Haglund's Heel

Lincoln Center 11/7 and 11/9Hungarian National Ballet Swan Lake & Don Quixote

By some strange coincidence Rudi van Dantzig and Andy Warhol showed up on the West Side of Manhattan on the very same day last week. The countercultural darlings of the ‘60s and ‘70s were represented by the Hungarian National Ballet’s U.S. debut in van Dantzig’s Swan Lake and the Whitney Museum of America Art’s retrospective of Warhol’s work. 

 

After spending an hour in the afternoon wandering through the Whitney’s member preview of the new exhibit, Haglund then sat through nearly four hours of Swan Lake at Lincoln Center which turned out to be as ordinary and uninspiring as a factory-made picture of a tomato soup can. "What was the point?” he asked himself over and over again. Why did the Hungarian National Ballet choose this particular staging of Swan Lake when there were so many others more worthy of its dancers and time? Why not honor the memory of Hungary’s most famous danseur, Ivan Nagy, with a production that honors his classical tradition? Nagy put Hungary on the map in the world of ballet; the Dutch choreographer van Dantzig made the Hungarians look like a bunch of ballet dilettantes. 

 

It’s hard to overstate how dreadful van Dantzig’s “contributions” to the choreography were. As a young man, he once dabbled in ballet for a time before transitioning to the modern idiom, but he was not one with great classical experience or knowledge. Imagine for a moment if Mark Morris decided to re-do Swan Lake – avec sérieux, that is. You get the picture in all its ordinary so-what-it’s-art dullness like a bunch of empty Coke bottles. Glissade assemble and grand jete ad nauseam – the most mundane classroom combinations mucking up Petipa and Ivanov for four hours were, to put it mildly, a disappointment. Van Dantzig couldn't even make the national dances look national. And here we were again with a choreographer screwing around with Swan Lake to try to make it all about Siegfried. Guys, get over it and find a new story. Swan Lake always has been and always will be about Odette/Odile. It will never be about Siggie, no matter what his sexual orientation. 

 

The Perm-trained ballerina, Tatiana Melnik, was lovely. Not a natural Odette physically, she is quite small with nice limbs and rather large untapered feet that tend to truncate any lyrical line. She delivered a sensitive performance of Odette as well as a deliciously dark interpretation of Odile. Her strong technique allowed us to enjoy some amazing balances throughout the evening. Pirouettes were her pocket change. But there was not much rapport between her Odette and the largely blank and struggling Gergely Leblanc’s Siegfried.

 

Throughout Acts II and IV, the beautiful Corps de Ballet women spoke as one with a clear Vaganova accent. The Four Little Swans were about as perfect as one could ask for.

 

This is a ballet company that has evolved way past the point in time when they should have an authentic Swan Lake set on them by a real ballet choreographer. Did somebody say Michael Messerer? The legendary teacher/coach/stager made the trip to New York to watch this troupe soar in his entertaining and authentic production of Don Quixote on Friday night. He originally made this production for the Mikhailovsky Theatre in 2012 which the company then toured here in 2014. What a thrill it was to spot him casually mingling with the crowd. 

 

A mere 48 hours after a rather dismal Swan Lake, the Hungarian National Ballet blazed through Don Quixote with jets on. Ms. Melnik as Kitri was a fiery phenom with complete command of the role. Igor Tsvirko, the Bolshoi leading soloist who recently joined the company, was a charismatic Basil. He is quite small with excellent technique that is well-suited for this role. But his lack of length in the legs meant that whatever technical tricks he performed didn’t have starry impact. He did, however, impress mightily with his one-armed lifts of Kitri, including one that he held unusually long and used his left arm to motion the audience to keep applauding. Loved the trick and the honesty.

 

Minjung Kim, a former student of Magarita Kulik and Vladimir Kim at the Korean National University of Arts, was exquisite as the Queen of the Dryads. Singing arabesque lines, softly gliding grand jetes, no-nonsense Italian fouettes, and a serene joy made her appearance one of the performance’s highlights.

 

Yourim Lee, two years out of the Korean National University of Arts, performed Cupid's petit allegro with outstanding clarity and charm. 

