Haglund's Heel

observations 7/19

    A hopelessly crappy news week ends with some great news.

    Congratulations to Patrick Frenette, Léa Fleytoux, and Fangqi Li on their promotions to Soloists at ABT! High quality promotions every one of them. Susan Jaffe got it right when she acknowledged that Frenette has been deserving of this promotion for a number years. We're very, very happy (and relieved) to see this happen.

ABT Swan Lake 7/3 matinee

        In addition to promoting Chloe Misseldine to Principal Wednesday at the conclusion of her matinee performance as Odette/Odile, Artistic Director Susan Jaffe should have draped Chloe's shoulders with a black & white PhD graduation stole with cords. Misseldine not only deserved the promotion, but she deserved to be recognized for academic excellence and achievement which come with great expectations for future contributions to the chosen field. Hers was a doctoral level performance if ever there was one. Haglund was nearly overwhelmed while witnessing this very young Ballerina’s mature choices and the overall integrity of her dancing. It’s hard to remember the last time that the sole of a shoe in the face felt so good. Her pointe shoe soles were so turned forward on each extension that the front row audience members could probably read the imprint on the leather. But honestly, rather than sole, it’s all about soul, to quote Billy Joel (because we cannot believe or accept that his 150th MSG performance will be his last). And as Billy says quite clearly and, in fact, several times - it’s all about faith and a deeper devotion. That’s what we saw on stage on Wednesday afternoon from Chloe Misseldine and Aran Bell: faith in their own artistry and a deep devotion to telling the story clearly and with the utmost respect for their language. To borrow one more of the piano man's most famous adages: like every good ballet performance, it allowed us to forget about life for a while. Man oh man, don’t we need that . . .

 

        It was a spectacular performance from Misseldine replete with gorgeous arabesques, liquid swan arms, intelligent usage of stillness and flight, dramatic conviction, tightly coiled pirouettes, and balletic lines that were acutely geometric but which also synthesized avian and human beauty. We first noticed the little bump-up at the top of Odette’s high a la seconde extensions as though she suddenly engaged a flexor near the pinnacle, and concluded that it needs to be smoothed out. However, when we saw it again during Odile’s Pas de Deux, it came across as an absolutely brilliant detail that corresponded to von Rothbart’s creepy neck cracks and whipping head movements that conveyed his evilness. Conclusion: Misseldine should eliminate it from Odette but wildly exaggerate it for Odile to give her Black Swan a unique sense of danger.

 

        Aran Bell’s Siegfried was superb as well. We noticed that he launched his pirouettes with an unusual amount of caution and did not rip the revolutions as we have seen in the past. However, the pirouettes were still impressive as were the double saut de basques that he landed with perfectly balanced arabesques. But the extra caution or preparatory delay on the pirouettes took some of the magic out of the moment; it conveyed an upcoming trick as opposed to an emotional expression by Siegfried. We’re not nitpicking, just observing. Bell’s projection of the drama was strong, clear, and as traditional as we could ever ask for with balletic integrity from his first descent of the staircase in Act I to his final descent into the lake at the end of Act IV. We sensed a developing rapport with Misseldine coupled with his sense of responsibility to make sure that she had the brilliant performance he knew she was capable of giving. Bell has grown into a very generous, mature artist, and it is easy to forget that he is still very young. What the 25-year-old Siegfried might accomplish with this 22-year-old Odette/Odile in the coming years is something for us all to be excited about.

 

        Patrick Frenette gave a major performance as Benno. Always a star in his Ratmansky roles, he has also delivered impressive performances as Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet. His character of Hilarion drew such sympathy that one hoped that Giselle would wake up and smell the coffee and eventually choose him over Albrecht. Frenette is on the cusp of becoming one of ABT’s most captivating theatrical dancers, and we need to see much more of him. His technical abilities keep growing — because he is constantly working to improve them. His pirouettes on Wednesday afternoon were clean and his grand allegro was storm-filled with energy and urgency. He was animated and mime-oriented, but sometimes dropped his facial expression when preparing pirouettes. His partnering was impeccable - he saved Paulina Waski’s standard fumblings and highlighted Sierra Armstrong’s magnetic placement and confident charm in the Pas de Trois. The landing to the knee of the final double tour was smudged, but at that point it simply did not matter. We kept wondering if Waski will ever be able to manage the cabrioles and entrechat six required in this section or the supported partnering. There comes a time when further chances should be cut off, and it seems that we have been past that point with Waski for quite some time. Her weaknesses made Armstrong’s strengths all the more apparent.

