Natalia Osipova can calmly allow herself to hang up the acrobat dancer’s habits of the classic – Don Quixote, Corsair and other titles based on the impossible – and dedicate herself to more dramatic and neoclassical roles but, above all, to allow herself to be seduced by new creators. Because that is where her true artistic nature lies…in human exploration, in the expression of the indecipherable.
The instinctive Russian star of the Royal Ballet has shown during her time in Barcelona – where she spent three days at the Teatre Coliseum with her own project – that she has plenty of sensuality and artistic personality. As a performer she is light years ahead of other “second careers” that the most famous classical dancers have had. And the secret is in her visceral delivery and in the incredible way of capturing the choreographer’s intentions and taking them beyond her, always on the verge of jumping off the cliff.
The best proof of this was offered by the Muscovite at the Coliseum dancing a pas de deux by the Israeli Shahar Biniamini, Back to Bach, on the Cello Suite no. 1 by the German composer. Accompanied by Joseph Kudra (the muscular American performer who has currently joined the Rambert Ballet) and wearing pointe shoes, hair flying in the wind, Osipova let out her overwhelming interpretive magic that seems to grow in the service of the always intense Israeli school.
It was there and in the last Sad Waltz by Alexey Ratmansky with music by Sibelius that the gala grew with Osipova on stage, in this case with her Royal Ballet partner, Reece Clarke, putting the finishing touch to the first two evenings. The third and last appeared alone, ineffable, in Fokine’s brief Death of the Swan with music by Camile Saint-Saëns.
Because, as expected, in this gala of solos and pas de deux titled Force of Nature that she and her husband, also a contemporary dancer and choreographer Jason Kittelberger, promote, they show off some pieces more than others. And also some soloists more than others. The opening, with the pas de deux of Corsair, by Marius Petipa and music by Riccardo Drigo) serves the energetic Moscow star to meet the public’s expectations of seeing her dance a fragment of the virtuoso repertoire – wonderful fouettés and double pirouettes that satisfied the thirst of the public -, but above all what it aims to do is to make known that marvel of the Het National Ballet of Amsterdam, the Georgian Giorgi Potskhishvili, whose prodigious anatomy dwarfs the stage of the Coliseum as soon as he appears around a corner.
With his jumps, turns in the air and the entire range of steps composed of high masculine virtuosity, he began a performance that, despite the spatial containment with which he was forced to move, was still a luxury for the city of Barcelona. . It is a pity that the high price of the cachet that Osipova sets as a great international figure has not corresponded to the dimension of his fame in the Mediterranean capital, where ballet still lives with one hand in front and one behind.
With the exception of the bets that IBStage Galas makes to bring great artists to the Liceu, the general public does not usually have many opportunities in Barcelona to be up to date with what is happening in the international sphere: that would mean money that invariably does not seem necessary to allocate to ballet… In this context, Balañá’s economically risky bet is appreciated. The high cost of tickets combined with the Barcelona public’s lack of knowledge of ballet meant that it was only close to being sold out in the third and final performance. On the day of the premiere, more than a third of the seats were empty – what a sin! – which, on the other hand, would not have happened if this show had been held during Christmas.
Osipova danced up to three of her husband’s pieces. And she danced them with him. The first, Ashes, with music with Jewish roots from that ensemble formed by the British Nigel Kennedy and the Polish Kroke Band (Kroke is Krakow in Hebrew), showed promise when we reached the break. But it doesn’t matter that Kittelberger is talented in his attempt to choreograph the life of a couple: it takes much more to take advantage of the brilliant Osipova, a star who has no chance of ever going out. In this sense, thank you Jason for bringing us closer to an Osipova of everyday situations, very human, of great gestural beauty, but…
The gala also featured former Mariinsky star Daria Pavlenko, who had also been part of Pina Bausch’s troupe. But her character and strong complexion were not enough to lift the pair of Pawel Glukhov solos that she danced, neither in La Petite Mort to music from the Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel nor in the Joan of Arc that she personified in the second part, in La Pucelle d’Orleans. Emma Farnell-Watson had better luck in another piece by Kittelberger and music by Rachmaninov.
