Feathered Fille

by Janet Anderson

Devilishly difficult and oh so pretty, La Fille mal gardée ("The Wayward Daughter") opened its Pennsylvania Ballet run last weekend. Here's a ballet where one of the tenderest pas de deux has the heroine dangling from a window in her lover's arms. With action filling up every inch of the stage, the problem for the audience is where to look.

Opening night heroine Arantxa Ochoa (Lise) managed to be both sweetly delicate and technically sharp. She polished off a series of treacherous balances requiring her to simultaneously move quickly forward and backward across the stage (don't try this at home), and yet was utterly beguiling in a famous scene where her character dance-mimes her love for handsome Colas. Meanwhile, as the dancing Colas, gallant Zachary Hench not only kept his balance and centering in gaspingly difficult leap-and-fly combinations (don't even think about these at home), he was a gracious partner, always there with a balancing hand.

PAB is rich in character dancers and they're having fun. Philip Colucci was wonderful as Alain, the dim-witted and unsuccessful suitor, making every shuffling step and befuddled head twist idiotic and funny. As Lise's ambitious mother, Widow Simone, David Krensing romped through the famous clog dance and relished all the stage business, including shutting drawers with his fanny (he got a potted plant bouquet opening night). What makes Ashton's Fille choreography so lively is that he took so much from popular theater forms (especially English music hall) and used it in classical ballet. So he even has a chorus line, but in this case it's a silly, shuffling, wing-flapping group of chickens (not the long-legged female kind of the music hall.)

Absolutely everyone in the company is either a harvester or a villager or a groom (for, yes, the real pony onstage.) The whole troupe's busy scything the wheat or celebrating or slapping each other on the back. It's a tight two-act ballet, but it's also a jam-packed one, and everything involves imaginative props — spinning wheels, scarves, ribbons, even Alain's umbrella play real roles in the action.

But take note: There's a second principal cast alternating throughout the run, and they're terrific, too. On Sunday, Julie Diana was an adorable Lise, buoyant and delicately precise in her variations. She looks like a 19th-century ballet engraving, even when she's pouting or stamping her foot. James Ady nailed all Colas' turns and leaps, adding in an ardor all his own. As poor dimwit Alain, Matt Neenan got his character's funny side, but also his pathos. Meanwhile, Alexei Borovik fluttered and scolded marvelously as Widow Simone.

LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE Through March 12, Pennsylvania Ballet at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust sts., 215-893-1999