The Four Temperaments is one of the earliest works in which the elements of logic are arrayed in a form so brilliantly consequential that they nearly become the whole show. The relationship between the continuity of the piece and its subject (melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric) is truly a magical one, consisting of a dance logic Balanchine has made look uniquely ritualistic.
Arlene Croce, The New Yorker, Dec. 8 1975
It is not just the second act that he gives us but a medley of the second and fourth acts, and no fourth-act finale has ever been so spectacular as the wheeling and diving of Balanchine's flock and the terrible isolation of his lovers as they withstand the fury of cosmic winds.
Arlene Croce on Balanchine's one-act Swan Lake, The New Yorker, June 11 1979
Another wonderful night at NYC Ballet, with Balanchine's Swan Lake, Sonatine, and The Four Temperaments, as well as Peter Martins's version of the Black Swan Pas de Deux from Martin's own full- length Swan Lake.
The Four Temperaments has a score that Balanchine commissioned from Paul Hindemith in 1940 and choreographed in 1946. I have occasionally tried to find the various temperaments in the named sections of the piece but I am now convinced that, like most of Balanchine's work, it is meant to be understood by what's in the music and the dance itself, dance that resembles ancient civilizations -- Egyptian, Sumerian, etc -- and builds to an intense and soaring finale. The ballet was originally done in elaborate costumes but now exists in practice clothes as pure dance, connected to a propulsive score. The Four Temperaments was danced by mostly corps members and soloists who danced their hearts out, while principal Russell Jazen did a marvelous job with the phlegmatic variation, helped by Christina Clark, Savannah Durham, Marjorie Lungren, and Clara Miller, the four of them entering doing beautiful grand battements.
Sonatine, choreographed by Balanchine to the music of Ravel in 1975, is a lovely wisp of a piece, a pas de deux by Indiana Woodward and Anthony Huxley. It has the sweet intensity of many pas deux of Balanchine's, demonstrating both interdependence and independence. Sonatine was followed by the Black Swan Pas de Deux from Peter Martins's full-length Swan Lake, with Tiler Peck doing the thirty-two fouttes perfectly and Jovani Furlan partnering her.
The last ballet was Balanchine's one-act Swan Lake, leaving in most of the best music and dancing (based on Ivanov's original) and leaving out most of the mime and dancing that makes the four-act productions so tedious. Megan Fairchild was a marvelous Odette: fluttery but magnificently strong and emotional; Gonzalo Garcia was a superb Siegfried, stalwart but broken-hearted at the end. The Tschaikovsky music was elegantly conducted by Clotilde Otranto.
No comments:
Post a Comment