It was a little discouraging to see so many empty seats at the NYCB Saturday matinee. What happened to the bus-loads of bunheads that used to come in from the outskirts of the city for these matinees and squeal from the Fourth Ring? Not that Haglund misses the squealing but he'd put up with it to see a fuller house.
The program opened with Martins'
Grazioso which received a blistering performance from
Ashley Bouder, Gonzalo Garcia, Daniel Ulbricht, and
Andrew Veyette. When you put all of these principals on stage
in competing allegro, you know that each dancer will kill himself trying to do
his best. One of the few noticeable variances in competence came when each man
had to perform turns a la seconde. Garcia and Veyette managed their turns
respectably but then Ulbricht blew through them like a cyclone. He also drew
gasps from the audience when he vaulted up into a split with legs in a la
seconde. However, today his legs appeared to exceed 180 degrees and the torso
slumped a bit. His petite allegro, however, was a marvel to behold – so fast, so
effortless. Ashley Bouder more than held her own against the male allegro
dynamos. She was flirty and competitive and, as usual,
supercharged. (FYI, there's a FB page entitled Dancers against petite allegro. It's under the category Common Interest-Beliefs and Causes.)
This was Haglund's second viewing of Sterling
Hyltin and Jared Angle in Duo
Concertant. The steps were all there clearly and convincingly,
but the chemistry wasn't. Angle looked uncomfortable with the
emotional/theatrical requirements of the piece, especially those that required
stillness around the piano with the occasional glance toward his partner. He
pretty much just stared straight at the violinist.
Haglund finally got his first look at Christopher
Wheeldon's Estancia having passed it up last season,
because he incorrectly assumed it would be more of the same pretzel PdD'ing and
little else. But he's glad to see that Wheeldon has ventured back into the
story ballet and that he appreciates the masters MacMillan and de Mille enough
to model some of his choreography after them. But that's how you learn, right?
Imitate the masters. Some of Alberto Ginastera's musical phrases reminded Haglund of Stravinsky or perhaps
Bernstein's Stravinsky influences. Imitate the masters in practice - just be
careful how far you go with the borrowing in your final product.
The audience would have picked up the gist of
the sufficiently interesting and danceable story (slick city boy meets
country girl, has trouble connecting, finally tangles with a wild horse and wins
her over) without the page and a half of program notes. The detailed notes
created expectations that the ballet didn't deliver. So, slash the notes and
have some confidence in the audience's intelligence and in the choreography's
ability to stand on its own.
Tyler Angle and Tiler Peck fleshed out their characters
with warmth and charm. Their extended PdDs inspired wholesome romance with
interesting little surprises, like when Juliet jumped with a half turn into
Romeo's arms. Haglund really meant to say Country Girl and City Boy there, of
course.
The horsey business was creative, funny, inventive and a
pleasure to watch. The idea of the wild horses carrying their tails in hand
while dancing was a little bit of genius - Picasso-like in its effect. The
leather harness used to tame the wildest one (superbly danced by Andrew
Veyette) was perhaps a bit overdone. Haglund will return to see this piece
again for the wild horses and for some of the exciting corps work that Wheeldon
devised. The choreography of the finale easily matched the energy
and colorfulness of Ginastera's score and really seemed to lift the
audience's spirits. In Estancia, we saw Wheeldon take a small
step toward adapting dance vocabulary to pursue a storyline - something that de
Mille did so brilliantly. It sparked an interest as to what he will do with
Alice in Wonderland for the Royal Ballet next year.
The final piece on the program was Danses Concertantes
lead by Sterling Hyltin and Gonzalo Garcia. These days it's very hard not to
adore Hyltin in anything she dances. But for some funky fingers and excessive
wrist whipping, she's a clear and unaffected voice for most every choreographer,
and she makes every guy she stands in front of look better. But Haglund wishes
that she and some of the other blond ballerinas would retreat from the white
makeup and red lipstick that makes them look deathly. Let us see the wholesome,
individual beauties that Henry Leutwyler discovered in his
photographs.
For Saturday's matinee, Haglund bestows this Christian Louboutin leather bootie Pump Bump Award on the horseys in Estancia:
Comments