Maurice Béjart triple bill, Paris Opera Ballet review — choreographer’s works make welcome return

Maurice Béjart’s large repertoire of ballets has seen better days. Since the French choreographer’s death in 2007, few companies have consistently revived them and, lately, his own Béjart Ballet Lausanne has been under a cloud of controversy, including a 2021 audit which pointed to internal dysfunction.

In that context, it is good to see a full Béjart evening again at the Paris Opera Ballet — the first since 2008. The cavernous Opéra Bastille may not be the best setting for his spare, concise Firebird and Song of a Wayfarer. Still, young dancers performed both works with thoughtful precision while many senior soloists were busy with Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project, whose Paris premiere is later this week.

Using one of Stravinsky’s suites rather than the full score, The Firebird is heroic, revolutionary Béjart, a style that few choreographers would even attempt today. A leader in red emerges from a group of “partisans”, soars with them and is ultimately reborn when he falls. There is a hint of Spartacus to the proceedings, but with fewer histrionics; Béjart nods to the original Firebird with birdlike arms here and there, and he is skilled at lending visual power to group dynamics. While the finale, with its army of unitard-clad firebirds under a red sun, takes the work’s metaphors a tad too far, Francesco Mura brought convincing, if slightly underpowered, phrasing to the central role.

By contrast, Béjart’s Mahler-inspired Song of a Wayfarer is highly introspective. The central wayfarer, first performed by Rudolf Nureyev in 1971, is shadowed by a second dancer, an enigmatic figure of destiny. He comforts his companion at times, yet ultimately leads him towards death.

This austere back-and-forth requires such emotional maturity that the roles are typically given to experienced principals such as Hugo Marchand and Germain Louvet, who performed it with great care at a recent gala for the late POB star and director Patrick Dupond. By contrast, the biography of Enzo Saugar, a 2020 hire tasked with playing the figure of destiny for this run, stretches to only two lines in the programme. And yet, opposite Antoine Kirscher’s expressive, romantic Wayfarer, he moved through Béjart’s stark neoclassical steps with a quiet authority beyond his years. Even when he was still he was in charge, and will be one to watch.

The evening closed with a work that defines Béjart for many younger viewers: his 1961 Boléro. It is as gender-fluid a ballet as the 20th century produced, with men and women taking turns on its large red table, including Paris Opera Ballet star Dorothée Gilbert this evening.

She is a dancer of unimpeachable style and control, but here that control got the better of her. Early on, she flirted appealingly with Ravel’s beat, catching it at the last possible millisecond. Yet she never quite found her connection with the dozens of men who slowly surround the table, thrusting as if under her spell while Ravel’s score grows irrepressible. That erotic edge may well come in time as the Paris Opera continues to reacquaint itself with Béjart.

★★★★☆

To May 28, operadeparis.fr