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Alexandra Tomalonis
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La Fille Mal Gardee

Royal Ballet
By Alexandra Tomalonis
Special to The Washington Post
June 12, 2001

The Royal Ballet saved a surprise for Kennedy Center audiences Saturday afternoon, when Johan Kobborg, the Danish dancer who’s caused a sensation in London this season, made his debut as Colas, the farmboy sweetheart in Frederick Ashton’s “La Fille Mal gardée.” Few dancers seem so perfectly suited to a role.

Danish Bournonville training gave Kobborg his clean technique and sweet, subtle way of miming. His huge jump, centered turns and flashing beats were glorious enough, but he also danced with a beautiful legato phrasing that made the tricky arm positions seem second nature.

Kobborg’s tender reticence made his relationship to Lise all the funnier, since Mara Galeazzi danced the “badly guarded daughter” of the title as a witty scamp with nonstop energy.

The Royal riches kept coming. Saturday evening, Sarah Wildor seemed to be living the role of Lise rather than acting it. Wildor is the most musical of dancers. She seems to fit inside the music from her first step and dances as one with it, floating atop the melody. In the first act’s big pas de deux, she may have smudged the footwork a bit, but it was done in the interests of the music, no sin in Ashton, and her dancing in the wedding pas de deux was as smooth and rich as country cream.

Ethan Stiefel, familiar here from his appearances with American Ballet Theatre, was terrific in the big solos, but seemed a guest in the rest of the ballet.

Sunday afternoon, Belinda Hatley and Stuart Cassidy took the leading roles, and actually looked as though they’d grown up together. When they made the cats cradle out of ribbon, it seemed a game they’d played since childhood, not a pretty trick. Cassidy was the only man on view this weekend who could handle the difficult partnering securely.

At each performance, there was a new Widow Simone and Alain, the dimwitted rich boy who nearly gets the girl. Some of the comedy was too coarse, especially in the Widow Simone’s famous clog dance, which is in danger of becoming a cartwheel cadenza. But Alain, a role danced for decades in pale imitation of Alexander Grant, the genius who created it, has been revived by several young dancers, each with imaginative touches, each breathing fresh air into one of ballet’s few great comedies.