 

        Joseph Markey as the purple von Rothbart gave an exceptional performance as well. Even though we knew exactly what the upcoming steps were going to be, Markey created tension with an unpredictability that made the choreography look new. Not only a good, good dancer, but he is an interesting one. Cy Doherty as the monster von Rothbart had some great moments: he died without a shred of dignity left and suffered dramatically at the wings of the swan corps. The Corps de Ballet did a competent job at this matinee but did not have the spectacular visual effect of corps in years past. The various Princesses and national dances in Act III were also competent but a little sleepy. Carlos Gonzalez and Melvin Lawovi needed to kick it up a notch in the Neapolitan duet. It was too careful and lacked voltage. 

 

        Small complaints aside, this was a performance of Swan Lake worth remembering for a long time due to the outstanding performances of our two leads, Chloe Misseldine and Aran Bell. We’re going to toss them an H.H. Pump Bump Award, a pair of magnificent Manolo Blahnik diamond embellished pumps, for their dazzling portrayals of Odette/Odile and Siegfried.

 

 

 

 

ABT fails to learn from its mistakes

        Take away the smoke, laser lights, Kabuki makeup, and odd-for-the-sake-of-odd costumes, and what is left of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works are the same old neck rolls, rib rolls, arm rolls, twisting women to extremes, arbitrary limb jerking, walking around trying to look dramatic, and posing that we saw in his spectacular failure AfterRite six years ago. Basically, Wayne McGregor is posing as a choreographer. And ABT is posing so precariously on its last legs that many just want to knock it over, clear the rubble, and forget about it. It loses half of its Met Season, is unable to find a replacement venue, and then wastes a quarter of the reduced season on an insipid, worthless production for which it should apologize and offer every patron a refund. And also offer to pay for damages to each patron’s auditory nerve from the bombastic noise that was labeled as Max Richter music.

 

        What a disastrous waste of money, time, and everyone’s talent. Woolf Works has little - nearly nothing - to do with Virginia Woolf’s texts, style, themes, or life. The choreographer has used an association with Woolf’s writing and life as gimmicks to brand his work as having some intellectual value when in fact it is empty as a drum. We can be grateful that Wayne McGregor didn’t decide to use Joyce’s Ulysses as a basis for his nonsense choreography. Surely, the Irish Nationalists would have hunted him down.

 

        And yet, ABT is all pretend-smiles, hoping that if they put out media that all the dancers just love performing Wayne McGregor’s choreography that it will translate into audience acceptance. There were audible boos at yesterday’s matinee where fewer than a quarter of the seats were filled. Quite frankly, nobody cares if the dancers like the choreography. We know that they will basically do anything in order to get on stage. If ABT tells the dancers to don paper bags and yodel, they will do it and put out Instagram media that it is a wonderful opportunity.

 

        What is so distressing about the repetition of mistakes by the artistic management is that it has plans to bring something even potentially worse next year. ABT has chosen another non-balletic, modern dance choreographer who has made nothing of value worthy of being on the Met Opera stage and she’s going to apply all her ballet knowledge to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment to create another magnificent and expensive debacle. ABT needs to stop recklessly swinging for the fences. 

 

        If people want a laser light show beamed out to the audience, they should go to Madison Square Garden where every gimmick is regularly employed. Big fail, ABT. Perhaps the biggest fail in its history.

 

 

ABT @ the Met Onegin 6/18

        If there was any question as to whether Lensky simply failed to get a shot off or chose to allow Onegin to kill him during their duel, it wasn’t answered on Tuesday night at ABT’s opening performance of Onegin in which Jake Roxander gave a terrific portrayal of Lensky’s ambivalence during Act II of John Cranko’s brilliant ballet based on Alexander Pushkin’s legendary poem. Roxander as Lensky, the brooding poet, who was humiliated in front of high society by his best friend’s flirtations with his girlfriend, initiated the duel with Onegin but seemed conflicted right up to the last moment as to what he should do. Neither Lensky nor Onegin could walk away from the challenge without injuring his own pride. And so the duel proceeded and concluded by shattering the lives of all four main characters.

