Nothing quite like a world premiere to crank up excitement in a ballet company, and Ballet West has a new piece that is on the whole very beautiful, exciting and stage-worthy, concocted by a team of experts who know how to put together a good piece of theater.
"The Queen of Spades," based on a Pushkin story and Tchaikovsky opera, is a simple, melodramatic tale that lends itself to pantomime and broad acting (in this case dancing) strokes. Its central theme is Herman's obsession with gambling, which sets all other tragic plot developments in motion. And Gilles Maidon, who creates the role, is a dancer/actor who conveys a feeling of hectic propulsion that turns to desperation, in one of his best characterizations for Ballet West.As Lisa, Erin Leedom creates an impressionable girl who follows her heart with disastrous results. Leedom's impression of grace and virginity is ideal for this part, and she and Maidon display one of the company's best partnerships in a sizzling pas de deux that could only end in seduction.
As for Herman's nemesis, the Old Countess, hers is an interesting assignment - to sing and act in a ballet - but the device works well, without incongruity. Andrea Thor-nock fulfills the role strongly, singing with perfect diction and conveying her character's disagreeable characteristics. Her death scene with its silent movie histrionics should be tempered; and her reappearance as a ghost should give you cold shivers, which it does not, mainly because she's dressed for a ball. I like my apparitions in white with blue light, or some such dramatic equivalent.
Prokovsky does not break new ground with this ballet, but composes with great skill and craft in the romantic/classical genre. He constructs consummate pas de deux and handles large ensembles admirably, with style and class. He likes narrative, full-length ballets, and his sure dramatic sense leads to clearly discernible plots that unfold naturally.
He sometimes prolongs a scene excessively, and sometimes overdresses a scene, as with the flock of gypsies where four or five would have done as well in the gambling scene. But the end product tends to be audience-friendly, a dance with which viewers can identify readily, as they did with clapping and cheering on opening night.
The visual production, designed by Alexandre Vassiliev, is arrestingly beautiful with a quite different, European look for Ballet West. Vassiliev often employs dramatic black and white, as in the striking opening scene in the summer garden of St. Petersburg, where a crowd enjoys the sunshine; and again in a grand ball, where the corps' black and white make the delightful masque of the playing cards stand out all the more colorfully.
By contrast, the flashback to the Countess's Parisian sojourn during the reign of Louis XV features an exquisite rainbow of pastels, with stylish dancing to music of Mozart. A scrim with playing cards and figures creates atmosphere, and striking stage pictures are often achieved with simple, strong lines and planes.
The score assembled largely from Tchaikovsky and Mozart by Guy Woolfenden is melodic and dramatic, and so cleverly crafted that it seems it could well have been constructed by the master. Terence Kern leads the Utah Chamber Orchestra persuasively and expressively, with expert coordination between the stage and the pit.