Haglund's Heel

observations 2/27

ABT and New York City Center will stream A Ratmansky Celebration beginning on March 23rd. The program, which was recently taped on stage at City Center, will be available on demand through April 18th. For $25, here's what we'll see.

"Rose Adagio" from The Sleeping Beauty
Cast: Skylar Brandt, Aran Bell, Patrick Frenette, Blaine Hoven, and Tyler Maloney

Seven Sonatas Second Movement
Cast: Herman Cornejo, Luciana Paris, Carlos Gonzalez, Devon Teuscher

The Seasons Pas de Deux
Cast: Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside

Bernstein in a Bubble World Premiere
Choreography by Alexei Ratmansky
Music by Leonard Bernstein (Divertimento)
Lighting Design by Brad Fields
Cast: Aran Bell, Skylar Brandt, Patrick Frenette, Blaine Hoven, Catherine Hurlin, Tyler Maloney, and Cassandra Trenary

As always with ABT, the casting determines whether it's watchable or not. The opportunity to see Skylar Brandt's nascent Rose Adagio should not be missed. This Aurora has been incubating for more than a year under the attentive, obsessed-with-detail coaching of Irina Dvorovenko and Max Beloserkovsky. We are, indeed, fortunate to get a glimpse of what may turn out to be not only a dream Aurora, but Ratmansky's dream Aurora as well.

The Rose Adagio segment was assembled by Nancy Raffa during a quarantine bubble in Silver Bay. The featured princes, which thankfully include Blaine Hoven and Patrick Frenette, are a first rate team of partners.

Missing from this taped performance are Tom Forster and Christine Shevchenko. They would have made a particularly attractive pair in The Seasons PdD.

So, $25 to watch a couple of PdDs, 1/7 of Seven Sonatas, and a new piece may or may not turn out to be worth the price.

Tickets for the stream go on sale on March 1st at noon on the NY City Center website.

 

ABT – Harlequinade 6/5

Assembling this reconstruction of Harlequinade had to have been a little like trying to make a meal out of the family grandmother’s famous recipe for cornbread stuffing. True, her stuffing is still the best the world has ever known. True, it’s important to keep her memory alive and to continue to impress upon the grandchildren and their grandchildren how important grandmother was and how her strength of character and other traits have been passed down through the generations. A mouthful of her cornbread stuffing is a pretty good way to make the point. But it takes more than stuffing to make a meal. Pulling out the fine linens and formal tablewares from the cupboard to use will improve the atmosphere but they will not improve the meal.

 

And so it went for ABT’s new Harlequinade as reconstructed by Alexei Ratmansky from notes created during Petipa’s time: delicious cornbread stuffing without much of a meal to go with it. 

 

At 1 hour and 47 minutes including a 20+ minute intermission, Harlequinade may be one of the most expensive ballets for which patrons have purchased tickets. $160 for 87 minutes of actual performance. Haglund was doing some mental calculations during Act II when the children took over the stage for 15 minutes of mostly charmless single file lines of 1-2-3 stepping. ($160/87) X 15 = $27.59 spent to watch these kids.

 

The premiere evening was so dreadful that we can hardly write about it. Ratmansky mistakenly relied on ABT’s two perennial 12-year-old kitscharina/os to bring back the funniness of a time gone by. Since they have a proclivity for acting like adolescents, it would be great typecasting, right? Wrong. The audience was served up a hammy Harlequin with unseasoned mashed potatoes as Columbine. Did they get the steps? Yes. Was it watchable? Hardly. So let’s forget the first night – if only we could…

 

The second evening seemed like a different ballet thanks to the sparkling Columbine who knew how to do the steps without making them look labored or risky. Sarah Lane (Columbine), Jeffrey Cirio (Harlequin), Stella Abrera (Pierrette), and David Hallberg (Pierrot) made this Harlequinade sing aloud. We knew immediately why the Harlequin wanted to marry Columbine, because we fell in love with her, too. There weren’t many pirouettes or much jumping for her to do – these were left to the Harlequin – rather, this Columbine had to rely on a perfect plumb line and steely strength to rotate limbs while balancing on pointe. Her combinations of hops on pointe while performing a grande ronde de jambe of the working leg to arabesque were so flawless that they looked ridiculously simple to do. 