        Debuting as Lensky, Roxander displayed theater skills equal to his heralded technical skills. His Lensky wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to Olga, dancing with her as though it was his life’s dream. When Onegin decided to have fun at his friend’s expense by flirting with Olga, Lensky at first shriveled in humiliation and then struck back in anger with a challenge to a duel. Lensky’s soliloquy which preceded the duel is one of the most beautiful balletic solos ever created for a male dancer. Roxander with his incredible physical control, flexible arabesques, and dramatic openness conveyed Lensky’s torment brilliantly. Toward the end of the solo, Lensky circled one leg behind him then the other to step backward. He then stopped as though realizing that there was no way to go back now. Still, we did not know what his decision going forward would be.

 

        Zimmi Coker was fresh perfection as Olga — a young aristocrat who failed to see Onegin’s flirtations as hollow and who was initially insensitive to their effects on Lensky. Energy radiated through her facial expressions and her scrupulous dancing. Together, Coker and Roxander looked like ABT’s future, the next great Giselle/Albrecht or Juliet/Romeo or Swanilda/Franz pairing.

 

        The evening’s main characters were portrayed by Cory Stearns (Onegin) and Christine Shevchenko (Tatiana). Their roles were dutifully danced, step by step, gesture by gesture during Acts I and II. Their bedroom PdD included lovely shapes in the lifts which also had a sense of daring. Tatiana’s character, however, was not differentiated from what we have seen in Shevchenko’s Juliet or even in Seven Sonatas. We saw Christine hoping to be Tatiana. The pulse was the same, the facial expressions were the same, the posture was the same as all that has come before. It’s never enough to genuinely feel like the character inside; one must artificially create and communicate in high volume who the character is. Internalized subtleties don’t read well from the Met Opera house stage. Stearns had more success in conveying his character’s boredom and callousness. He was able to almost immediately make the audience uncomfortable about who he was. Should we adore him for his cheekbones and good looks or should we despise him for his sense of entitlement? Onegin has long been one of Stearns' best roles along with Othello. They don’t tax his technique and allow him to dig deeply into the characters' psyches. His partnering throughout the evening was strong and highly coordinated. Gone was the look of terror on his face that we remember a decade ago when he danced opposite Dvorovenko’s Tatiana and he knew that she was going to throw every bit of herself and her soul at him.

 

        By the time we got to Act III, Stearns and Shevchenko managed to bring a good amount of drama to the final scene, even perhaps exaggerating Tatiana’s effort to break free of Onegin’s grip. There was a jolting effect that we hadn’t observed before. Musically, they were superb, hitting the crescendos in the lifts with maximum impact. Stearns was in a good place stamina-wise and in confidence and we were able to admire the dramatic arc that he brought to Onegin. We look forward to seeing how he and Shevchenko are able to further mine the treasure from Pushkin’s greatest poem and Cranko’s greatest ballet in their final two performances.

 

        The members of the corps de ballet were superb in their dancing and theatrical output. 

 

        A word about the behind-the-scenes drama that occurred the week before the opening when staging supervisor Reid Anderson apparently nixed the opening night cast of Devon Teuscher and Daniel Camargo. We don’t care what the reason was or whether Anderson was wallowing in his own sense of entitlement as the primary stager who exercised ultimate control over casting or was simply being erratic and difficult. Waiting until the final week to assert authority and up-end the theater plans of thousands of people was both unprofessional and detrimental to the reputation of John Cranko. The fact that ABT was not forthcoming with an explanation and more importantly silently allowed Anderson to jeopardize the run of Onegin, suggests that the new artistic director needs a firmer grasp on her own authority. We all know that we were gypped out of superb performances by Teuscher and Camargo. 

 

        The H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Jake Roxander for his gripping portrayal of the poet, Lensky.

 

 

 

 

 

ABT contract negotiations When Push Comes to Shove

        ABT dancers have put their feet down in solidarity to force management to come to a fair contract agreement after many months of stalled negotiations. The dancers have authorized AGMA to call a strike at any time including for the purpose of disrupting the upcoming sold out engagement at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC this month.

        This company's Board of Directors should stand up and take responsibility for failing to prepare for the consequences of the Met Opera yanking three weeks away from the company's spring season. Why didn't this board secure another venue during the several years for which it had notice? Why isn't this board bringing in more money in one of the richest cities in the world with a rich devotion to the arts?

