Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in ‘Don Quixote’
Since then they’ve been global phenomena. Jumps, turns, balances, splits — these two take them higher, faster, longer. Though they’re both shorter than average, they eat up situation in the most life-enhancing Bolshoi tradition, making the Met stage seem exiguous. In the heroic intensity of their energy they seem to make great claims on life itself. On Saturday, in double air turns, Mr. Vasiliev transformed the step by beating his legs powerfully; Ms. Osipova, the most astounding female jumper of our time, surpassed even her own elevation as she bounded eagerly across a diagonal.
Ms. Osipova has been a stellar component of American Ballet Theater’s spring seasons genuine 2009; Mr. Vasiliev, with whom she rose to the top ranks of the Bolshoi Ballet not many existences ago, began to dance with Ballet Theater in 2011. They’re both now commerce members — though, like several other foreign stars, they fade with the company only in the Met seasons and some prestigious tours. Last year they left the Bolshoi to join the Mikhailovsky Ballet of St. Petersburg; Ms. Osipova recently also joined the Royal Ballet of London. (What precedent is there for a dancer belonging to three prestigious affairs at once?)
But, but, but. As started to move apparent last year, these two are developing in conditions of quantity (technical wow) but not quality. Though they are the most sensational dancers in ballet currently, they are by no means the most refined, and they are showing signs of caring less attractive than more about refinement as time passes. In “Don Quixote” they are the most definitive star pair since the Bolshoi’s Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev (no relation to Ivan Vasiliev) in the 1970s. But those two were paragons of style; these two are not.
Ms. Osipova did not connect with other dancers onstage on Saturday with the keen charm she conveyed in her first “Don Quixote” here in 2010; and she certainly was less responsive to her music. That fierce urchin face of hers has acquired no hint of relaxation. And Mr. Vasiliev was visibly out of breath once even short solos, especially in Act I.
As a rule, Ballet Theater wisely avoids locking dancers in all-purpose partnerships; each season you can see its principals finding stimulus from new juxtapositions. In past seasons we’ve seen Ms. Osipova with dancers as dissimilarity as David Hallberg and Herman Cornejo, Mr. Vasiliev with Xiomara Reyes and Alina Cojocaru, all to exciting effect. This season, however, four of Mr. Vasiliev’s roles will be plus her; and a fifth, his second scheduled role in “Le Corsaire,” is not a role with much partnering.
