Passion with a Put-On

By John T. Elson

Dame Margot Fonteyn is indisputably a prima ballerina assoluta. The Stuttgart Ballet now ranks among Europe's best dance companies. Its director and chief choreographer, John Cranko, is possibly the reigning master of story ballet. Put them all together and what do you get? What you get, sad to say, is a campy, overripe, overdecorated disaster called Poeme de I'Extase, which was given its American premiere last week at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Mature Genius. Based on two sensuous scores by Scriabin, Poeme was created for Fonteyn by Cranko, an admirer of hers since their days together at Britain's Royal Ballet. There is something basically appealing about a tribute from one artist to another, and the principal role would seem to be tailor-made for the mature genius of Dame Margot, now 52. She plays a turn-of-the-century operatic diva who meets and dazzles a younger man (Egon Madsen) at a cocktail party. Then, in a swirling dream sequence, she recalls the four great loves of her past. Realizing that amour is now beyond her, she sends the youth away and stands alone onstage with her memories as the curtain falls.

This conventional theme might serve for a Tennessee Williams playlet. It might even be turned into a decent ballet, but not as Cranko has tarted it up. Poeme inconsistently wobbles between crude parody--guests at the party flounce offstage in a way that was clearly meant to be amusing--and lush sentimentalism. The four lithe male dancers who play the diva's lovers are coyly dressed in skintight body stockings and continually swirl enormous Art Nouveau capes about themselves like pretend matadors at a gay beach.

Dame Margot still conveys expressive wonders with her exquisite arms, but she clearly is out of step with the acrobatic Cranko style, and her miming of anguish and passion looks rather like a put-on. Poeme, in short, is less a tribute to her glamour than an unintentionally cruel exploitation of her age and fading skills.

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