The audience practically stormed the gates to get into the theater tonight for NYCB's inaugural fall season at Lincoln Center. Exceptional entertainment at prices that were both reasonable and democratic, a snazzy jazz trio playing on the promenade before the performance and free booze at intermission – if only more of New York was this hospitable.
To open its first ever fall season at Lincoln Center,
NYCB priced all of its tickets at either $50 or $25 - that's $50 for orchestra
prime through the third ring while all sections of the fourth ring were $25.
Then at intermission the festive house staff served everyone champagne. Happy
was the audience. And so it should have been.
At the beginning of the evening, Peter Martins came
before the curtain to address the audience and explain that NYCB was making a
tremendous effort to be sure that audience members enjoyed themselves. He
remarked how usually the season's emphasis is on choreography but this year he
wanted to direct attention to the dancers themselves by displaying the gorgeous
photographs of the principals by Henry Leutwyler along the promenade and by
introducing each principal on stage before the evening's dancing began.
Balanchine's choreography would have meant nothing were it not for the living, breathing, thinking artists who have all
these years literally embodied it. It is their very individual live
performances that are of premier importance, not his catalog of steps.
Haglund thinks that every NYCB season should begin with
Balanchine's Serenade. After all, Serenade was the beginning
of the beginning – the first ballet Balanchine created in America – and remains
today among the most appealing choreography he created. The music is, in a
sense, NYCB's anthem. Tschaikovsky's opening bars of Serenade for Strings in C
makes the listener straighten his spine and push down the shoulders, readying
his attention for the important event to come – very similar in its effect to
the glorious opening anthem of Delibes' Sylvia – a piece of music much admired
by Tschaikovsky.
And so the evening began with a stirring performance of
Serenade that marked the New York debut of Janie Taylor. Megan
Fairchild, Sara Mearns, Charles Askegard and Ask La Cour rounded out the strong
principal cast. Have to say that Janie Taylor, after a bit of a bumpy start and
less than confident pirouettes, really pulled some drama out of this
piece. She was exquisite in the Russian section and the final Elegy during
which her ridiculously gorgeous waist length hair and flying blue tulle skirt
had lives of their own on that stage – accenting the music, swirling around
Janie, seemingly leading her to that final iconic moment when she stood atop
the shoulders of one of a group of men who led her upstage as her upper body
combred backward toward the audience.
Megan Fairchild was superb in all respects tonight –
breezy jumps alternating with grounded movements where you could sense her
energy pushing through the floor. The joy that she conveys when dancing is
quickly making her one of Haglund's favorites.
After a brief pause, Ashley Bouder, Gonzalo Garcia,
Daniel Ulbricht and Andrew Veyette performed Peter Martins' Grazioso to music by
Glinka. Haglund had not seen this piece before and was pleasantly surprised at
the high level of creativity, entertainment, substantive technique, musicality
and lack of cliches. It is a virtuosity hamburger, if you will. It's a piece
that shows off what these particular four dancers do best and like to do. We
saw some brilliant sissonnes that changed direction from Ulbricht and pristine
allegro from Bouder. There was some attractive choreography where as Bouder
danced, the men replaced one another as her partner. Haglund liked this piece
and thinks it is one of Martins' more successful efforts.
It took a while to round up everyone from the
intermission and get them back to their seats. Many could be observed walking
around the promenade with a champagne flute in each fist. When there's free
champagne to guzzle, the urgency of returning to the night's purpose becomes
lost. Haglund threw back several flute-fulls - well, they were really only half full
- and he enjoyed each one immensely.
The final half of the evening was Robbins' The Four
Seasons to music by Verdi. Highlights included Jenifer Ringer's airy Spring
variations which tonight were just as pretty as Kyra Nichols' were decades ago.
Jenifer's attentive partner was Jared Angle. Jared's feet were
unstretched and most of his releves never made it past one-quarter let alone to
three-quarter releve. Haglund noticed some of the other principal men hung out
with marginal half releves. Hope this isn't a trend.
Rebecca Krohn and Amar Ramasar led the Summer section
beautifully. Rebecca has lovely, expressive feet and limbs and truly looked
like a principal level dancer this evening.
The highlight of The Four Seasons was Tiler Peck and
Joaquin De Luz leading the Fall section. She towers over him on pointe but he
partners her like a magician. They both employed their megawatt charm and
smiles and led the concluding segment of the ballet with extraordinary energy.
What a terrific start to the first fall season! It's difficult to point to one performance that rose above all of the others because everyone rose to tonight's occasion and delivered inspired performances. So, Haglund will award this exquisite Alexander McQueen Pump Bump Award to all of tonight's performers with thanks for a great evening:
(from his 2010 Fall collection)