Russian ballet companies love their autocrats, and the recent history of the Kirov and Bolshoi is defined by the tyrants who ruled them. But in Valery Gergiev, the head of St Petersburg's celebrated Mariinsky Theatre, the Kirov has the greatest autocrat of all.
You might know him as one of the world's most fêted conductors, but as the artistic and general director of the Mariinsky he's responsible for the Kirov Ballet as well as the Kirov Opera. Over the past decade, this firebrand Russian maestro has consolidated his influence on the ballet. His supporters will tell you that he rescued the company from financial ruin and artistic paralysis (it was certainly in a mess when he took over in 1996). His detractors will tell you that his ignorance about dance has impeded his decision-making and, worse, that his favouritism towards the opera means that the ballet goes starved for cash while singers flourish.
Gergiev is quick to scorn such criticisms. “The ballet is an equal partner to the opera in my theatre,” he says. And he doesn't micro-manage the ballet either, he insists, though you can be sure that Yuri Fateyev, recently appointed as ballet director, will be dancing to Gergiev's tune. So what is his job description? Indeed, what with running one of the world's top opera companies, fulfilling his duties as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, schmoozing Russian presidents and overseeing a new opera house in St Petersburg, where does he find the time to even think about dance? “I'm the strategic thinker,” says the indefatigable and famously stressed 55-year-old. “My role is to support everything that helps this company to continue its tradition and yet create something new.”
Gergiev certainly has to carry the can for the disaster of the ballet's last London season, two years ago. Then it was “something new” that got them into trouble. Thanks to a hastily arranged staging of The Golden Age - intended as the dance centrepiece of his much-vaunted Shostakovich celebrations - the company, then led by Makhar Vaziev, suffered the kind of critical vitriol that would have sent a lesser troupe home to lick its wounds for a decade. “Vaziev's choice of choreographer was a big mistake,” Gergiev says. “The project was too big for Noah Gelber and the result wasn't good. I was very upset and I blame myself for not intervening. I never want to see experimentation go that far again.”
Gergiev is obviously hoping to make a better impression this time round. The 2008 London season, which opens next Monday, showcases a very different facet of the Mariinsky troupe. The venue is smaller - Sadler's Wells instead of the Coliseum or the Royal Opera House; the repertoire is more streamlined and modern than the usual fare; and the company is coming without its internationally acclaimed ballerinas, and with very few of its principal dancers. The Russians have chosen instead to field their “A Team of young stars”. So keep an eye out for Ekaterina Kondaurova, Olesya Novikova, Elena Sheshina and Evgenya Obraztsova.
And why not the Coliseum or Covent Garden? “There is a particular image of Sadler's Wells that is more innovative and unusual,” Gergiev says. “It's not the place for us to bring Swan Lake. There's a new phase at the Mariinsky Ballet, reflecting changes that the people of London may not know so well.”
Those changes are reflected in a repertoire solely devoted to 20th-century choreography, including landmark works by George Balanchine, iconoclastic trailblazers by the American William Forsythe and newer work by the Russian Alexei Ratmansky. Of course it's the wonders of the Mariinsky's 19th-century heritage - Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère - that have captivated the world, but Gergiev is determined that the Mariinsky (they don't call it the Kirov anymore) presents a more modern image. He can't bear to see the company stagnate by living in the past, no matter how glorious. “Do we need two versions of Sleeping Beauty, two Bayadères?” he asks, thus dismissing in a single question two of the most important reconstructions under Vaziev's directorship. “We have wonderful tours, wonderful stars, we dance Swan Lake 100 times, Bayadère 50 times, we are sold out in London, sold out in St Petersburg. But without new work something is missing.
“We cannot kill our tradition, that's for sure,” he adds. “And that tradition will be kept in good shape by our dancers, who have to excel in the traditional repertoire. But it they are also good in Forsythe, so much the better.” Forsythe's ballets, with their fizzing, off-kilter dynamism, have given the company a taste of contemporary chic. Equally important, though, is the Mariinsky's embrace of George Balanchine, the Russian expat who founded New York City Ballet and whose sleek neo-classical creations transformed ballet in the 20th century. “Balanchine suits this company so well,” Gergiev says. “We understand what he was trying to say with his choreography because he was a child of our tradition and never broke with it.”
As for Ratmansky, suddenly the world's hottest choreographer, Gergiev is quick to point out that he was there first. “I invited Ratmansky to the Mariinsky 11 years ago. No one knew him in those days but people I trusted told me that he was an interesting and cultured man.” Middle Duet, set to music by the Russian composer Yuri Khanon, was made for the Kirov in 1998 and will be seen again in London.
Gergiev himself is scheduled to conduct Balanchine's Apollo and The Prodigal Son on October 15, though he still cringes when he remembers the first ballet he conducted in St Petersburg. It was Romeo and Juliet; he was just 24, and unknown. “The performance was very bad because it had nothing to do with the tempos Prokofiev wrote,” Gergiev says. “The natural flow of music is where the conductor has the highest responsibility and this is not always what dancers want. It took me one day to become well-known because everyone was asking: who is this conductor who didn't wait for the dancers?”
The Mariinsky Ballet opens at Sadler's Wells, EC1 (0844 4124300), next Monday
