She hasn't changed at all. Many Russian dancers have come and gone since
last she was with us, but there is still none like her, none. Her perfect
technique remains the least of her graces. The secret of her charm lies
deeper, in the power to interpret and convey emotions in the language of
her art. To watch her feet alone is to hear the shuddering sigh of her
Dying Swan, but her whole body is alert to translate every nuance of her
theme.
She can draw beauty even from an anticlimax. Again and again in
_Snowflakes_, when her partner withdrew the support of his hand, she poised
for a moment, and, when the poise had to cease, covered her descent with
the most fascinating gestures of head and arms.
I liked her least (if one may talk of her like that) as the gipsy-girl in
_Amarilla_; not that she failed in dramatic intensity but that jealous
passion seems alien to her temperament as we have learned to know it. I
think, however, that my judgment was tainted by her wig, which greatly
distressed me.
In M. VOLININE she has a very accomplished partner. His solo as a
_Pierrot_, danced to a familiar air of DVORÁK'S, was the most delightful of
"_divertissements_." Her other dancers, Russian and English, make up a
really excellent company. The _presto furioso_ of the wild gipsy dance in
_Amarilla_, to the exciting music of GLOZOUNOW and DRIGO, was a brilliant
_tour de force_.
My only complaint (apart from _Amarilla's_ wig) is that the programme's
explanation of the motive of _Snowflakes_ was beyond me. "A little girl,"
it says, "receives as a present a nut-cracker in the form of a doll. The
doll is in reality a Prince who has been transformed by a bad fairy, but by
an act of devotion to the little girl he is restored to life. He then leads
his little friend and other children to the Kingdom of Pine-trees where the
Christmas-tree was born." It is true that the music was from TSCHAIKOWSKI'S
"Casse-Noisettes," and that the snow-scene was suggestive of Christmas-time;
but there was no sign of a "nut-cracker in the form of a doll," or, if
there was, I can't think how it escaped me, for I was watching with all
my eyes.