The part of Raymonda has always been considered a sort of qualification test for young ballerinas. Probably it is one of the reasons why the Bolshoi’s prima Svetlana Zakharova was so evidently nervous on the night of her debut the 31-st of March. Raymonda comes fourth on the list of Zakharova’s newly studied roles following the one of Aspicci in ‘The Pharaoh’s Daughter’, Soloist of the 2-nd part in ‘Symphony in C’ and Ippolita/Titania in ‘Mid-summer’s Night Dream’. As to her other parts danced for the Bolshoi Ballet – Giselle, Odette-Odile, Nikia, Aurora, Kitri – they had already been on her list in St. Petersburg. Zakharova’s debut had been longed for, many spectators were eager to see the performance urged by the news that in the current season the ballerina wouldn’t appear in ‘Raymonda’ any more. The aspirations made the atmosphere in the hall uplifting and festive.

But the very first act was disappointing. On the external side Svetlana Zakharova looked as charming as usual – young, beautiful and smiling – in her pale blue tutu and with a graceful diadem on she looked magnificent. Even without seeing Zakharova – Raymonda it was easy to predict with confidence that in terms of acting the ballerina fits the role for the simple reason that it doesn’t need much acting as acting has never been Svetlana Zakharova’s asset. According to the plot there are only two feelings that the performer is to convey – love for her groom and joy of life. But she was, obviously too reserved in displaying even that minimum of emotions. Yes, she was smiling, lovely and charming…but neither convincing nor involved…

Besides, her technique (presumably because of the anxiety that was difficult to hide) wasn’t perfect at all. Some smaller imperfections in the first variation entailed further ones, so all the variations of Act I were far from ideal. Her partner, well-built and handsome Andrey Uvarov, effectively dressed in a white costume and a cloak, looked completely uninvolved at the beginning – either tired or sleepy... The scene where Raymonda is daydreaming is to represent the interior landscape of her soul flooded with vague premonitions and turmoil, however Zakharova’s Raymonda failed to convince she really felt anything like that. Neither did she oppose to each other these two very contrasting states – the reality and the world of her dreams. The anxiety and fear at seeing Abderakhman were hardly felt in her dancing and acting. This line of the plot, evidently essential for Grigorovich, was not developed any further by the ballerina, which made her Raymonda look a purely divertissement role in the second act.

In the second act Мark Peretokin - Abderakhman reigned on stage and drew such well-deserved cheers for his darkly virtuoso dancing, that at times the performance seemed to be about to stop. Raymonda – Zakharova danced with more confidence but still wasn’t glamorous enough. By the third Act the ballerina’s anxiety seemed to have worn off and the variation was done with technical precision, with appreciable inspiration, with the triumphant air of a genuine Bolshoi's star.

The virtuousness and specialist precision of her dancing in the third act confirmed that she justifies her position. However, her manner wasn’t the same throughout the performance: in the Adagio she emphasised the beauty of her poses and steps while in the variation they looked somehow unpleasantly swift and hasty, the tempo of her dancing deliberately quickened, which deprived it of due smoothness and cantilena.

In the third act Andrey Uvarov seemed to have stopped snoozing too. Each of his amazing, weightless, ‘soaring’ jumps drew a storm of applauses, which, evidently, contributed to the success of the show.

Ludmila Semenyaka, Svetlana’s constant tutor, is remembered as a brilliant second cast Raymonda of the Bolshoi’s 1984 season, where she presented her heroine as an earthly and concrete personality. Svetlana is known to have actually patterned the nuances of the role entirely on her tutor’s vision that goes against the idea of Yury Grigorovich, who preferred his heroine to be gracefully romantic.

It was Natalia Bessmertnova, the first performer of the title role, who with amazing precision conveyed every hidden between the lines tint of the vague dreamings, forebodings, turmoil of feelings and the harmony acquired at last. There was a touch of understatement in every step of hers, Alexandr Pushkin poetical light sorrow and eternal aspiration for Perfection. Svetlana Zakharova’s appearance and physique as well as the perfect lines of her dance style are, certainly, closer to the image created by Bessmertnova. But the Bolshoi's young star so far has been working under the guidance of Ludmila Semenyaka, who patterns Zakharova on her own understanding of the roles, which is, unfortunately, natural for many teachers. Had Svetlana rehearsed her Raymonda with Bessmertnova, this many-faceted role would have been interpreted in a far more impressive way both in terms of dancing and acting. Probably, the young ballerina wouldn’t have been praised in the variation and code of the third act only, where she could rightfully boast of her filigree technique, but she would have able to reveal the inner life of her heroine, the part so rich in choreographic nuances and sentiments…

‘Raymonda’s Variegated Image’ – such was the title of the film-concert made in 1983 by the Leningrad TV where the then best ballerinas of the Kirov Theatre – Gabriela Komleva, Galina Mezentseva, Lubov Kunakova and Olga Tchenchikova – danced different variations of the title role. Svetlana Zakharova with her musicality, radiance and lyricism and exclusive beauty of her lines seems specially created to perform it. Yet, for all that her Raymonda is still sadly far from being variegated ...