 

Our Harlequin, Jeffrey Cirio, had just the right amount of buffoon in his character to elicit our empathy. His dancing, while precise and musical, was not all-powering or particularly exciting. His variations were easy to enjoy whereas some of his lifts of the tiny Columbine required a second heave-ho upward.

 

David Hallberg as Pierrot gave his character such a sad, pathetic loser quality with such commitment of performance that it seemed plausible that Hallberg might one day have the option of taking his career in the direction of Anthony Dowell’s – to perhaps become one of the great character artists on the ballet stage. His large frame with frail spine erupted with rage at the Harlequin who he then heaved off the balcony and subsequently cried over with great passion. It was one of the highlights of the evening. Tom Forster’s Pierrot was also engaging during the first night. His character was more broadly drawn - a little along the lines of Ashton’s step sisters in Cinderella. 

 

Stella Abrera’s Pierrette, while not having particularly challenging choreography, often provided the sparks that set off the other players in the cast. The manner in which she engaged Hallberg seemed to uncork his dramatic fizzy. Of all the principals, she seemed to be most embedded in her character.

 

This production has a lot of large ensemble dance packed into its 87 minutes with a lot of promenading about. It did require some patience to watch, but we were rewarded by eventually getting to the Larks in Act II who were simply lovely and lived up to our idea of a Petipa ensemble.

 

Overall, the most imposing artistry of the production was the costuming by Robert Perdziola. It was spectacular with not a dull thread to be seen. Ricardo Drigo’s music as conducted by David LaMarche kept the matters on stage moving along at a good clip - thank goodness.

 

Petipa was 82 years old when he created Les Millions d’Arlequin in 1900 upon which this restoration is based.  Maybe we should cut him some slack if this ballet didn’t contain the depth of story, passion, and dramatic arc that so many of his earlier ones did. If anyone is taking a survey, we don’t care to see a restoration of his 1903 The Magic Mirror or the 1904 La Romance d'un bouton de rose et d'un Papillon that apparently never got premiered, although we’re sure that there must be details about it in some Harvard collection for those who are interested. Let our remembrance and enjoyment of Petipa be based on his best works, not necessarily all of his works.

 

The H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Sarah Lane for her charming Columbine that carried the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

observations 11-9

Now this is somekinda Grigorovich Lift! Holy Moly. Fearless Stella. And that Hammoudi can hit a moving target pretty well.

 

 

A post shared by Alexandre Hammoudi (@alexhammoudi) on Nov 8, 2017 at 12:24pm PST

 

We wonder if Jared and Yuriko have seen this video. Their performance of Ratmansky's Nutcracker is still one of Haglund's life's highlights. They were the first to pull off this lift. Speaking of Yuriko Kajiya, she will perform Aurora in the Australian Ballet's Sleeping Beauty on November 22nd @ 1:30pm and again on November 25th @ 1:30pm. The company, sadly, is pointing all of its publicity to the Fakerina Celebrina who dances the evening performance on November 22nd and who most likely will have a meltdown after observing Yuriko's quasar-like performance hours before. Oh, but her agent already has a boatload of excuses docked at the pier and is lowering everyone's expectations to below sea level.

If you're anywhere near Sydney on the 22nd or 25th, don't miss Yuriko's Aurora. The lovely Amanda McGuigan (formerly of ABT, too) will be her Lilac Fairy. The elegant, noble Andrew Killian will be her Prince Désiré.