 

Balázs Majoros was a charming and cheeky Gypsy Boy who possessed Basilio-type qualities and technique.

 

And oh, that Street Dancer Karina Sarkissova. What a smoldering-one-moment, boiling-over-with-passion-the-next-moment performance she gave. In this outstanding production, the Street Dancer always steals the show no matter what company is performing. 

 

The Hungarian State Opera Orchestra played gloriously. After each performance, the conductor, Gergely Kesselyák, tossed his bouquet into the pit — a generous touch that one doesn’t see here very often.

 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Karina Sarkissova for her burning Street Dancer in Don Quixote. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Balanchine: The City Center Years 11/1 and 11/4

When the Americans’ loudest complaints about Russian ballet dancing are the smiles and the rich operatic bows, you know their asses have been whooped. Apparently, no one should dare not dance Balanchine exactly as New York City Ballet does. By that, we mean ig-zakt-lee, not iks-hahk-lee or eek-zaxt-lee. When in Amerakuh, speak Amerakuhn dammit. (For the love of all humanity, please vote by the end of tomorrow.) Good heavens, some of this snooty-snoot that Haglund has been hearing about the visiting companies’ performances makes locals sound like a bunch of Parisians. 

 

Without a doubt, it’s important to ballet and also gratifying to New York City Ballet that companies throughout the world want to dance Balanchine’s great works and want their audiences to experience them. But there are no other companies on the planet that devote themselves to Balanchine’s ballets like NYCB does. There are no other companies on the planet who require potential dancers to push through the rigors of SAB, then take a daily class that focuses solely on the Balanchine-espoused technical demands, and spend all working hours trying to stay true to the underlying dancing principals that have made the company and Balanchine’s ballets so great. There are no other companies on the planet that do this. So why should anyone expect that a company that arrives for a festival will match NYCB musical counts (which can vary widely on any given night), NYCB aesthetic (which can vary widely on any given night), or any aspect of NYCB’s performances at all? Honestly, it sounds like the locals believe that the visiting companies were trying to be disrespectful since they didn’t mirror what is or has been seen here on NYCB’s stage. Maybe it’s time to look in the mirror, folks.

 

On Thursday evening, the Mariinsky Ballet’s interpretation of Balanchine’s Apollo was filled with stunning dancing, sensitive characterization, and elegant beauty. This crew hammered home how fundamentally important it is in this art form to start out with the right physical instrument. If the instrument isn’t right, the aims of the choreography cannot be achieved with excellence. Ballet isn’t about being the best average one can be. It’s not democratic. It’s not an art where we all vote on whether turnout, straight narrow legs, length in the limbs, a clear arabesque, and minimal body mass are important.

 

Xander Parish as Apollo clearly portrayed the young god who needed instruction from his muses. His boyish face showed the frustration of not yet being able to master his god-tasks. He conveyed Apollo’s struggle and disorientation as the liminality in his transformation to a full-fledged god. The moment when his head rose from the open palms of the Muses’ hands could not have been played more clearly. By delivering the expression with the force to reach the back of the Mariinsky Theatre, he may have whammed those in the forward rows of the NY City Center unexpectedly. But he was clear. His solos were technically and aesthetically gorgeous: shapes in the air, shapes on the ground, shapes standing still. It was impossible not to admire his artistry. We say this while clearly remembering how completely underwhelmed we were the last time we saw him on stage. Xander has quite literally made his own Apollo rite of passage.

 

Maria Khoreva, Anastasia Nuikina, and Daria Ionova as the Muses are all 2018 graduates from the Vaganova Academy. Khoreva, who danced Terpsichore, has already been promoted to First Soloist bypassing the ranks of Coryphee and Second Soloist, and doing virtually no time in traditional corps roles. What an amazing opportunity it was to watch this fledgling fly with such poise, precision, and grace. A couple of times, we thought that she veered dangerously close to turning her pas de deux with Apollo into a love duet, but we ultimately decided that she was expressing her love for her art form, not the hot god before her. Especially beautiful was the “swimming” moment while poised on Apollo’s back where the arch in her back and the length in her neck were extraordinary. The final pose with her arched torso tucked against Apollo’s arched back was a gorgeous image. Both Calliope and Polyhymnia danced equally well. Polyhymnia had a little struggle with the pique pirouettes to arabesque plié with the finger to the lips, but nothing more than what we’ve seen on NYCB’s stages from its long time principals.

