Dancing the role of a czar-crossed lover, Viktoria Tereshkina makes an athletic princess in “The Little Humpbacked Horse.” (Natasha Razina)
We’re getting Russian lessons this week. From St. Pe tersburg, the famed Mariinsky Ballet — which in the Soviet era went by the Kirov Ballet, the name it still uses on tour — is schooling us on impeccable training and high Russian style in three different programs for the Lincoln Center Festival.
Along with a double bill including “Symphony in C” by George Balanchine — the St. Petersburg native who founded the New York City Ballet — the run features two full-length ballets by the internationally hot Alexei Ratmansky, born in St. Petersburg but trained at Moscow’s Bolshoi.
“Anna Karenina” compresses Tolstoy’s tale of fatal attraction. The other work, “The Little Humpbacked Horse,” which bowed Tuesday, is its opposite, showcasing Ratmansky’s refreshingly goofy sense of humor. At times, it seems as if “Horse” jumped straight out of “Looney Tunes.”
Even so, the plot is complicated enough that it helps to read the program’s synopsis. It’s based on a 19th-century Russian fable about the misadventures of young, callow Ivan, the beautiful maiden he loves but captures for the czar as a potential bride, and his helper throughout it all, a spirited horse.
There are few dancers better-trained than these — only the Paris Opera Ballet’s can match them. Vladimir Shklyarov is a convincingly silly, boyish Ivan. Skinny, with gangly limbs and chestnut hair, he has a powerful jump but pretends he’s a dancing idiot savant. He restarts a variation several times after intentionally screwing it up.
Viktoria Tereshkina is anything but a porcelain princess. She’s a tomboy who’s as goofy as Ivan, and their first awkward love scene — after he catches her by her ponytail — is the most charming in the ballet.
Ivan’s faithful equine companion is Vasily Tkachenko, a little slip of a dancer, but his role, all at a speedy gallop, is every bit as demanding as Ivan’s.
The production is anything but old-fashioned. Maxim Isaev’s designs, which include costumes painted with huge Pop Art faces, are in keeping with the ballet’s humor. Two pompadoured horses in denim jumpsuits look suspiciously like Elvis.
Ratmansky’s career is in overdrive right now. “The Bright Stream” was the best thing in American Ballet Theatre’s season, and he has a premiere coming up in Paris. But his ballets can seem hyperactive. He presents ideas at a breathless clip, and it’s hard to enjoy the ballet fully with the action whizzing by. If he were working at Pixar instead of in St. Petersburg, they still might ask him to take a chill pill.
Even with frantic choreography, it’s worth going to see the Mariinsky just for its orchestra. Superstar conductor and director Valery Gergiev was on the podium for the first performances, and he elicited a huge sound from the boisterous score by Rodion Shchedrin. You can see “Horse” again at a Saturday matinee, the double bill tomorrow and Saturday night and “Karenina” tonight.