Bolshoi's Restored 'Coppelia' Is Museum Piece

Restoration of the original choreography, decor and costumes of ballet productions created in pre-Revolutionary times has become quite the fashion in Russia during recent years. Both of the country's leading restoration experts, Yury Burlaka and Sergei Vikharev, have been at work at the Bolshoi Theater this season, each staging a ballet in purportedly similar style to that in which it was seen at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater during the closing decades of the 19th century.

Last autumn, Burlaka, who has recently taken over artistic direction of the Bolshoi's ballet company, came up with a restoration of "Grand Pas Classique" from Adolphe Adam's "Paquita," and last week Vikharev brought to the theater a restored version of Leo Delibes' "Coppelia." Both were originally choreographed for the Mariinsky by its great ballet master Marius Petipa.

"Coppelia" was the principal work on the program at my first encounter with ballet more than 60 years ago and, until last Thursday, I had never failed to enjoy seeing it again. But I came away from the Bolshoi premiere troubled and disappointed, not because of the dancing, which proved generally superb, but because the production struck me as little more than an animated museum exhibit.

For his restoration, Vikharev chose the Mariinsky production of 1894, with choreography created by Petipa for the premiere there of "Coppelia" a decade earlier and revised by another towering figure in the history of dance, Enrico Cechetti. His source for the choreography was a set of precise notations made early in the 20th century and now preserved at Harvard University. The set and costume designs were based on photographic evidence and on what remain of sketches from the original production.

Vikharev obviously worked hard, and with success, to turn the notations into dance and communicate the result to his dancers. The stage settings looked reasonably like those in the photographs. And the costumes, though marred by some bizarre choices of color, seemed quite authentic.

Yet -- as in the case of Vikharev's restoration for the Mariinsky of another Petipa ballet, "The Awakening of Flora," which to the dismay of many walked off with a Golden Mask Award last year -- something seemed seriously amiss.

Perhaps it came down in part to the fact that Petipa and Cechetti devised little in the way of really top-drawer choreography for the solo dancers. But two other factors were probably much more fundamental to the production's feeling of lifelessness. First of all, present-day dancers somehow seem quite out of place dancing steps intended for their counterparts, so different in manner and even physical characteristics, of a century and more ago. And secondly, the choreography, decor and costumes on view were all created for an audience with a very different aesthetic perspective than that found among audiences today.

The new "Coppelia" will undoubtedly fare well at the box office and have great appeal to those who would prefer the Bolshoi to be chiefly a museum of dance.

At the premiere, Maria Aleksandrova brought character, charm and a wry sense of humor to the lead role of Swanhilda and danced it in her usual exemplary fashion. Ruslan Skvortsov, as Franz, proved an able partner. And Gennady Yanin, as Coppelius, added yet another gem to his repertoire of character parts. The corps de ballet and minor soloists, for the most part, danced to a high standard and were particularly impressive in the first act's mazurka and czardas.

Delibes' only equal among 19th-century ballet composers was Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who once declared that had he first heard Delibes' other great ballet, "Sylvia," he would never have dared to write "Swan Lake." On the opening night of "Coppelia," however, the rough, sometimes raucous playing of the Bolshoi orchestra only intermittently allowed the many beauties and subtleties of Delibes' score to be heard.

With Burlaka in charge of the ballet company, restorations like "Coppelia" will probably continue to show up on the Bolshoi stage with some regularity.

But the theater should also consider devoting at least equal time to a reconsideration of the ballets of yesteryear and to giving some of them a fresh look appropriate to the 21st century. A superb example of that approach can be found in the updated version of Delibes' "Sylvia" that choreographer John Neumeier created for the Opera de Paris.

"Coppelia" (Koppeliya) next plays July 12 and 13 at 7 p.m. at the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater, located at 1 Teatralnaya Ploshchad. Metro Teatralnaya. Tel. 250-7317. www.bolshoi.ru