★★★☆☆
There is so much going on in Alexei Ratmansky’s hyperactive yet streamlined staging of Anna Karenina that it’s easy to miss some of the more telling details in his 21st-century adaptation of Tolstoy’s tragic novel. That’s where the dancers come in. It’s the quality of their acting — not only the sweep and ardour of their dancing — that makes Anna’s story come alive. And the better the performances, the easier it is to close your ears to Rodion Shchedrin’s ghastly score.
Presented as part of the Mariinsky Ballet’s London season, Anna Karenina had the benefit of two fine casts. The first was led by Diana Vishneva, a much-acclaimed ballerina near the end of her career. Her Anna was skittish, even flighty, every bone in Vishneva’s delicate body reluctant to give in to Vronsky’s attentions until the moment when she throws her soul into their love. Her passion, luminous and heartbreaking, was matched by Konstantin Zverev, who cut a fine figure as the smitten Count and danced as if every moment mattered.
In the second cast Viktoria Tereshkina was a more forceful Anna — her personal drama writ large for all to see in her vibrant moves and her despair at being separated from her young son. The revelation, however, was Xander Parish as Vronsky. The British dancer, recently promoted to a principal at the Mariinsky, moves with a lyrical expansiveness and a strong technique, but he has never shown us his acting chops quite like this before. Parish’s Vronsky was thrilling in his conviction and determination to win Anna, and equally impressive in the tenderness of his intimate moments with Tereshkina’s Anna. The ending, with Anna hurling herself into the path of a speeding train, was as shocking as we needed it to be.
And the music? It’s relentlessly strident and dreary and completely inappropriate to the action on stage. When Anna and Vronsky finally consummate their passion in a rapturous pas de deux the combative music makes their coupling sound like a funeral — we know their affair won’t end well but they certainly don’t. Throughout the two acts, Shchedrin’s soulless music is a jarring accompaniment to the dance. Ratmansky’s choreography, imaginative, energetic and classically abundant, wisely pays it as little attention as possible.