La Fille mal gardee, Royal Opera House, London - review

This English translation of La Fille mal gardee ("The Wayward Daughter") is now given in the Covent Garden programme, but for anyone looking at the stage action, the translation is unnecessary: Ashton's Fille is English ballet to the core, for all its French title, its ancien-regime roots, even its reminiscence of an earlier St Petersburg staging in Lise's bewitching mime scene about marriage.

In this very happy revival it also speaks grandly about Ashton's choreography as a central element of the Royal Ballet's identity, about the cast's musical sensibilities and their openness in feeling and expression, about that assurance of physical and emotional manner in performance which had come with the company's international recognition and success when this work was made in 1960.

In recent Covent Garden performancesFille has again illuminated its dancers' gifts and been illuminated by them. Roberta Marquez, with her elegant feet and her no less elegant way with comedy, is an adorable Lise, the bravura steps, the emotions, placed sweetly on the music, the character revealed in happiest fashion, the whole ballet lit by her charm and her evident delight in playing. And her second act slide down the stairs a comic joy.

Her Colas, Alexander Campbell, was bright in step, with every challenge in this challenging role happily met - as with his fine performance as Lescaut last year, and, in this debut, warming with real delight to its demands and its rewards. Add a merry and clog-happy Widow Simone from Thomas Whitehead and Luca Acri's ideal Alain, who is funny, real, touching, and played with not a physical or emotional trick in the role missed, and you have Ashton grandly honoured. In everything, the cast - and the ballet - looked happy, a masterpiece loved and illuminated. Laurels to all the dancers, and much gratitude.

roh.org.uk

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