Lady of the Still Point

By John T. Elson

For most of the ballet enthusiasts who saw its New York premiere, the American Ballet Theater's sumptuous new production of Raymonda provided a night to remember. For one thing, the visually dazzling revival marked the return of Denmark's Erik Bruhn, 46, from his retirement three years ago; at the peak of his career, he was widely regarded as the world's reigning danseur noble. For another, Bruhn was appearing for the first time in the U.S. with his friend and rival Rudolf Nureyev, who has created a production that should enhance his reputation as a major choreographer. Finally, the premiere marked the emergence of American Ballerina Cynthia Gregory as a true superstar.

The lavish A.B.T. production is the first complete American version of this three-act ballet in nearly 30 years. In one sense, the neglect is hard to explain, since Raymonda is one of five surviving full-length works (including Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake) of the 60 or so ballets created by the great Marius Petipa principally for St. Petersburg's Maryinsky Theater. The choreography ranks with Petipa's most inventive, and the score by Alexander Glazunov is both limpid and melodious.

Dream Sequence. On the other hand, the cumbersome romantic story involves what might be best described as a severe credibility gap. Briefly put, it tells of a countess in medieval Hungary who is torn between love for her betrothed, a dashing crusader named Jean de Brienne, and an earthier affection for a fiery Saracen knight, Abdul-Rakhman. Nureyev, who frequently danced in Raymonda when he was with Leningrad's Kirov Ballet, has staged the work for A.B.T. with such taste and delicacy that it is hard to tell where his choreography begins and Petipa's ends. In a valiant effort to make psychological sense of the plot, he has turned the scenes involving the Saracen and his court into a dream sequence--a wedding-bound maiden's erotic fantasy about a phantom lover. Beyond that, Nureyev has blessedly jettisoned narrative, so that for the most part his Raymonda is a two-hour experience in pure dance.

And what dancing there is! Just as there is grand opera, there is also grand ballet--unfettered by logic, celebrating showmanship and dazzle for their own sake. There were a few opening-night technical mishaps, but Nureyev's Raymonda is so studded with spectacular solos, pas de deux, pas de trois, pas de quatres, stylistic evocations of folk dance and rousing ensemble displays that it is rather like a 19-course meal devised by an overeager master chef. There are almost too many delights to absorb. One of them, certainly, is a revitalized Erik Bruhn, who brings to the secondary role of the Saracen his magisterial elegance of line, as well as a Tartar-like ferocity surprising in a dancer noted for ethereal courtliness. Hampered by an ankle injury, Nureyev as Jean de Brienne performed his four demanding solo variations with visible strain; the unmistakable elan and animal dynamism were there, but not the usual accuracy. Still, his work with Cynthia Gregory was a model of supportive adoration.

The incandescent Miss Gregory danced the role as if it had been created for her alone, carrying out variation after variation--six in all--with radiant confidence. The breathtaking pauses at the peak of her balances last only a second or so; yet they seem to embody T.S. Eliot's haunting lines in Burnt Norton: "At the still point of the turning world . . . There the dance is, but neither arrest or movement."

On tiptoe she stands nearly 6 ft. tall, towering majestically over most of her partners. Until a recent discreet bit of plastic surgery, her Grecian nose was too long for prettiness, and her long legs are notable more for strength than symmetry. Nonetheless, Cynthia Gregory--as no less an authority than Rudi Nureyev puts it--is "America's prima ballerina assoluta. She is really magnificent."

She may also be America's least appreciated great dancer. A principal with the American Ballet Theater since 1967, she is incredibly versatile, performing anything from Swan Lake to Glen Tetley's angularly modern Gemini. Yet much more popular attention has been focused recently on the arrival of several notable defectors from Russia. "Americans don't appreciate their own people," she says. "We all love [Mikhail] Baryshnikov, and having [Natalia] Makarova in the company is healthy competition for me; but there are great American dancers too. Only we have nothing to sell but our dancing."

Gregory has been selling American dance for 14 years. California-born, the daughter of a dress manufacturer, she had her first ballet lesson when she was five. At 14, she won a Ford Foundation scholarship from the San Francisco Ballet before joining its corps a year later. She had three tryouts with A.B.T. before it accepted her into its corps in 1965. The problem, always, was her height.

Not surprisingly, she is somewhat obsessed with the search for a perfect partner. "I had great hopes for Erik Bruhn," she says wistfully. But by the time she was ready for Bruhn, he had retired; and in any case he was too short (5 ft. 7 in.) to be ideal. Nureyev is also only 5 ft. 7 in., but she notes that dancing with him is "something special. I feel the contact and security that I had not quite felt before. With him you feel like a beautiful, desirable woman."

Although Gregory is girlishly demure as the bride-to-be in Raymonda, her customary onstage persona is cool, queenly, commanding. Offstage, though, she is shy, giggly, self-critical and uncertain. (One possible reason: she is currently separated from her husband of nine years, A.B.T. Dancer Terry Orr.) She seems uncomfortable with public acclaim ("I can't get it through my head that they are talking about me"). But her triumph in Raymonda may change that. As she told TIME'S Rosemarie Tauris Zadikov last week: "It didn't really hit me until I stood in front of the curtain with Bruhn and Nureyev to take bows after the performance." (They received a 20-minute standing, cheering ovation.) "Suddenly I felt so elated. I said to myself, 'This is the peak so far. This is the chance I've been waiting for.' "

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