NYC Ballet Spring Gala, directed by Sofia Coppola

 Sofia Coppola and cinematographer Phillip La Sourd made a lovely film for the virtual Spring gala of New York City Ballet.  Though I am generally not fond of excerpts of ballets the ones that are included here whet one's appetite for the return of the ballet -- we fervently hope -- in the fall (we have tickets for October).  The film is beautifully structured, starting with black-and-white solos and pas de deux backstage and on the promenade of the New York State Theatre to the finale of the glorious last movement of Balanchine's Divertimento No. 15 in color and on the usual ballet stage.

It starts out with a new and expressive solo for dancer Anthony Huxley, choreographed by Justin Peck to the melancholy music of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, capturing the isolation and even the frustration of a dancer during the pandemic.  This is followed by a pas de deux by Ashley Bouder and Russell Janzen to Stravinsky's Duo Concertant,choreographed by Balanchine.  Janzen was intelligently articulate in today's New York Times:  "It's a contained world.  Intimate, so a natural Covid-era ballet.  To dance this ballet is to inhabit a world of your own making."

Next comes a pas de deux from Balanchine's Liebeslieder Walzer, with music by Brahms. It is from the first part of the ballet, before the women change to pointe shoes, and all its earnest and fleeting romanticism is captured by Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour on the promenade of the theatre.  This is followed by an elegant solo from Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering, danced by Gonzalo Garcia to the music of Chopin.  For the finale Coppola shifts to color and a full cast for Divertomento No. 15 to the music of Mozart:  principals Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette; soloists Emilie Gerrity, Lauren King, Ashley Laracey, Unity Phelan, Daniel Applebaum; corps member Andrew Scodato.  This last movement of the Balanchine ballet is danced full-out by the cast on the main stage, with the viewer as the audience as the curtain goes up at the start and down at the end.  There is no applause to be heard, the dancers missing us (we see them briefly after the curtain comes down) as much as we miss them.