Haglund caught the final two performances of Apollo over the weekend and must say that Robert Fairchild's and Chase Finlay's Apollos along with the Muse team of Sterling Hyltin, Tiler Peck, and Ana Sophia Scheller have become the casts to see. When ballet can deal from this kind of strength, it makes one think that we might be building a new era of Glory Days at NYCB. That is, unless the company spirals into financial ruin from Executive Director Katherine Brown's pricing gimmicks.
On Friday and Saturday nights, once again, there were so many empty seats. The house looked ridiculous with a virtually empty 4th ring except for a couple of subscribers who are holding their ground. Haglund may award these 4th Ring Warriors a Pump Bump for their tenacity. The other ring levels had pockets of seats filled because they were less expensive while many of the overpriced seats in the front and center stayed empty. The orchestra level had multiple blocks of four, six and even eight seats that were empty in the very center section. Hopefully, and soon, Ms. Brown will not let the door hit her in the fanny on the way out.
Back to the wonderful dancers who deserve so much praise. Ana Sophia Scheller, who has been performing at the highest principal level although she remains a soloist, danced the role of Calliope on both nights with clarity and confidence. From a technical standpoint, there is nothing that she cannot do. The expansive use of the upper body, in particularly, the way in which the port de bras originates from across her back gives her a classic ballerina posture and finish. Haglund is generally less inclined to attend NYCB performances that involve classic tulle and tutus because he is usually much less happy with the dancers' port de bras, but Ms. Scheller may be the one to get Haglund to more of those performances.
Tiler Peck was a phenomenal Polyhymnia in both performances and flawlessly managed each of the tricky pique pirouettes into arabesque all the while holding her finger to her lips. She was on fire in Wheeldon's Mercurial Manoeuvres Saturday night – as were her partner, Tyler Angle, and Gonzalo Garcia, the third principal. All of them sliced through the petit allegro with characteristic NYCB hunger. Peck and Angle soared through the lovely PdDs with such joy and ease and are so attractive together that they are becoming one of Haglund's favorite duos. Wheeldon's PdDs in Mercurial Manoevres are inventive yet beautiful from a balletic standpoint. There is none of the offensive splitzy crotch emphasis that began to develop in Wheeldon's choreography shortly after Mercurial Manoevres.
In all of her performances of Apollo this fall, Sterling Hyltin has been a youthful, delightful Terpsichore. On Saturday night, watching from the right side of the house, Haglund noticed that Hyltin's passés to arabesque were not really to the back but were considerably off to the side. That's an old school NYCB bad habit that doesn't surface much anymore. In the PdDs, Hyltin was well matched with both Fairchild and Finlay who are Apollos of very different temperaments and states of maturity.
NYCB is such a handsome company these days, full of different types of dancers who represent a broad spectrum of stage personalities. The energy level is high. The neatness level in the corps is high. The joy of performing is off the charts. At the end of the day, a guy can plop down in a chair in the theater and before he knows it, he's forgotten about the crappy day, the crappy economy, and the crappy world news. NYCB Therapy – or should we call it Therapy NYCB. Whatever. It's all good.
Haglund bestows the Weekend Pump Bump Award, a fierce looking Balmain leather sandal with tribal beading – available through Neiman Marcus for $disgraceful.00 – to those 4th Ring Warriors who are making the Tribe proud by holding out.
"May the force be with you."
I love both Finlay and Fairchild in the role, even though their Apollos are very different. And wasn't Tiler Peck phenomenal? She was great last season, but this past weekend she completely blew me away. Hope you'll check out my post about seeing "Apollo" this season:
http://bodiesneverlie.com/2011/09/27/robert-fairchild-chase-finlay-a-tale-of-two-apollos-at-new-york-city-ballet/
Posted by: Ryan | September 27, 2011 at 08:11 PM
Hi Ryan. I really enjoyed your review of Apollo. The ballet is in such good hands right now, and to think that we have yet to see Gonzalo Garcia perform the title role in NY. Don't know why. It may be that his face so resembles d'Amboise that the inevitable comparison would make it impossible to pay attention to these other fine interpreters. I wish that NYCB would find space in the Winter/Spring calendars for a few more performances of Apollo.
Posted by: Haglund | September 28, 2011 at 09:45 AM