Dance: Rediscovered Promise

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After nearly 30 years of artistic doubt and indecision, the American Ballet Theater seems to have rediscovered it self. Currently appearing at Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera House, Ballet Theater offers a program of carefully reconstructed classics with a sprinkling of modern works.

That, in effect, was the goal set for the company in 1940 by its founder, Architect Richard Pleasant. Since then, however, Ballet Theater has all too frequently strayed off on a series of unrewarding paths. After Pleasant entered the U.S. Army during World War II, the company came under the direction of Impresario Sol Hurok, who attempted to re-create it as a new "Ballet Russe," with an endless parade of show boating guest stars. In the mid-'50s, Ballet Theater embarked on a dreary succession of new dances, most of which were forgotten when the curtain came down. In addition to continual confusion over artistic direction, Ballet Theater suffered from crippling financial difficulties. The company has never had a permanent home.

Enhancing the Text. Three years ago, Ballet Theater's directors decided to go back to its original goals. Two of the company's finest productions have been restaged by Britain's David Blair, a one time principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, who brings to the classics an eye for dramatic consistency. "I don't think that it's very interesting or logical to have half a dozen people all standing around doing the same thing when they are supposedly individuals," he says. "We keep the choreography as it has come down to us, but we change the staging to set it off properly. It's like directing a play: you keep the text but find new ways to enhance it."

Blair's blend of precision and poetry is clearly apparent in his restaging of Giselle, the tragedy of a lovelorn Rhineland village maiden betrayed by a slumming nobleman. In other versions, Giselle frequently seemed to be a compendium of everything that is unreal and artificial about the art. As danced by Ballet Theater, this 19th century classic had a touch more of naturalism than never-never; the lead roles were performed with relaxed grace by Carla Fracci, on loan from the La Scala Opera Ballet, and Denmark's Erik Bruhn, still the supreme stylist among the world's male dancers.

Equally impressive was Blair's Swan Lake, which had its Ballet Theater premiere in 1967. After a year of living with the production, the company is able to bring to a performance some thing far more rare than mechanical perfection: aristocratic authority. And Ballet Theater fortunately possesses at least one ballerina with the promise of becoming an outstanding swan queen: 21-year-old Cynthia Gregory.