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It's not too early to be planning our local Nutcracker tour this year. One we're not going to miss is Veronika Part as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Port Washington on Long Island at the Fadeyev Ballet Nutcracker on December 22nd & 23rd. (Tickets here.) Yaroslav Fadeyev and Veronika first crossed paths as students at the Vaganova Academy and subsequently at the Mariinsky Theatre. He is passing on the tradition to students at his academy in Greenvale.

 

 

ABT Whipped Cream 5/22"This kind of dessert can really make your reputation"

Julia Child lectured about dance, although she didn’t realize it at the time. Back when television was honest – thanks to no editing capabilities – if she accidentally broke a yolk in her kitchen, she made a joke out of it. Her kitchen counter was often cluttered, and she utilized tools that looked like they’d been used thousands of times over many decades. Her hand-mixer, for instance, had almost all of the paint rubbed off of its motor encasement. She even licked her fingers occasionally just like we all do in our own kitchens. One of Julia Child's tips to cooks was:

 

When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it’s pretty much an assembly job – you can mix and match a different way every time.

 

That pretty much describes the new choreography that we see on the stages of New York by those who are much vaunted by, well, people who should know better along with people who know nothing at all. Same formulas, same filling ideas, different packaging.

 

But let’s talk about Mark Ryden’s delicious designs that are for the first time being adapted to the stage in ABT’s fantastic production of Whipped Cream as choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. We saw the first two performances in Costa Mesa at the Segerstrom Center in March where the stage is not as deep as The Met Opera’s. The overall effect at the Segerstrom was one of more intimacy, and details of the designs were more visible. The curtain rose to reveal a country setting with a little white church from which children would blast through its doors to the outside in celebration of their Confirmations and climb aboard a pink flowered wagon to be driven off to the pastry shop. At the Segerstrom, the pony pulling the wagon seemed so much closer to the audience. Its eyes sparkled. Its magnificently coifed mane looked soft to the touch, and it pawed the ground like a real pony – as we said in our original review, it was better than a real pony. But on the mammoth stage at The Met Opera on Monday evening, the magic was less visible because the pony and wagon were so far upstage. We think that our pony needs to come more downstage, and he should give a whinny or two when the curtain rises. 

 

Already in the first scene, the darkness and Grimm-like layering of complexities in Ryden’s surreal world were evident. The children laughed, the children played, the children celebrated and climbed aboard a beautiful wagon pulled by a stunningly handsome pony – all against a backdrop of dark clouds with whipped peaks billowing above the sharp shapes of giant conifers. The sharpest of the shapes would appear in the final scene when the narrow, towering Nicolo, Master of Ceremonies slowly glides to center stage to marry The Boy (Daniil Simkin) to Princess Praline (Sarah Lane).

 

At the center of the Pastry Shop in Act I were cascading shelves where the confections, tea, and coffee were stored. For his much anticipated entrance back to the Met stage after a three year absence, David Hallberg did not rush down a ramp onto the stage nor did he leap from the wings with a splashy jete. Nope, he casually came out of the can. Of course, we are talking about the coffee can on the shelf as he was Prince Coffee. Costumed in blond and dark roast stripes with a Turkish fez hat, he was about the furthest thing from our fond memories of David Hallberg. But his dancing had the familiar grace that we had missed for so long. He steeped and stewed after Princess Tea Flower (Stella Abrera) who initially wasn’t that interested, particularly when at first it seemed that Prince Coco (Joseph Gorak) and Don Zucchero (Blaine Hoven) might be able to spice up her cup with a little more pleasure. But Princess Tea Flower and Prince Coffee swirled their aromas in a lovely PdD and discovered that they were one another’s true brew.

 

In Act II, The Boy (Daniil Simkin) who had been taken to the hospital after indulging in too many sweets in the pastry shop, had a series of nightmares until Princess Praline (Sarah Lane) arrived atop a huge white and pink snow yak with an army of characters to save him. We previously described their dancing when we reviewed the world premiere last March. Last night, they had even more charm and sweetness to go with their delicious dancing.