 

Thursday night’s program included NYCB in Concerto Barocco. It was danced dreadfully slowly which made it a bore. Maybe the tempo was adjusted down so as to avoid problems dancing in the smaller space. Both Maria Kowroski and Abi Stafford danced as though they were tired. Russell Janzen dispatched his partnering duties reliably and cleanly.

 

The Royal Ballet couple Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Marcelino Sambé brought their game up considerably from the night before and delivered an energetic Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux. 

 

The San Francisco Ballet’s Divertimento No. 15 suffered some from the narrow stage. These are excellent dancers who would have appreciated being able to really cut loose for the New York audience, but were somewhat confined. Their dancing was scrupulous and refined, however.

 

Sunday’s closing performance of the festival included the Joffrey Ballet in The Four Temperaments. Jeraldine Mendoza in the Third Theme and Yoshihisa Arai in Melancholic were commanding. Unfortunately, the rest of the company didn’t match them in authority. Given the difficulties that Christine Rocas and Victoria Jaiani had with Sanguinic and Choleric, respectively, we wondered if the Joffrey had actually danced The Four Temperaments much in Chicago. It was not a fully baked loaf, so to speak.

 

Along with the Mariinsky’s Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux redux, the Paris Opera Ballet performed the Divertissement Pas de Deux from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Taken out of context, this PdD was not very interesting. The dancers (Sae-Eun Park and Hugo Marchand) were like print & plaid together. Neither made a strong impression in this dance even though we know from having seen them perform before that they are fantastic dancers.

 

American Ballet Theatre’s Symphonie Concertante to music by Mozart turned out to be one of the highlights of the three performances that Haglund saw - for two reasons. First, NYCB doesn’t dance the ballet so we have no idea what it would look like if dispatched with Balanchine styling and speed. Second, ABT danced it very, very well in their own style. Christine Shevchenko, Devon Teuscher, and Thomas Forster were an elegant and glistening trio of academic beauty. For quite some time, many have wondered why Forster has been so underutilized in major full length works at ABT. While we were certainly transfixed by the beauty of Shevchenko and Teuscher, we suddenly snapped to a new alertness when Forster arrived on stage. For such a huge man, he certainly moves with the grace of a panther. Charming, handsome, killer lines, gorgeous feet, huge jumps, beautiful pirouettes, youthful arabesque. And his dancing has always been superior to the management-favored, audience-abhorred James Whiteside. 

 

ABT’s corps looked very comfortable dancing on the smaller stage. Tidy lines, bright smiles, lovely port de bras, no need to rush or stretch to reach a position. It all looked very pleasant. No stress, no mess. We can’t fail to mention how gorgeous the Theoni V. Aldredge tutus were. Every woman on stage looked like a million dollars.

 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon the Mariinsky Ballet for their Apollo.

 

 

New York City Center Balanchine: The City Center Years 10/31

Halloween is one of those unofficial holidays when people pretend to be something they are not. It’s very big in New York – as is St. Patrick’s Day when everyone pretends to be Irish in order to celebrate the Irish. Nobody complains to Horst McSchmidt that he's not really Irish on March 17th; it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the holiday to do so. Besides, Horst just might know a little more about what it means to be Irish than those with authentic green in the family tree.

This all really doesn’t have much to do with last night's opening performance of New York City Center’s grand celebration of Balanchine in conjunction with its marking of the center’s 75th anniversary – well maybe a little. 

Balanchine and the New York City Ballet were in residence at New York City Center from 1948 until the company moved to Lincoln Center in 1964. Many of his most famous works were created during this period. Almost immediately following NYCB’s move to Lincoln Center, the Joffrey Ballet moved into City Center where they stayed for the next 30 years before decamping to Chicago. While it doesn’t seem that City Center, which is run by former Joffrey Ballet dancer Arlene Shuler, will be offering many remembrances or postcards from the past Joffrey residency (other than a Studio 5 discussion in April), the Joffrey Ballet will make a pilgrimage back to the old Mecca Temple to perform Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments three times over this weekend. 

