George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream was choreographed in 1962 and has become for the Spring and Summer what The Nutcracker is for winter. It has beautiful choreography and enough of a story (it follows Shakespeare closely, though with music instead of words) for those who require it. The second act is abstract, however, and now can seem too short, after Balanchine trimmed the dances (in his symphonic style, including the use of Mendelssohn's Symphony Number 9 for Strings, rather than the divertissement style of The Nutcracker), presumably for the narrative-driven audience. The second act was danced with intensity and attack by Sterling Hyltin but I did not care for her partner, Amar Ramasar, who was technically okay but still lacks projection and personality. Still, the second act made clear the ascendance of love over stormy drama and discord.
The second act may be too much for those who don't like Balanchine's more abstract ballets (myself definitely not included!) but the first act is full of originality, Puck, and well-rehearsed children as elves and butterflies (supervised by Dena Abergel and Arch Higgins). No one has ever danced Oberon as well as the originator of the role, Edward Villela, though Daniel Ulbricht was effective without turning himself into a horizontal corkscrew as I have seen others, including Gen Horiuchi, do and Teresa Reichlen was able to efficiently switch gears from nobility and firmness to loose frivolity, as she falls in love with Bottom as a donkey. Megan LeCrone, as Hippolyta, did a wonderful job with her grand jetes.
Balanchine uses half-a-dozen different Mendelssohn pieces to augment the limited music Mendelssohn did for the play and integrates them beautifully with the choreography. I haven't seen this ballet for some time, as it became a little down-at-the-heels, but the costumes have been refurbished and the production has had much of its elegance restored. My four-year-old daughter, who takes a weekly ballet class, loved every moment of it.
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