NYCB - Concerto Barocco, Oltremare, TS #3 - Feb 6

 

At Friday night's performance of the New York City Ballet only about 65% of The Koch Theater seats had butts in them. As the regulars in the economy seats surveyed the sparsely-populated house, strangers came together with comments on the sadness of the situation. When times are difficult, that is when people should turn to the arts for uplifting and general relief. With careful choosing, $20 - $35 can buy an acceptable view of the stage and the orchestra pit where artists, even on their off nights, deliver extraordinary performances that often help us keep our own problems in perspective, calm the soul, and stir the intellect. Though Haglund had other plans for Saturday evening, he will instead go back and throw down a wad at The Koch to see La Valse.

Concerto Barocco featured Wendy Whelan and Rachel Rutherford as the two violins. The differences in these two dancers was at once interesting and uncomfortable. Ms. Rutherford, dancing into the floor with weighted sweeping movements, gave a complete performance from tip of toe to tip of finger. Ms. Whelan, perhaps not in Concerto Barocco performance-shape at the moment, was an odd contrast with her angular port de bras and movements that were not fully realized. Her arabesque was a bit more towards second position and did not have either the snap or stay of Ms. Rutherford’s. Haglund thinks that it could be time for these two violins to switch music. The corps looked well-rehearsed and had moments of brilliance, most notably as it traveled backwards in its pique passe moves.  A very focused performance by the corps last night.

Oltremare by Mauro Bigonzetti with its score by Bruno Moretti was highly interesting - for the first 15 minutes. Haglund was amazed at Ana Sophia Scheller, Tiler Peck, and Georgina Pazcoguin as they flung themselves up, down and around with intensity and confidence, seemingly channeling PTD’s Lisa Viola. The program notes explain that this piece is about people who have left their homeland on a quest for a better life. Huh? Didn’t come through. But nevertheless, it was an interesting few minutes of ballet meets Worldwide Wrestling meets Antony Forsythe. It was also good to see the corps of men execute the challenging choreography which is unlike most anything else they have to do.  Haglund wants to see NYCB tackle more things like this and La Stravaganza.

Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 closed the evening with uneven performances. Elegie was quite lovely. Ask la Cour, approaching performance conditioning, gave a soulful interpretation of the score and choreography. Haglund likes ALC because 1) he’s not handsome, but instead is unique and carries a Bruhn-like expression of seriousness and sadness, 2) he lacks a lot of the NYCB mannerisms and distractions that annoy anyone who loves classical ballet, and 3) one just kind of roots for him to do well, to maybe try a little harder, to maybe take a little bigger risk. Sara Mearns was a lovely partner for him. All perfume.

The middle two sections, Valse and Scherzo, were gross and overdone. Some of the ladies’ hair appeared to need washing. If one washes, then everybody needs to wash - otherwise it detracts from the performance.

The final Theme and Variations was better than an earlier performance with different leads, but it had its problems. The music was unnecessarily fast. Sterling Hyltin was strong and quick. She caught and saved most of the little flubs last night. Her feet were lovely when moving, but her developpe a la seconde was either too high for the amount of flexibility in the top of the foot or else she just had a lazy foot that didn’t want to point and push the box of the shoe over when the leg was extended so high. The end result was that her foot looked unpointed. Benjamin Millepied gave an undistinguished performance. Even though most of the tricks were delivered securely, it was disconcerting to see so many unstretched lines.