Getting back to last night’s opening performance which included some spectacular dancing within the overall good performances - it also included spectacular music. The New York City Ballet Orchestra, which is playing for all performances, was energetically conducted by Andrews Sill and Clotilde Otranto. 

Miami City Ballet presented a neat, academic Serenade except that in addition to the two scheduled falls in the choreography, there was a third unscheduled fall. Everyone seemed okay afterward, though.  Much of the corps de ballet danced with the joyless, sometimes nervous sternness that Haglund recalls in Lourdes Lopez’s own dancing many years ago. Simone Messmer as the Waltz Girl danced exquisitely and forcefully, but had a demeanor of Myrta throughout much of the ballet. Emily Bromberg’s Dark Angel possessed just the spirit that one wants to see in the role. Her stationary rotating arabesques on pointe began to turn immediately upon hitting the pique arabesque which was lovely to see. Jeanette Delgado as the Russian Girl was the soul of this Serenade. It seemed like she simply could not contain her explosive energy or stop herself from devouring every inch of the stage. She danced as though she dearly wanted to jeté over the orchestra pit and into the audience.

The Mariinsky Ballet’s Viktoria Tereshkina and Kimin Kim gave a knock-out performance of the Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux at high speed. We simply don’t have anyone in either of New York’s companies who can dance like that. Sad to say, but true. Of course, the Mariinsky doesn’t have a lot of other dancers who can fly like Kim or charge with the grace of Tereshkina, either. The Mariinsky brought their best for this — no surprise there. Haglund loved their every step, their musicality, their respectful rapport, and the joy with which they expertly and cleanly dispatched the choreography. The speed was easy for them. Kim’s grand allegro was huge, but it was also beautifully lined and stretched. Tereshkina has always been a goddess in everything that she does. It was wonderful to see just how warm she can be and how she reached out to establish a rapport with the audience.

The Royal Ballet presented Tarantella danced by Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Marcelino Sambé. We can’t say that there was anything wrong in what was danced, but it did seem lacking in flavor. We’re not saying that it was bland, because it wasn’t. It just needed some more spice.

New York City Ballet closed the program by ripping through Symphony in C. (Much thanks to Conductor Otranto for keeping everyone aflight.) It was a very good performance, but not close to the best that we have seen these principals dance. Tiler Peck, Sara Mearns, and Ashley Bouder seemed sluggish like they were coming back from a few days off. Lauren King in the Fourth Movement was brilliant - so absolutely ready and eager for every step. In her few years as a soloist, she has developed gorgeously and is now so ready for much bigger leading role challenges. We remember when she was first promoted how her legs and feet needed so much work. She put the work in and it has paid off beautifully. We note that the brand new soloist Claire Kretzschmar now faces challenges very similar to those that Lauren had, and we are excited to watch her develop and improve, too.

The men in Symphony in C (Tyler Angle, Jared Angle, Anthony Huxley and Taylor Stanley) came fully prepared to impress. And they did. But so did demi-soloists Aaron Sanz, Daniel Applebaum, and Peter Walker whose long, clean leg lines and powerful jumps had greater impact. Just want to remark how beautiful those tall corps women were and how impressive their speed was. We’ve been watching Miriam Miller pick up speed like she was skipping gears this year. In Symphony in C and earlier this year in Concerto Barocco, she kept up with the 5-footers without reducing her range. And hopefully, we will soon see a lot more of that Sequoia with long graceful limbs, Christina Clark. How about a Dewdrop at the end of the month? 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, Louboutin's studded metallic leather stiletto, is bestowed upon Viktoria Tereshkina and Kimin Kim for bringing the daring, the energy, the preciseness, and the elegance to Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux.

 

 

 

observation 11/1

Leo from LA alerted us to the fact that the Met Opera's website is showing Olga Smirnova for Gulnare on June 12 & 15 and Lescaut's Mistress on the 17th and the 20th. See below. Hopefully, this is an error. We'd hate to see Stella's dwindling performances gutted even more.

