Bedtime stories

Boston Ballet's The Princess and the Pea and Firebird

by Jeffrey Gantz

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA, Music by Gustav Holst, arranged by Jonathan McPhee and Marina Gendel. Choreography by Daniel Pelzig. Set design by Michael Anania. Costume design by Marianne Verheyen. Lighting design by Brian MacDevitt.

FIREBIRD, Music by Igor Stravinsky, reduced orchestration by Jonathan McPhee. Choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. Set and costume design by Ian Falconer. Lighting design by Linda O'Brien.

Presented by Boston Ballet at the Wang Theatre through October 24.

The opening event of the season from any of this city's august institutions means black tie, gala gowns, festive dinners, and best artistic foot forward. From the BSO, we got Wagner; from the Huntington, George Bernard Shaw; from the ART, Dario Fo. The Lyric Opera is offering Aida to go with the MFA's Egyptian blockbuster.

So what is Boston Ballet serving up? Warm milk and fairytales: The Princess and the Pea (which premiered in 1995) from Daniel Pelzig, and the world premiere of Firebird, from 26-year-old New York City Ballet soloist and wunderkind choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. Of course, family ballet is good for the company's bank balance, but isn't that why we have The Nutcracker? And though these are pleasing entertainments, Wheeldon's G-rated (as in "generic") Firebird, the half of the program that's been getting all the attention, is closer to Beauty and the Beast than to American Beauty.

On the other hand, when you see that Jester cavorting in front of The Princess and the Pea's butterfly-and-peapod curtain, you know you're in for a quirky, adults-as-well-as-children fairytale. Headpieces are where it's at: the Queen's could double as the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, whereas her cowed mate's looks more like the coracle in which St. Brendan sailed to America. The arch, haughty Foreign Princesses wear those medieval tall conical numbers (except for the Turandot model and the Carmen Miranda knockoff); the would-be Princess Bride from the country (she's answered a "The Prince is looking for a Princess -- all qualified applicants apply at the castle" personals ad) wears what looks like a Christmas tree decorated with pink roses.

Pelzig delivers one treat after another: the oil lamps that descend as the three Gothic windows rise; the country dwellers' fir-tree houses; the way the Queen picks out the perfect pea from three baskets' worth; cartwheeling nightcapped mattresses whose fugal antics (including a parodic Swan Lake moment) are as funny as anything I've ever seen on the Wang stage (Jordan's Furniture should be so lucky); the Everest-like bed, and the warm-up barre exercises the Princess does before the attempt on the summit; the soap-bubble-blowing nearsighted-bookworm Prince; sparking servants; the Gershwin-dreamy pas de deux for the Prince and Princess under stars and a crescent moon; and an action-filled curtain call that conjures the finale of Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (this is what Royal weddings ought to be like). The real coup here, though, is the mating of Pelzig's campy, nudge-wink choreography with that last bastion of the British musical empire (not to mention NFL highlight films), Gustav Holst. Jonathan McPhee's Boston Ballet Orchestra plays the score McPhee and Marina Gendel arranged as if it were top-shelf Mozart (the only Holst conducting I've heard on this exalted level was Bernard Herrmann's Planets), and the BSO should have such brasses.

Larissa Ponomarenko was such a smash back in 1995 (who could forget her Lucy Ricardo imitation?) that I was dismayed not to see her in the casting. Still, April Ball does a pretty mean Debbie Reynolds without ever falling into cuteness (catch the longing look she throws the Prince when they're going off to bed -- separately, of course). Pollyana Ribeiro, more self-consciously comic, is just as delightful, and as the Clark Kent/Dustin Hoffman Prince, a superb Yuri Yanowsky has heart as well as comic timing. Christopher Budzynski and Reagan Messer are silly-but-sly Jesters -- in truth, everything is peachy in this Princess and the Pea.

Daniel Pelzig did have the advantage of a story with a clean ballet slate -- Christopher Wheeldon had a long history to contend with. Initially The Firebird was the creation of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with score by Igor Stravinsky, costumes by Léon Bakst, and choreography by Mikhail Fokine. After premiering on June 25, 1910, it was revived in 1926 (with new sets and costumes by Natalia Goncharova). Balanchine's 1949 New York City Ballet version (set to Stravinsky's shorter Firebird Suite) had sets and costumes by Marc Chagall (except for Maria Tallchief's red tutu); Balanchine redid it in 1970 (Gelsey Kirkland in gold) and 1972 (Karin von Aroldingen in wings, long skirt, and train). Maurice Béjart's 1970 all-male version salutes the Russian Revolution; Glen Tetley's 1982 postmodern production has the Prince rescuing the Princess from a possessive patriarch. For Dance Theatre of Harlem, John Taras put the evil magician in a polka-dot dress.

Clearly The Firebird is an elusive creature. Balanchine was never happy: "Right from the beginning it didn't work. You can never make it convincing that the ballerina is really fire -- she's just a dancer in a red tutu." Herald Tribune critic Walter Terry wrote, "The story of the ballet remains, inevitably, slight if not altogether pointless."

