief conversation during rehearsal a few days before the premiere, Varnava described himself as belonging to a new generation of Russian dancers. Russian dance, for too long, Varnava said, was characterized by technical brilliance. He was of a generation who were much more interested in conveying emotion in dance, in more soulful performances, in revealing themselves more in what they did, and focusing less on technical perfection.
This level of soul-searching and emotion strikes this Westerner as very Russian. And it seems to inspire Osipova. In Isadora, Osipova is able to stretch her own dance vocabulary and theatrical performance abilities. She is surrounded by great dancers, all selected internationally by Varnava. Vladimir Dorokhin plays Yesenin, and he is a marvel to watch, his supple body telegraphing emotion with each flutter of his arm. Veronika Part, a former ABT principal and Kirov ballet dancer, is featured as “the ballerina,” embodying in her controlled movements all that Duncan is rebelling against.
The production was in many aspects first rate, including The Mikhailovsky Theater Orchestra, 72-members strong, conducted by Pavel Sorokin, the extravagant and ingenious costumes by Galya Solodovnikova, as well as the lighting design by Konstantin Binkin whose screen projections onto a scrim and lighting effects were also impressive.
That being said, there were some aspects of the ballet that I found disappointing or unsatisfying. So, for example, although supposedly a dream inspired by Isadora, the first act hews a little too closely to her biography, touching base on all the landmarks of her young life, including her father’s abandonment of the family, and her rejection of classical ballet. Yet, there is no scene that conveys Duncan’s revelation of freeing dance from ballet – that conveyed why Duncan was necessary, revolutionary, important, and most importantly, a catalyst for transcendent movement.
The first act covers most of Isadora’s life, the second act a scant few years. Yet freed from chronology the second act has larger, more expressive dance scenes and allows Osipova as Dorokhin to express their talents more fully. It is in the second act where the dancing soars.
The performances of Isadora at the Segerstrom were but for a weekend. Isadora has since traveled to Moscow where it will have its Russian premiere. No other dates were set at press time. Still, even if Isadora was uneven in its coherence, it was a preview of great things to come from Varnava and Osipova and, hopefully, an indication that when they do we will get to see them at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California.
