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Alexandra Tomalonis
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Le Jeune Homme et la Morte

PARIS OPERA BALLET
Alexandra Tomalonis
Special to The Washington Ballet
March 30, 1993; Page e6

Like an NBA championship team, the Paris Opera Ballet has a very deep bench. The short works it's been dancing at the Opera House -- Serge Lifar's "Icare" and "Suite en Blanc" and Roland Petit's "Le Rendez-vous" -- are full of juicy roles, and recently the company's etoiles delivered equally juicy dancing The company is unusual in having as many interesting men as women. The men are masculine and elegant; their strength is easy and never brutish, and there's a cool discipline in the way they move that's an apt complement to the women's glamour and mischievous serenity.

Two of the ballets on view were men's shows. "Icare," a 1935 work about Icarus's ill-fated attempt to fly, gained theatrical vitality and clarity with Charles Jude in the title role March 20. Jude is a big man, but light, and there was air in his dancing. The following afternoon, Jean-Yves Lormeau gave a more technical interpretation in a work that's dated badly.

In contrast, "Le Rendez-vous" seems amazingly contemporary. Patrick Dupond gave an especially desperate and passionate performance March 21 as the Young Man who finds death when he seeks love. Unable to match his passion, Fanny Gaida seemed to kill him in self-defense. Kader Balarbi (at the March 20 matinee) was more vulnerable, and his final battle with death, in the person of Marie-Claude Pietragalla as the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, was both sad and inevitable.

"Suite en Blanc" looks like the end-of-term show of a very great school. The structure is so fragmented -- it's a collection of unrelated solos -- that the ballet never boiled, despite terrific performances. Manuel Legris danced the Mazurka with precision and fire. Sandrine Marache nearly stole the show at the matinees by leading the pas de cinq at a gallop.