Summer Storm

By Joan Downs

"To love, all ages owe submission," wrote Alexander Pushkin. In his first major work in eight years, Choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, 69, has adapted for Britain's Royal Ballet A Month in the Country, the Ivan Turgenev play about the foolish love of an older woman for a young man. Far from sad and tormented, however, Ashton's musing on middle-age folly emerges as an airy confection of elegant humor, bittersweet lyricism and charm.

In its mood and rural setting, A Month in the Country is kin to Ashton's Enigma Variations, his last important ballet, created before he retired as the Royal's director. This time Ashton's gift for evoking another age is enhanced by a musical collage of Chopin. Julia Trevelyan Oman conceived the costumes and pale beige and blue furnishings of the sumptuous dacha, with ladies in flowing skirts and gentlemen in ivory frock coats. This is quite the prettiest ballet to light the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in some time and a high light of the Royal's current U.S. tour.

Love's Power. Lynn Seymour dances the role of the vivacious Natal ia, languishing in the midst of her family through the pastel days of summer. Her irrepressible son Kolia -- danced with gymnastic virtuosity by Wayne Sleep -- bounces his ball and rockets up in corkscrew jumps. With the entrance of Kolia's tutor Beliaev (Anthony Dowell), the sky outside darkens. Ominous chords sound in the orchestra and the curtains flutter -- all of which seems to signify more than just a passing storm. Immediately Mama is smitten, as is Vera, her young ward, portrayed by Denise Nunn, whom Ashton plucked from the corps to complete his triangle.

There are no heroes or villains in A Month in the Country, only human beings submitting ruefully to love's power. Seymour, an inspired actress, almost dances words as well as feelings. Ashton is one of ballet's supreme storytell ers. His pas de deux resemble poems. Dowell dances a sonnet with Natalia, a schoolboy's idyl with Vera, a naughty couplet or two with a coquettish maid. The clear dance designs, all curves and spirals, are infused with his classic sensibility. Let us hope for many another Ashton delight.

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