At one point I was worried about the NYC Ballet. I have been attending the company's performances for many years and when Balanchine died in 1983 Peter Martins began running the company and Balanchine's ballets were neglected. In recent years, however, Martins's attempts to change the repertory to more ballets by him and others have not met with artistic success. Martins has continued to do new ballets by a range of choreographers, though most of the results have been dreary indeed. Fortunately he has also realized the importance of keeping the Balanchine ballets in better shape and the results were on impressive display Sunday.
First on the program was Walpurgisnacht Ballet, with music by Gounod, from 1980. As Arlene Croce has written, "The choreography here is diabolical and at the same time angelic." (The New Yorker, Feb. 11, 1980). Sara Mearns, principal dancer since 2008, tore across the stage doing chaine turns with an incredible intensity. The music builds up as the speed of the choreography increases and in the last part the dancers have literally let their hair down in a blaze of purple and pink. The role for a man (in this case Ask la Cour) is small but significant, a quiet moment of contemplation until the intensity returns.
Following this was the "exquisite miniature" (Arlene Croce, The New Yorker, June 2, 1980) Sonatine, with music by Ravel, one of the few successful ballets from the 1975 Ravel festival. Tiler Peck and Joaquin De Luz expressed the love for each other and the simultaneous independence so common in Balanchine couples. There was a feeling of spontaneity of expression and playfulness that I would not have felt from the music but for Balanchine's use of it.
It was perhaps unfortunate to include La Valse, with its darkness and death, on this Mother's Day program, but it was beautifully performed by Sterling Hyltin and Jared Angle. In this performance Amar Ramasar did an impressive job as the dark angel, a role I used to see regularly performed by Francisco Moncion in the 70's, long after he was no longer cast in other roles. About this ballet Arlene Croce wrote: "As for Ravel and Balanchine and their elegant ballet noir : waltz fever and dances of death haunted the European lyrical imagination throughout the nineteenth century. When the heroine dies in La Valse the shock has been rolling toward us for a hundred and fifty years." (The New Yorker, June 1, 1981). The image of the doomed dancer putting on the black gloves of death is powerful and Hyltin effectivel conveys its beauty and fatalism, leading to the whirling finale.
Symphony in C was one of the first Balanchine ballets I saw; its beauty captivated me immediately when I first discovered ballet in the seventies and I started to go to the ballet often, especially when Balanchine was alive and every new ballet was different and exciting. In Sunday's performance Maria Kowroski was lovely in the adagio, a part I first knew as Suzanne Farrell's. In some way Symphony is C is about the history of ballet: its adagio is similar to Ivanov's in Swan Lake and is the basis for Balanchine's Diamonds, in Jewels (1967). Like many of Balanchine's ballets it is endlessly complex and beautiful, with many things happening simultaneously, and the ending has more than fifty dancers, the choreography building to an exhilarating climax.
Not only has Martins started keeping the Balanchine ballets in better shape, he has also improved the music (Sunday's conductor was Andrew Sills) and improved the training of a new group of dancers who can do Balanchine's complex and elegant choreography with the speed and attack it requires, both from the men and the women.
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