 

The production overall is a tremendous pleasure to watch – but not for the choreography which was for the most part inconsequential. The music by Richard Strauss in some places is not all that danceable. Ratmansky’s reaction to that seemed to be to cram in as many steps and as much choreographic minutiae as possible to win over the viewer – especially in Act I which was so over-choreographed that it became tiresome. This was the exact same type of over-choreographing that we saw in On the Dnieper which was Ratmansky’s very first ballet for ABT eight years ago. There, the Prokofiev music was not particularly accessible to dance; so, Ratmansky crammed a zillion steps and choreographic minutiae into it to compensate. Only at the very end of Whipped Cream, when Simkin performed his over-the-top happy dance to express his relief of being out of the hospital and his joy of finding Princess Praline, did the steps and the music appear to be in love. 

 

Complaining aside, this is a ballet very much worth seeing for its designs and charm. Just remember that its main course is dessert.

 

Wednesday afternoon, Devon Teuscher will debut as Princess Tea Flower. Given her affinity for Ashton’s complex and speedy choreography, we are sure that she will do well in this sudden and very taxing assignment in her schedule. As Julia Child said, If someone offers you a freshly caught whole large fish, like a salmon or a stripped bass, don’t panic; take it!

 

The H.H. Pump Bump Award goes to David Hallberg for his most welcomed return to his home stage.

 

 

ABT's Whipped Cream opens tonight TAKE EVERY KID YOU KNOW TO SEE THIS

 

 

Haglund's review of world premiere in Costa Mesa last March
Review of second performance

NYC Arts on Whipped Cream

Well, this is fantastic – one of the best TV short pieces that we've ever seen about ABT. Mark our word, there is going to be pandemonium at the matinees when the parade of the final act begins. The actual ABT part of this episode begins at about 2'30".

 

Here are Haglund's reviews of the world premiere and the second performance last March at the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa. You don't want to miss this; take every kid who you know to it.

 

NYCB Spring Gala 5/4Random sketches to nowhere

Alexei Ratmansky’s newest work for New York City Ballet, Odessa, which premiered at the company’s spring gala last night, is set to Leonid Desyatnikov’s Sketches to Sunset. The music was composed 25 years ago but never released as a recording until last month when Quartz Music put it on an album with Russian Seasons. It is nine separate segments not particularly connected except perhaps by a haunting quality. A Jewish Lambada, Absolom’s Death, and Lot’s Daughters are the composer’s titles for segments along with Take Five and Seven which will drive you crazy if you actually try to count out the fives and sevens. But if the composer’s titles and Biblical references were meant to have anything to do with the choreography, it was lost. 

 

Of course, we all remember those good ole days in Odessa, Ukraine when we would sneak out in the middle of the darkest nights to test our tango and lambada that were prohibited under strict Halacha. We'd encounter gangs and criminals who would exploit us and we'd barely escape. The next day we would return to the mundane life of center barre work of classical ballet class (that was sooo stifling and sooo terribly cruel to our young Soviet-controlled imaginations) to obediently observe the Halacha-like rules. Oh, excuse me, you don’t remember? Well then, there is nothing in this ballet for you except random phrases of choreography that will test your patience. Here again, here now, the choreographer has tried to be “relevant” to someone somewhere at the expense of craft and art. Here is a mix of music with some steps and a hint of story, he says. The audience is supposed to make up a text and then applaud the choreography. The gala audience last night which was clearly unaware was also clearly unimpressed. Probably every dancer that was not on stage last night was collected in the orchestra section of the audience to hoot and cheer. If they were made to open up their own wallets to buy tickets, it is doubtful that there would be much cheering.

 

Keso Dekker’s dark costumes against Mark Stanley’s minimal lighting insured that we understood that these people were out in the dead of night doing things that they should not have been doing. (Has anyone seen Ratmansky’s Symphony No. 9 - also costumed by Dekker?) If the idea was that the audience was NOT supposed to see the dancers very well, then ✔️. 

