New Line at the Bolshoi

"Physical training!" snorted one elderly Russian balletomane, stomping out of Moscow's cavernous Bolshoi Theater. "Pantomime!" jeered another. Inside, the spectators traded insults for a full 15 minutes after the final curtain. Source of their excitement: a new ballet entitled Spartacus, marking the first major departure from the classic choreographic style in which Russian ballet has been frozen on pointe for 30 years.

After famed reforming Choreographer Michel Fokine finally left Russia in 1918, the country's ballet degenerated for a time into choreographed political posters, continued to develop impressive technical skill. But it lived in a world apart from the fresh dance ideas that swept through Europe and the U.S. Later, the major companies commissioned works by modern composers, including Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, but all three tailored their music to the classic choreographic idiom. The Russians' failure in modern productions became most evident during the Bolshoi Ballet's otherwise hugely successful 1956 season at London's Covent Garden. The company expertly paraded such gorgeous old floats as Swan Lake and Giselle, but was peppered by the critics for the lack of imagination and heaviness of its scattered newer works. Back home, Russian choreographers petitioned the Ministry of Culture for a freer hand, and surprisingly, the Ministry agreed that "the many-sided variety of Soviet life is insufficiently reflected in ballet." Spartacus, music by Aram Khachaturian and choreography by Igor Moiseyev, scarcely intends to hold the mirror up to Soviet life, but it opens the window on a gaudy, gamy world rarely dreamed of by Moscow audiences.

Scrapping the Cliches. The Bolshoi's new extravaganza, with its 400 onstage musicians and dancers, tells the story of Rome's slave uprising as outlined by Sallust and Plutarch, ending in the betrayal and death of the slaves' leader, the gladiator Spartacus (a favorite historical character of Karl Marx). Composer Khachaturian, a Stalin Prizewinner, diplomatically finds the ballet apt "at a time when many peoples are fighting for liberation and colonial rule is crumbling."

The opening-night audience stared pop-eyed at some choice Saturnalia and orgies, at an Egyptian belly dance and a Greek striptease, at gladiatorial combat in the arena. In his experimental dance technology, Moiseyev brilliantly scrapped most of the cliche-laden movements and figures of Russian classical ballet, while retaining classical techniques of body control. Moreover, Moiseyev did away with the traditional counterpoint between soloist and corps de ballet, made mass dancing the ballet's main feature ("My hero," says Moiseyev, "is the masses").

Troubling the Audience. If Spartacus should prove the beginning of a revolution in Russian ballet, the Bolshoi Company clearly has the talent and technique to extend it. Most of the first-rate young dancers in last week's production (including Julia May Scott, daughter of an American Negro and a Russian mother) were unknown to the West. They were drawn from the corps de ballet on the theory that they would be less hidebound by classical technique than the older dancers (an exception: famed Soloist Maya Plisetskaya, dancing the courtesan Aegina). Lavishly supported by the government, the Bolshoi currently has some 250 regular dancers and mimes, including what is probably the most brilliant collection of soloists in the world.

Heading the list is the legendary Galina Ulanova, who at 47 has slowed down to an average of three ballets a month, but whose free-flowing line and effortless technique are still unmatched by any other dancer in the company. Ready to replace her are Maya Plisetskaya, 31, with her forceful, passionate style and broad, floating leaps; Raissa Struchkova, also 31, whose style in such a work as The Fountain of Bakhchisarai is warmly brilliant rather than deeply emotional; Marina Kondratieva, a rising star at 23, whose lightness and lyrical qualities make her a notable Cinderella.

Undisturbed by the traditionalist reaction against Spartacus, the Bolshoi is planning to encourage the shorter ballet form that has been the vehicle for most new choreographic ideas in the West. Says Artistic Director Alexander Tomsky: "We are not after a ballet that merely delights the eye; we are for ballet of deep feeling. We want to trouble the audience."

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