 

 

observations 10/31

While having just spotted the citizen in the West Village who always marches in the Halloween Parade as the guy from the movie The Birds who is being chased by a flock of black crows with explosive rage disorder, Haglund was somehow reminded that the Bolshoi in Cinema broadcast of La Sylphide will be on Sunday, November 11th at 12:55pm. It will be at all of the usual places in New York. From the promo it looks like the cast will include Daria Khokhlova and Artemy Belyakov. Look for tickets and cinemas here.  [Edited 11/1 to call attention to Irina's comment below regarding the announced casting of Stashkevich and Chudin.]

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There are a few reserved seats left for the Tuesday, November 13 Landmark Cinema's presentation of the Royal Ballet's Mayerling starring Gary Avis, Sarah Lamb, Steven McRae, Kristen McNally, Laura Morera, James Hay, Nehemiah Kish, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Mayara Magri. Do not miss this. Tickets here.

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Only three weeks until the start of NYCB's Nutcracker Season and only a couple of weeks until the first casting is announced. Let's hope that some of our corps favorites are over their injuries and back on stage to dance along side the wonderful brand new soloists.

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And lastly, we're excitedly ticking off the nanoseconds until the Balanchine Celebration begins tonight at New York City Center. Hopping up & down excited, we are!

 

More hypocrisy from the NYT Here we go again...

Two NYT stringers are wailing and moaning like scorned women who want attention and screaming how the world should be while possessing no facts, no evidence, no journalistic standard of justification, nothing of substantive weight to back up what they are saying. Nothing. In fact, they promote known falsehoods and stereotypes in order to further their theories.

Honestly, why don’t they focus on cleaning up their own house that includes critic Alastair Macaulay who was arrested and jailed for stalking little children on a beach with his camera. Oh, wait, he is finally being swept out the door. We’ll have to watch to see if this December he takes one last opportunity to textually luxuriate over the “warm bodies” of the little children in Nutcracker, perhaps with 100-letter words that we will be able to analyze for decades to come. If the two NYT stringers were to apply their arguments about the ballet culture to the NYT culture department, we’d be hearing how the whole staff is comprised of sexual deviants who prey on children. And then there is the NYT reporter Glenn Thrush, who admitted his sexual harassment and misconduct. What did the NYT do? Poo-pooed it all as insignificant and sent him off to sensitivity training. If these two stringers were to apply their arguments about the ballet culture to the NYT news staff, we’d be hearing how the NYT staff is inundated with sexual predators who are allowed by management to do what they want to women.

 

The NYT doesn’t much like the American judicial system when it inconveniently gets in the way of a good story – true story or not. So it tries to sweep it aside and hard-sell its own conclusions to the public. But let’s be clear, really clear: To date, no sexual harassment, abuse, or misconduct has been proven to have occurred at New York City Ballet or allowed/promoted by the NYCB culture. None by Peter Martins. None by Amar Ramasar. None by Zachary Catazaro. And none by Chase Finlay. No injury has been proven by anyone who has come forward with claims in the past year. NONE. Unfortunately, the NYT sees no money to be made in patiently waiting for NYCB and the American judicial system to work through the details to find a conclusion. Besides, it might not be the conclusion that will get the NYT the most clicks on its website. Therefore, the matter needs to be fueled and fanned by NYT stringers who unprofessionally and unethically portray all the accusations as being true when they have no facts, no evidence, no journalistic standard of justification, nothing of substantive weight to back up what they are saying. 

 

There is no basis for attacking ballet culture. There is no basis for claiming that ballet directors are usually men, that women are routinely addressed as "girls" and that this is sure proof to support an assumption that the culture is unfair or dangerous to women. There is no basis for demanding that the ballet culture be changed. None at all. These two NYT stringers who are known for being woefully short on ballet knowledge, are even further short-changed on knowledge about how the world should be run – any part of the world, let alone a part with which they are wholly unfamiliar. Neither of them possesses credential .01 for saying how the ballet world should be run. Neither of them even has a full-time job at NYT.