 

The sections of the music were each around two to three minutes long, along the lines of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, but the choreography was more like brief attention spans strung together with weak thread. We saw three minutes of vibrant tango-inspired movement from the corps; we saw a couple of minutes of dramatic interpretative dance from Sara Mearns; there were spurts of action from Joaquin De Luz, Taylor Stanley, and Amar Ramasar that recalled both Pictures at an Exhibition, Concerto DSCH, and other ballets that Ratmansky has created. Sterling Hyltin slapped someone for being too fresh and perhaps more. Tiler Peck did what every choreographer now has her do. And it all ended with the company standing around doing tendues, degages, and ronde jambe en l’air while promenading on the supporting leg. And hating it, because, you know, we all hate what classical ballet has done to ballet. What better way is there to represent unhappiness in a stifled life than daily ballet exercises?

 

Also on the evening’s program was Peter Martins’ Jeu de Cartes, one of his worst ballets, which was created in 1992 during a period when he was determined to become jazzy. The program notes claim that Balanchine suggested to Martins that he choreograph an abstract ballet to Stravinsky's music. Balanchine, himself, had once used the music, but his ballet did not survive. So Martins waited until Balanchine was dead to create his homage to jazzy ballet. Left arm/left shoulder up, right arm/right shoulder down, left arm/left shoulder down, right arm/right shoulder up, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat ad nauseam. Add cutesy ad nauseam. It went on and on and on and on. Not even a sparkling Megan Fairchild nor intense Harrison Ball & Joseph Gordon nor bubbly Aaron Sanz could save this ballet. Martins must have taken this opportunity to “help” Sanz with his pirouettes. Last night they looked as frightful and on the verge of disaster as Ask la Cour’s generally do. 

 

After the Rain has had its day. It is now an honorary piece for a ballerina and not much more. Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour performed Wheeldon’s signature piece for Wendy Whelan as well as anyone has. Here now is the best example of Wheeldon’s choreographic philosophy If less is more, then nothing must be the best something of all. Puddles to that.

 

Not even a performance of Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux could save the evening, although the audience gulped it down like water found on a desert. Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette have danced this much better in the past. Last night it looked unfresh and rumply, like they had just pulled it out of a pile of clothes to wear without bothering to iron it. Is that the treatment that Balanchine is getting these days while the company chases after the next new fad in choreography?

 

We don’t intend to waste our money on this program again. 

 

Lick the plate crumbs...

YouTube video of the bows from the Whipped Cream premiere last Wednesday and the Thursday performance. The second video is dark for about the first 25 seconds:

The Gustavo Dudamel curls on Cornejo are the best:

We have a "winner" for the black vs. pink Ryden souvenir tee-shirt:

 

 

 

Segerstrom Center for the ArtsABT – Whipped Cream 3/16

If Orange County didn’t already have enough reasons to adore Alexei Ratmansky's Whipped Cream at the premiere on Wednesday, they got another one Thursday night when Herman Cornejo as The Boy arrived on stage with Gustavo Dudamel hair curls hanging in his face. In the same role the night before, Daniil Simkin was able to capitalize on every aspect of his eternally too-youthful appearance that has been an obstacle for him in most principal casting. Cornejo, on the other hand, while lacking height, has never had a problem being perceived as an adult on stage. Thursday night he had to find his inner 7-year-old and convince the audience of the authenticity of his character without appearing to be an obnoxious adult acting childish. We’ll dispense with details and just say that Cornejo was straight out of Art Linkletter’s Playroom. Sure, it was all choreographed; but when he stood still on center stage in his white Confirmation shorts while intensely focused on what was before him and then casually lifted up a foot to scratch the back of the other leg, his kid’s character was cemented.

