An Excerpt From

Valery Gergiev and the Kirov: A Story of Survival

By John Ardoin
Foreword by Sir Peter Ustinov

There was a palpable air of excitement at the theater in late October during my stay, for the word spread quickly that an on-again, off-again Kirov dancer, Igor Zelensky, was taking class with the company. Although this major artist had not formally broken ties with the theater, it was rumored he had had disputes with members of the ballet's staff that had led him to be more active in the West, where he joined the New York City Ballet for a while. But Zelensky frequently returned to St. Petersburg to visit his family and friends. On this trip home, speculation was running high as to whether or not he would dance. When the posters went up announcing him for a single performance of Swan Lake and one of Le corsaire in early November, you could feel the tension double inside the theater.

His appearance as Siegfried and Ali more than justified the advance word on this exceptional danseur noble. He is a beautifully proportioned man, somewhat reminiscent physically of the Bolshoi's Alexander Godunov, but more even and satisfying in the use of his body. Then, too, Zelensky is far more of a poet. Everything he did at the Mariinsky in November was elegant and suave and set within the context of an expressive, flexible, masculine line. There were no holes in his dancing, no lapses in his phrases, and for so big and tall a dancer, he became airborne in an amazingly easy manner, frequently descending to the stage to end a phrase in a riveting sort of tapered-off, winding-down way that was reminiscent of Yuri Soloviev.

In fact, his dancing on the whole appeared slower than that of others in the same roles, and the complete control he exercised over his body have his slow-motion style a distinct and individual quality. It was as if he possessed the gift of suspending time and space, or better said, that he seemed to have the ability to reshape spatial elements at will. What he did and how he did it was, of course, more difficult than any facile, flashy, all-out virtuosity. Zelensky unerringly held an audience's attention --- as if it depended for its life's breath on his perfect completion of a particular movement. Never did he let those of us down who were held rapt by his art.