        The dancers' deserve a fair contract. SHOW THEM THE MONEY!!!!

 

observations 1/10

        NYCB's Winter Season is several steps down from its extraordinary Fall Season, but nevertheless, there are some things to look forward to judging from the first week's casting and a few hints gleaned from Instagram.

        Robbins' In the Night will see a number of interesting debuts. Unity Phelan and Andrew Veyette will take on the "can't live with you, can't live without you" third PdD for the first time. It depicts what the internet therapists would call a toxic relationship. Sometimes the ballerina's melodrama seems to suggest bipolar disorder. That said, it's still total fun to watch and includes some of Robbins' most inventive language.

        Also in that cast, Olivia MacKinnon and Alec Knight debut as the first couple, young and in passionate love, and Tyler Angle dances the second PdD for the first time opposite Sara Mearns. In the subsequent cast, Emilie Gerrity and Aaron Sanz debut in the second PdD and Gilbert Bolden may well be able to match Tiler Peck's theatrics in his debut in the third PdD.

        What we're really excited about, however, is seeing Jackie Bologna's debut as the principal passerby in purple in Fancy Free on Wednesday night. Opportunities for this beautiful dancer are long past due. Additionally, Miriam Miller debuts in Martins' Barber Violin Concerto and Alexa Maxwell debuts in the Wendy Whelan role in Wheeldon's Polyphonia. There are many other debuts throughout the week which make multiple viewings of programs worthwhile.

        While sniffing around Instagram, we stumbled over a startling surprise involving ABT corps member Virginia Lensi. She's starting her seventh year at ABT, but you might not be aware of her because apparently McKenzie wasn't either. Virginia just completed a multi-performance stint as Odette/Odile in the International Festival Ballet's full length Swan Lake. Her Siegfried was Ukranian Mikhail Tkachuk who was schooled at the Kiev State Choreographic Institute and has performed with a number of companies including St. Petersburg Ballet.

        My goodness, Ms. Virginia has herself a technically polished, dramatically interesting Odette/Odile in her pocket. We have no idea how this opportunity or her blossoming evolved (we can guess, however), but oh my goodness, people, look at her Instagram clips and the beauty of her shaping! Her YouTube channel has the full White Swan PdD video.   

 

ABT Gala 10/24 Sustainable Fashion Wins the Day

        By definition, a gala is a fancy social occasion with entertainment. At ABT’s Fall Gala on Tuesday evening, the gala attendees schmoozed and boozed in their trendy, ostentatious outfits and jewelry. The dancers, currently fighting for a contract that will provide a living wage and benefits, glided about in borrowed designer gowns. But the hit of the evening was the sustainable fashion from the 1960s and '70s smartly styled on stage during the entertainment section of the evening.

 

        Excerpts presented from Antony Tudor’s The Leaves Are Fading (1975) and Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto (1966) were timeless classics, not vintage 20th Century thrift wear.  Both revealed the caring musicality and efficiency of movement that their choreographers were known for — perhaps lack of excess would be a better term than efficiency.

 

        Skylar Brandt and Joo Won Ahn made the case that The Leaves Are Fading has not lost its appeal or color — but it does require careful casting. During the McKenzie decades, the ballet became deathly subdued compared to when Gelsey Kirkland danced it. Skylar brought back the Kirkland level of energy in this debut, and Joo Won Ahn was charismatic in his own spacious solos. A couple of awkward partnering moments did not spoil the magic or the freshness of the dancers’ interpretation. Hopefully, we will see this again soon.

 

        Hee Seo and Cory Stearns were mesmerizing in the central pdd from Concerto danced to the Shostakovich Concerto for Piano, No. 2, Op. 102, Mvt 2 which was beautifully played by Jacek Mysinski. Seo’s sensuous lines and languid style enhanced the beauty of both the choreography and the music. Stearns’ seemingly effortless but attentive partnering was exactly what was called for. He functioned as a barre for Seo’s warm-up port de bras. The simplicity and clarity inherent in MacMillan’s treatment of the adagio are alluring but also evoke a spiritual reaction to the simple beauty of the exercises when laid within the strains of Shostakovich’s less complicated than usual music. The same concerto was used by Alexei Ratmansky in Concerto DSCH for New York City Ballet, but MacMillan - by utilizing restraint - revealed more of the humanity and emotion in the adagio music. Again the casting was key here; the choreography would not withstand hillbilly flash or a ballerina who does not own exquisitely shaped legs and feet and maximum, perfectly placed extensions along with extreme sensitivity to music. 