At the beginning of Act II when The Boy awoke and realized that he was in the hospital and being watched by a twitching eye suspended from above, he reacted quite precisely like ABT's Juliets who upon awaking in the crypt, then turn on their knees to face the back of the stage to look upward while expressing horror at the winged sculptures above. The copying of this moment in MacMillan's staging was obvious the first night as well and came off as Ratmansky trying to make a joke of another choreographer’s superior work. (Thumbs down on this and on any and all quotations, borrowings, and references to other choreographer's creations.)

Over the years we have seen Cornejo dance many brilliant variations in every type of costume. But blistering allegro is not exactly what tends to explode out from under a hospital gown, if you get our drift, the way it erupted from under Cornejo's in his dazzling solo. Many thanks to whoever came up with the idea of actually showing us that the bed pan next to The Boy’s hospital bed was in need of emptying.

Yes, Cornejo was brilliant, and Cassandra Trenary as Princess Praline matched him step for step. In the premiere performance, Sarah Lane’s Princess Praline was sweet and nutty; Thursday night Cassandra’s character was a little more saucy and knowing. Her dancing was stunning in its clarity and force, if perhaps less nuanced than Sarah’s. Every arabesque made a strong statement. Every position was crystalline. All in all, she gave an exceptional performance and was a very good match-up with Cornejo. Sure, there were a couple of PdD elements that could have been more smoothly coordinated between the two, but their chemistry was vibrant. Cassandra has one of the bolder stage personalities that Cornejo has danced with, and it brought a little extra out of him.

Hee Seo and Cory Stearns as Princess Tea Flower and Prince Coffee made less of an impression than Abrera and Hallberg the night before. There was prettiness in Hee's dancing and a coyness in her expression, but not much else. Her dancing didn’t have the crispness and definition that Abrera’s had. Cory’s Prince Coffee came out strong and steamy but soon after seemed decaffeinated. His actual dancing was very good — no complaints whatsoever – but the development of character dissipated early on.

Calvin Royal III’s Prince Cocoa was terrific. He had good control of those incredibly long limbs and had a deep stage presence. Perhaps he wasn’t the whiz that Joe Gorak was the night before, but who is? Arron Scott as Don Zucchero also danced well, but like last night, we found ourselves wanting to turn our eyes away from that unfortunate costume.

Christine Shevchenko, Alexander Hammoudi, and Thomas Forster were magnificent as the three liquors. Mature artistry, fabulous chemistry, knife sharp dancing technique among the three made this much more than a PdT of bufoonishness.

Once again, the stars of this production were the designs by Mark Ryden. If Whipped Cream were on Broadway, Ryden would win a Tony Award which he would then share with Camellia Koo and Holly Hynes who managed the processes that brought his imagination to life.

This ballet is a marketeer’s dream; it is hard to imagine a ballet being easier to sell. It's possible to think of hundreds of ways to whip up enthusiasm, if not hysteria, about it. But ABT, always in a “let it sell itself mode” is not likely to engage in any aggressive or creative marketing. We just have to pray that we don’t see a revised version of that 20-year-old TV spot with the same droning announcer’s voice hawking the season like a public service announcement encouraging everyone to get flu shots.

The H.H. Pump Bump Award, a delight that comes in either vanilla or chocolate (recipe on cakecentral.com), is bestowed upon Herman Cornejo for his detailed, brilliantly danced creation of The Boy.

ABT – Whipped Cream world premiere 3/15

Last night at the Segerstrom Center in Orange County, ABT served up sweet after sweet in its world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Whipped Cream - a full length ballet to Richard Strauss’s music and libretto entitled Schlagobers (1924), which is the German equivalent of whipped cream. The ballet's main character, a young boy celebrating his Confirmation, over-indulges at a sweet shop, gets sick, goes to a hospital, and has one crazy nightmare. Strauss’s creation did not initially receive much respect from critics who complained that the composer had demonstrated a “dreadful tendency toward triviality and kitsch.” His retort was reportedly, "I cannot bear the tragedy of the present time. I want to create joy. I need it.” Oh, my. How much times have not changed.