 

Based on the information made available to the public thus far, the terminations of Amar Ramasar and Zachary Catazaro appear unjustified. Certainly there was no justification for NYCB making a huge public statement about the firings that smeared them to such an extent that it likely destroyed their livelihoods. Whether some NYCB dancers now claim that they would be uncomfortable working with Ramasar and Catazaro should have no bearing on whether the two dancers are reinstated with back pay. Every real world company that has adults working in it has people toiling together who don’t like one another, don’t trust one another, and wish they didn’t have to work with one another. NYCB’s uncomfortable dancers should grow up and take a cue from the real world.

 

NYCB has plenty of dancers who over the years have unsuccessfully romantically pursued Ramasar, Catazaro, and Finlay. One noisy feminist principal, who as a corps dancer reportedly snuck into the boys dorm at SAB to enjoy one of the male students, was simply banned from the dorm for life. If that happened today, the NYT might be claiming statutory rape and blaming it on the company culture. A NYCB dancer who allegedly had her own sexting-in-bed issues with Chase Finlay optionally chose to wail loudly and vaguely on Instagram and then rely on her friends and colleagues to disseminate the details to everyone around her. She, like Alexandra Waterbury, didn’t go to the police. Perhaps a police report would have prevented the incidents that Waterbury is alleging. Perhaps a police report by Waterbury might prevent future alleged victims. Are women really standing together on this issue of unwanted photography or is it business as usual? 

 

And what about that NYT culture? When is it going to take the high road and get rid of its predators instead of wasting time wagging its tiny, tiny finger at NYCB?

observations 10/18

The Koch Theater is reaching out in an effort to locate Hungarian Opera and Ballet ticket purchasers for whom the theater does not have an email address or any way in which to contact the buyers regarding the reduction in performances. If you know of anyone who might have purchased tickets for one of the affected dates (Wed 10/31  The Queen of Sheba, Sat 11/3 Mario the Musician/Bluebeard’s Castle 1pm, Tue 11/6 Swan Lake, Thursday 11/8 Swan Lake, Sat 11/10 Don Quixote 8pm, Sun 11/11 LOL 8pm), please encourage them to call the Koch Theater.

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While you're saving money this fall by avoiding ABT's dismal programing at the Koch, you should also probably avoid King Kong on Broadway. Haglund was there on the second night of previews. Kong finally appeared 45 minutes into the show. He was, indeed, magnificent. Really. However, he didn't make up for the unmemorable songs and lyrics by Marius de Vries and Eddie Perfect, the just plain awful book by Jack Thorne, or the obnoxious choreography by Drew McOnie who also directed the show. His choreography was the worst part of the show.

Like we said, Kong didn't show up for 45 minutes. Before that, the stage was filled with non-stop, noisy Newsies-like jumping around. The choreography was like the obnoxious loud-mouth guest at a party. So dreadful. How McOnie got such a positive reputation in the UK is a mystery.

However, Kong's creature designer Sonny Tilders, the aerial Movement Director Gavin Robins, the projection design team of Peter England and Artists in Motion have really outdone themselves. They totally brought back Haglund's epic childhood nightmares of King Kong living in the garage next door where he tended to get very angry at bad children. When Kong slowly walked right to the very edge of the stage and his big head leaned out into the audience, it set off atrial fibrillation alerts on several Apple watches. His racing through the streets of 1933 Manhattan received roaring applause from the audience.

This one may not last long on Broadway. Too bad, because the concept was filled with great possibilities.

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So when do you suppose ABT is going to fess up about having its spring Met season cut back by the Met? What, still no plans in place for the future? Why should anyone donate?

However, we are looking forward to the new production of Jane Eyre scheduled for the 2019 spring season. Cathy Marston made it for Northern Ballet (Leeds, England) in 2017. This looks like it could be a good vehicle for Gillian Murphy and Cory Stearns. Let's see what happens. Northern Ballet Theatre stages mostly complex story ballets (The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, Cinderella, Wuthering Heights) and is directed by David Nixon who is married to one of Haglund's favorite Kitris from the old days, Yoko Ichino. She is now NB's rehearsal director.