But were they missing the point? Starting from a Russian folktale where the Gray Wolf and the Firebird help Ivan Tsarevich (i.e., he's the crown prince) win a princess, the Ballets Russes Firebird re-created the primal duality of Eternal Feminine (the Firebird) and Earthly Paradise (the Princess). (Think of Siegfried caught between Odette and Odile in Swan Lake, or Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid relinquishing her Prince to his mortal Princess, or the E.T.A. Hoffmann stories "The Golden Pot" and "The Sandman.") Somehow Balanchine never saw that the Most Beautiful Princess was his wife, the other Princesses were his ex-wives and favorite ballerinas, and the Firebird was Suzanne Farrell, the woman who wouldn't marry him and who never danced the role.

This sense that Ivan is choosing between the Princess and the Firebird (and that the Firebird might wish she could be the Princess) is also absent from Wheeldon's Firebird. That said, Ian Falconer's sets and costumes are eye-catching: a forest of fat birches (symbols of fidelity); a monolithic stone castle with portcullis gate; a monster entourage including warthogs, crocodiles, cranes, skeletons, and statues; and a color-crazy riot of Russian-peasant outfits for the final wedding tableau. Ivan creates an air of mystery in his black-and-silver jerkin and borel cap; but the evil magician, Kashchei (the descendant of Swan Lake's Rothbart and Parsifal's Klingsor), looks with his wisp of a white beard like the spawn of Santa Claus and Clarabelle, the Firebird's glittery red unitard with fiery coxcomb and rooster tail is a little disappointing, and the Princesses dance in identical blond wigs and negligees (left over from last season's Dracula?), so you need to be sharp to pick out Ivan's Most Beautiful Princess. (Anyone who can't spot Larissa Ponomarenko, however, will have to repeat Ballet 101.)

And Wheeldon emasculates the story before the curtain even goes up by having Jonathan McPhee face the audience, his shadow looming large on the curtain behind, and intone, "Our kingdom is shrouded in darkness/Held under the powerful spell of the evil sorcerer Kashchei. . . ./Our last hope is the magical Firebird/Who until now has remained uncaptured." Wheeldon has also "Westernized" the story, but, like his predecessors, he's taken out more than he's put in. In Fokine's version both Ivan and the Firebird are after Kashchei's golden apples, a powerful symbol of immortality (and their common yearning for it); here they simply run into each other in the forest. In the Fokine, the Firebird gives Ivan a feather from her tail to break the erotic tension that's arisen (check out Philips's 1992 Stars of Russian Ballet video, which includes an incendiary nine-minute Firebird-Ivan pas de deux from Ilse and Andris Liepa); here she's just a bird with a heart of gold. In the Fokine, Ivan, at the Firebird's direction, breaks the egg that holds Kashchei's immortal soul (another powerful Russian symbol); here the Firebird simply dances Kashchei to death.

Wheeldon's choreography for the Firebird is conventionally birdlike, flapping arms and lots of bourrée steps. Adriana Suárez seemed too physically and emotionally angular to fill it out (alternative reading: she's giving Wheeldon exactly what he asked for). Alexandra Koltun is a softer dancer, and I thought she found a bit more (she stretched sinuously in that nice moment when Ivan holds the Firebird horizontal and rocks her), but not much. (I wonder whether Kyra Strasberg could have given these steps the erotic charge they need.) Simon Ball and Zachary Hench offer up sincere, slightly dorky (in the Russian tradition of Ivan as a seemingly slow-witted third son) readings of Ivan. Wheeldon does some fine work for the Princesses (check the close footwork in the middle of the "Golden Apples" section), and Larissa Ponomarenko takes advantage, nestling into her Most Beautiful Princess role as if it were a goose-down pillow. The more wide-eyed Marjorie Grundvig reminded me of Olivia de Havilland's Maid Marian; I was glad to see her get this opportunity. Paul Thrussell and Christopher Budzynski make the most of the underwritten Kashchei, whipping the black bag of a costume about to suggest a heroic physique gone wrong.

Wheeldon produces a memorable moment toward the end when Ivan and the Princess join hands to keep Kashchei from getting at the Firebird, and there's an even better one a few moments later, reminiscent of the end of Patrice Chéreau's Bayreuth Ring, when over tremolo strings the Firebird leads Ivan and the Princess out of the castle and into the light. (The Saturday-matinee audience spoiled it by applauding loudly.) The wedding tableau is about as energetic as Stravinsky's tricky score (which morphs from 3/2 into 7/4 and then halves the tempo) permits. It's a sumptuous conclusion that would be more satisfying if there were more matter in the story and choreography that precede it.

Still, these are swell bedtime stories -- thanks, Gramps. Now I'm going to try out that nine-mattress bed. Wake me when the season starts in earnest.