Whoever said that ballet doesn’t always have to be "a big, pink, puffy, glittery nightmare" forgot to mention just how much fun it is when ballet is exactly that. (Christopher Wheeldon has since eaten his words and has gone on to create some pretty big and impressive puffy stuff himself.) This Whipped Cream, swirled throughout Mark Ryden's brilliant surrealistic designs of pink, pink, and more pink, earns two Michelin stars, i.e., Exceptional cuisine, worth a detour – if your aim is to find a good dessert. If you’re looking for hanger steak and veggies, this may not be the plate for you.

Upon walking through the doors of the Segerstrom Center, Haglund spied The Candy Table. Six dollars got you all the skittles, gummies, and you-never-know-what-you’re-really-eating sugary things that you could pack into a Chinese food carton. “Fill it up. You don’t have to be able to close the lid either,” said the candy-pusher who was also tending bar. “Sure, you can take it into the ballet. Hey, you can get a lot more candy into that carton.” All of a sudden the skittles and gummies were bouncing all over the table and onto the floor as Haglund tried to pack down the contents of his carton.

Up one flight to the Orchestra level lobby and there was another Candy Table and more! A pink Mark Ryden designed tee-shirt?! Gimme gimme. Who could resist the same design in black? Not Haglund. He was now out $66 in souvenirs and candy and hadn’t yet made it to the bar for a drink. The 5-minute bell rang not a second too soon.

Act I opened on a scene so magical that Haglund’s eyes started to mist up. First candy, now a pony! Not a real pony – better than a real pony! Ryden’s imagination was brought to life – larger than life – with enormous character heads spectacularly detailed with curling eyelashes, wrinkly skin, and expressive features. The huge size of the character heads worn by all the adult figures and animals overwhelmed the size of the dancers portraying children and helped to convince us of their youth.

The door of the chapel opened and out scampered children dressed in white confirmation clothes who climbed in the cart behind the pony and ventured off to the pastry shop. Among the children was Daniil Simkin as The Boy whose appetite for sweets got the best of him. Pettifores of petit allegro ensued until The Boy pinked-out with a stomach ache and was carried off to the hospital with his friends following, not to be seen again until Act II.

Now we were in the pastry shop by ourselves (Who hasn't had that dream?) but not really alone. The cakes, candies, and all the goodies suddenly sprang to life. From within the shelves loaded with delights appeared Princess Tea Flower, Stella Abrera, accompanied by her tea leaf attendants April Giangeruso, Catherine Hurlin, Paulina Waski, and Katherine Williams. For those unfamiliar, flowering teas are handcrafted into rosette bundles by tying tea leaves around a flower. The rosette is then placed in a clear glass tea pot or tea cup. As hot water is poured over the bundle, the flower magically begins to bloom as the tea steeps. It’s tea theater, or to some, tea thea-tre.

Princess Tea Flower is a step-intensive petit allegro role of the type that we have come to know in Ratmansky’s ballets. In fact, most all of the dancing in Whipped Cream is in a similar vein. Stella is exceptionally adept at producing the quick, off-centered changes of direction and the unexpected darting quality that the choreographer favors. More than most, she can execute it all while maintaining an airy lightness in the quality of movement thanks to her soft, quiet feet. This she did last night to spectacular effect.  In her tutu of green tea leaves with narrow pink bodice, Stella was the jasmine tea flower in full bubbly bloom.

Enter Prince Coffee, David Hallberg, in percolating pursuit of Princess Tea Flower. Their PdD, a light roast with overly complex herbal essences, was always interesting to watch but it was so packed with choreographic minutia that there was very little room for the dancers to contribute their own artistry. In fact, a sense of hyperactivity pervaded most of the dancing throughout the ballet. David’s own solo wasn’t of the type that allowed us to admire his lines and general elegant style, but it was a happy relief to see him not only dancing well but seeming to relish being in the midst of a lot of craziness.