 

 

NYCB 10/14 Joaquin de Luz – From one dream to the next

When you can dance for a quarter of century and finish your career in white tights performing in a technically exposing role like Theme and Variations in which you can still do a series of double tours with pirouettes straight down the white dotted vertical line on the stage floor while landing fifth after fifth after fifth position, you are either lucky or blessed or brilliant – more probably all three. My goodness, did Joaquin de Luz ever make us sorry to see him go on Sunday afternoon.

 

But what a celebration it was of fine dancing, of Spanish heritage, and of a dancer who literally went from one dream to the next dream when in 2003 he left ABT after dancing Puck in Ashton’s The Dream and stepped right into New York City Ballet's A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Oberon (following a compulsory debut in Nutcracker). Where will his dreams take him next? We don’t know. We had hoped to see him on stage in NY City Center’s A Chorus Line with perhaps Tiler Peck, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. However, there is the upcoming High Button Shoes that Jerome Robbins choreographed and will be presented in May by NY City Center Encores! He would be fabulous in that, just fabulous.

 

On Sunday, Theme and Variations looked in top form. In addition to Joaquin’s technical mastery and exemplary execution, there was Tiler Peck’s glorious musical phrasing and equal determination to be perfect. The demi-soloists and corps were in top form as well. Among them was Aaron Sanz, only hours before having been appointed a soloist, dancing with rocket boosters firing under him. The pride was close to chest-beating, “He & I – from Madrid!” The up and coming Spaniard might also one day knock our socks off in Theme and Variations. Let’s hope that he invests 30 seconds each and every day practicing that double tour/pirouette sequence so that he will be ready to carry the torch.

 

During the celebration at the end of the performance, out came a slew of colleagues and people who were important to Joaquin throughout his career including, of course, more Spaniards. Gonzalo Garcia ran out waving the red and yellow Bandera de España, and the two performed an impromptu bull fight with Joaquin as the matador and Gonzalo as the bull. Victor Ullate, Joaquin’s first director when he danced in Ullate’s company at the age of 16, arrived on stage with the vigor of a man decades younger. It doesn’t appear that many in the audience recognized him even though his very famous school produced Joaquin, Angel Corella, Tamara Rojo, Luciá Lacarra, and Carlos Lopez, the former ABT soloist who also arrived on stage to congratulate Joaquin. What a touch of class it was to invite orthopedic specialist Phillip Bauman (probably not a Spaniard except for perhaps on Sunday) to also appear on stage; where in the last decade would Joaquin’s career have abruptly ended without him? And finally Joaquin’s dancing mother arrived in the pink — literally. The two of them festively swirled around one another to the snapping of cameras from all sides. Such a joyous celebration.

 

We salute Joaquin de Luz – always one of our favorites for more than 20 years regardless on which side of Lincoln Center he danced. We look forward to what ever he dreams up next.

 

Mayerling at Landmark Cinema 11/13

It. is. here.

Kenneth MacMillan's masterpiece.

MAYERLING.

The Royal Ballet. 

Cast: Gary Avis, Sarah Lamb, Steven McRae, Kristen McNally, Laura Morera, James Hay, Nehemiah Kish, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Mayara Magri

Tuesday, November 13 @ 7PM

Landmark Theatre Cinema at 657 West 57th Street.

Reserve your seats here.

Your nerve endings will never be the same again. Bring drink money. You'll need it at intermission.

 

 

PA Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, a stunning achievement

Since Angel Corella took the directorship of Pennsylvania Ballet five years ago, he has hurled huge challenge after huge challenge at the company. It has been startling to watch the Intel-like turbo-burst speed with which PA Ballet has processed everything that Angel has thrown its way. It has evolved into a national contender in the classics, in contemporary, and in its core Balanchine rep seemingly overnight. This is a good, good, good company that is filled with talent and ambition.

