A wag once remarked that every note Tchaikovsky wrote was ballet music. Certainly he understood more about dance than any front-line composer before or since.
That suggests much of what lies behind Moscow City Ballet’s success: a native instinct for the physical implications of music. Of course, it helps to be Russian to understand Tchaikovsky. But it goes further than that. These dancers on a gruelling tour - four complete Nutcrackers in York in two days, for example (crackers, yes) - dance to live and live to dance. An audience brings them alive, as if they are discovering this music for the first time.
None showed this better than Liliya Orekhova’s Flower Fairy, whose big moment comes when leading the ladies in the waltz of the flowers. She glided. She floated. She twirled. She created her character. Her poise, her grace were breathtaking. Every so often she delivered a smile to light a power station.
The other three company principals were on stage on Saturday evening. Alevtina Lapshina was sprightly, gleeful, living her girlish dream as Clara. Reunited with her Nutcracker Prince, Talgat Kozhabayev, their pas de deux took in some truly spectacular lifts. Daniil Orlov was her lithe godfather, Drosselmeier.
Valeriya Bystrova caught the eye as the Chinese dancer, doubling as leading doll; so, too, Ekaterina Tokareva’s supremely rhythmic Spanish solo. The corps glittered, the ladies serene, the men athletic. Ballet from the fountainhead, indeed, with lively with lively orchestra too. Keep them coming, please.
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