Prince Coffee had some competition for Princess Tea Flower’s affections in the way of Joseph Gorak’s Prince Cocoa and Blaine Hoven’s Don Zucchero, but of course, he ultimately won her over. While Joe Gorak’s variation provided some of the most dazzling dancing of the evening, we may have had trouble appreciating Blaine’s work due to the unfortunate costume design that was rather like a big white tent shift dress.

Act II provided nearly all of the thin story line. The Boy lay sick in his enormous hospital bed on a darkened stage. A glowering eyeball (a Ryden specialty) staring down from above told us that his environment was dangerous. He was, however, rescued by a sweet, slightly nutty Princess Praline, Sarah Lane, who danced her little feet off in allegro so complex and fast that it required Theme and Variations type skills to get through.

Sarah and Daniil (The Boy) danced an enjoyable kinetic PdD with no visible partnering issues. It was all just as complex as the PdD of Princess Tea Flower and Prince Coffee and even had similar choreography. Simkin’s part in this ballet allowed for the most amount of character development which we thought he handled the best that we’ve ever seen from him. His final solo to music from the main waltz of Strauss’s composition was a high-value technical display of the type for which Simkin is best known. But it fit perfectly; after all, here was a boy happy to have recovered from his stomach ache and ready to start all over again indulging in sweets if given the chance.

The final scene of this ballet is to die for. It will send the sugared-up kids of all ages over the edge. Mark our word, the matinees of Whipped Cream at The Met this year are going to be pure pandemonium.

For all the diehard classical ballet fans out there, rest assured that Ratmansky didn’t forget that we all want to see a White Act in a full length ballet. Actually, there are a couple of White Act-type scenes in this ballet. In Act I of Whipped Cream, you may observe something that reminds you of the white Shades in La Bayadere coming down the ramp – if you can think of them slip-sliding on their butts. And in the Act II hospital scene, you may see something that reminds you of a group of fierce Wilis – although they might also remind you of Nurse Ratchet (“It’s medication time, everybody”). Gosh, already we’re giving away too many details.

As for similarities to The Nutcracker, there were very few times during the evening when that came to mind. One of the times was during the PdT of Marianne Chartreuse (Catherine Hurlin), Ladislav Slivovitz (Duncan Lyle), and Boris Wutki (Roman Zhurbin) which came across similar to the three Russian bumbling buffoons in Ratmansky’s Nutcracker. Perhaps the two men made us think of the Nutcracker buffoons because they have always acquitted themselves so well in those particular roles, too. The Marianne Chartreuse character seemed to be modeled off of the Princess Tea Flower character in her ditziness and coyness – too much so.

Last evening was a complete pleasure and we’re looking forward to this evening as well. Whipped Cream is whipped cream. It’s not caviar. Some weeks ago, we wrote that we were anticipating this ballet in the way we approached The Met Opera’s Hansel and Gretel which isn’t many people’s favorite opera, but it draws large audiences of both adults and children due to the incredible production values. Our approach turned out to be right on target. The fantastical production values of Whipped Cream make this ballet a special treat and one that as many children as possible should see. Surely, it will draw the New York art crowd interested in Mark Ryden’s unique work and maybe bring them back for other ballets as well. For a first foray into translating his art for the stage, this is a spectacular success. If the choreography simply goes along for the ride, that’s okay, too.

Bravo to the whole creative team and especially to the dancers for their outstanding performances all evening. The proverbial icing on the cake last night was the return of David Hallberg to the ABT stage after a long injury-induced absence. We're so happy to see him on stage again.

The H.H. Pump Bump Award, a torta zapato, is bestowed upon Mark Ryden who back in 1998 presented a solo art show in Pasadena that was called The Meat Show and featured, yeah, that. Almost 20 years later, he's back in town with his desserts.