This week PA Ballet opened its fall season in its 55th year with the company premiere of Kenneth MacMillan’s masterpiece Romeo and Juliet, a ballet in which Corella was devastatingly brilliant during his career with American Ballet Theatre. His love for this ballet shone through every performer on the stage Thursday night at the company's premiere. The staging by Julie Lincoln and Robert Tewsley was filled with crisp musical and theatrical details (when have we ever seen the Capulet women pose so uniformly and severely bent at their waists – not in New York). The scenery and costumes were by Paul Anderson whose designs MacMillan commissioned when the Birmingham Royal Ballet mounted its own production of MacMillan’s ballet in 1992. The original 1966 designs were by Nicholas Georgiadis and are still used by ABT and the Royal Ballet. Anderson’s designs included Early Renaissance columns and statuary. When MacMillan saw the new scenery on stage, he then changed some of the choreography to better adapt to it. So, the dancing sometimes looked a little different than what we are accustomed to seeing in New York. By the way, the ballerina who led the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s premiere performance in 1992 was Nina Ananiashvili.

 

A major difference between the Georgiadis and Anderson designs is the apparel for the Mandolin Dancers. Georgiadis costumed the men in salmon pink tights and strange little hats. The Anderson version is difficult to describe; so we’ll just dig out a photo (by Photo Roy Smiljanic) of the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Lead Mandolin Dancer and his colorful streamers:

 

There were six of these guys on Thursday night including Peter Weil as the Lead Mandolin Dancer. By the time Weil finished dancing with his group, he had taken over our attention so completely that we thought that this ballet was about the Mandolin Dancers. In addition to Lead Mandolin Dancer, Weil will perform the role of Mercutio which we intend to see next week. We have raved about this dancer previously. He’s got charisma and electricity on the level of a young Corella. He also has squeaky clean technique and moves like lightning. Some readers may recall that when Corella first joined ABT in 1995, one of his early roles during that first Met Season was the lead Mandolin Dancer in Romeo and Juliet. Just sayin’ … Keep both eyes on this guy.

 

Sterling Baca and Lillian DiPiazza were captivating as Romeo and Juliet. The honesty in their portrayals made us believers, and their “deaths” hit us hard in the gut. As Juliet, DiPiazza spoke with soft supple feet, liquid port de bras, deeply arched arabesques, and a natural acting style that made us hear Shakespeare’s words. We fully felt her turmoil as she leaned against her bed motionlessly during Act III and contemplated her dilemma. By the way, the lighting design for this scene was brilliantly conceived by Brad Fields to show Juliet’s world turning dark around her stillness. 

 

Any concerns that we may have had about whether the young Baca would be victorious over the impossibly difficult choreography in the balcony pas de deux were allayed at that first renversé into arabesque which began his first variation. Baca whipped it and then took off around the stage with force and energy that we had not seen from him before. This was a breakthrough performance for him in that he found a way to break free from Sterling to become his stage character. The very difficult partnering and lifts were seemingly done with ease. The "corpse pas de deux" was a realistic look at Romeo's desperation.

 

Ian Hussey was a fierce, menacing Tybalt. Mercutio and Benvolio were danced by Albert Gordon and Jack Sprance. Their trio dancing with Baca was clean and energetic. Pau Pujol probably never thought that his apprenticeship at PA Ballet would deliver a role like Paris to him. Despite his obvious youth, he managed the stifling sternness of the character along with some very fine partnering of DiPiazza’s Juliet.

 

Charles Askegard made Lord Capulet into a major figure on the stage throughout the evening. It has been so nice to see him evolve into such a fine and complete character actor since joining PA Ballet’s artistic staff.

 

The entire cast fully lived this Romeo and Juliet. No one was just standing around like they were filler. At any moment it was possible to pick out any performer in the background and see that he or she was actively involved in a side story or in a reaction to what was happening at center stage. Such a handsome production and a stunning achievement by PA Ballet.

 

The Orchestra of Pennsylvania Ballet under the direction of Beatrice Jona Affron, who is celebrating her 25th year as its conductor, played beautifully and with energetic spirit throughout the evening.

 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award, a complexly designed jewel of a stiletto from Jimmy Choo, is bestowed upon Lillian DiPiazza for her honest, heartbreaking portrayal of Juliet.