Even if clowns don’t automatically send you screaming into the night, you might not have a great time at La Strada. The Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru is instigator and star of this circus-set ballet based on Fellini’s 1954 film. But although she’s a remarkable performer, the ballet itself lets the drama dribble away.
More than most leading ballerinas, Cojocaru steers her own destiny, building an international career as a guest star. Which makes it more striking that her great gift is for pathos – there’s no one better cast as love’s victim, destiny’s fool. Gelsomina, her young heroine here, is an innocent working for Zampanò, a brutish circus strongman who neglects and mistreats her.
Cojocaru’s eyes are dark pools; her limbs can be elegant and awkward all at once. Petite as a sparrow, she can elongate like a stork. As Gelsomina, we see her splay, totter and then soar – it’s as if dance is the medium of her unquenchable optimism. The ballet gives her two guardian angels who lift and support her: kinder than any of the flesh-and-blood blokes she encounters in real life, giving her a chance to fly.
Fellini’s films are filthy with life, and often centre on performers: divas, hoofers and starlets. His ratty circus troupe, trudging from place to place in La Strada, loses its sweat and sawdust in this staging. The thrill of putting on a show, even a bad one, dribbles away. It’s Nino Rota’s music that does a lot of the heavy lifting. A patchwork taken from several of his movie scores – there’s also The Leopard and La Dolce Vita – it shuttles between dreamy waltzes, jazzy ensembles, sobbing melodies, offering a propulsion that the movement lacks.
The work of Slovakian choreographer Natália HoreÄná is unfamiliar in the UK. In La Strada, she casts a feisty set of dancers and gives them vigorous moves – but has a vague hold on narrative and, worse, on emotion. Even if you know the film, it’s often hard to grasp what’s happening, or why it matters to the characters. Fussy, unmotivated duets and trios fumble their sense of drive or need.
Italian dancer Mick Zeni gives Zampanò some layers. Callous stumblebum he may be, but dance allows the strongman scraps of grace, lets him reach for the better man he might have been. His brawn contrasts with Johan Kobborg’s sprightly tumbler, of whom he’s violently jealous – Kobborg (Cojocaru’s real-life husband), reveals some nifty footwork and an impressive turn on the unicycle.
In all three ballets I’ve seen this year, the heroine ends up dead. Gelsomina, poor waif, has even less agency than Giselle or Manon. Despite Cojocaru’s best efforts, she deserves more than this lachrymose dawdle of an evening.
Sadler's Wells, to January 28; sadlerswells.com