 

        The ballerina casting for the rest of the evening was darned near perfect. The company’s two primas, Devon Teuscher and Christine Shevchenko, got the big Petipa PdD assignments from Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. The Juliet in the Romeo and Juliet PdD went to the feral Cassandra Trenary. The up and coming Catherine Hurlin who seems to be working in earnest on acquiring more virtuoso qualities was given the Don Quixote PdD and Coda. The tasteless excess and random phrases in Danzon No. 2 by James Whiteside were danced by Isabella Boylston. Gillian Murphy danced the final couple of minutes of Etudes. 

 

        Devon and Thomas Forster wore the Aurora and Désiré costumes from the never-will-be-missed production by Kirkland and McKenzie, BUT they looked nice — really, they looked nice. Unfortunately, the PdD at times looked like a first run-through. Neither of these dancers normally has trouble with fish dives at a danceable speed, but the tempo was so slow that the preceding pirouettes and the dives were DOA. There is nothing pretty about lethargic, sloth-like, constipated fish dives preceded by slow, tentative pirouettes. In this PdD, each dive must be more spectacular than the previous one. Other than that, the pair was quite handsome and capable throughout the dance. Forster is supremely suited for Désiré regardless of the production. Just his manége of coupé jeté en tournant should vault him to first cast when the ballet returns either in full form or as a suite of dances. Devon has everything needed to be a spectacular Aurora. Can’t wait to see it.

 

        Christine was not deterred by her woodenly capable Siegfried James Whiteside from delivering a heart-filled, beautifully formed Odette in the White Swan PdD. All the basic mechanics were in place; she just needed to bring out her own interpretation more than she did. If we could mix generations, she would be wonderful opposite Max Beloserkovsky. More realistically, Andrii Ishchuk would be Haglund’s choice for her Siegfried.

 

        Cassandra with Calvin Royal III  in the Romeo and Juliet balcony PdD were not the best match — but maybe that’s the whole point. Romeo and Juliet were never meant to be together despite their mutual attraction. If we could mix generations, Cassandra would be wonderful opposite Robert LaFosse. More realistically, Cameron McCune or Jake Roxander would be Haglund’s choices for her Romeo. They definitely would have no trouble lifting Juliet overhead as was the case on this evening. The PdD was enjoyable mostly in the individual variations. Cassandra has lovely flexibility and an appetite for abandon. Calvin’s lines and turns were impressive, and he was able to meet the challenges presented by the tempi.

 

        Catherine Hurlin and Daniel Camargo trotted out the gala piece from Don Quixote and delivered all the basics. It’s less exciting on an empty stage, but both dancers were in fine form. Catherine is basically certified in every trick, but has not yet developed her individual virtuoso moments. Why aren’t we seeing her rip more pirouettes or take more risks in her variations? That said, the en dedans turns with the leg in second position which fouette’d into penche arabesques were about the strongest most authoritative we’ve ever seen. Camargo also seemed to be playing it  a little safe at the gala.

 

        The corps de ballet in the Etudes finale did a super job — like they’d been storing up energy all day for those diagonal runs. Super barrel turns from the men! Gillian, Joo Won Ahn, and Herman Cornejo ran the last few minutes of the finale smoothly. The company is just bringing this ballet up to speed. What a waste it would be not to capitalize on their energy and determination by mothballing Etudes again. It would be great to see it on a regular basis with new casts that included ambitious talented corps dancers—although there would be a revolt if we weren’t promised Devon Teuscher and Jake Roxander during each run.

 

        The evening’s Pièce d’Occasion included all levels from the JKO school plus the studio company and apprentices. There were lots of kids on stage doing lots of random stuff in an effort to either: 1) be cute if they were little, or 2) be admired for their academic tricks if they were older. At one point, the apprentice and studio company dancers were costumed in the Mizrahi flat tutus and Crayola colored unitards from Mark Morris’ GONG (don’t we really miss that one - huh?).

 

        As a gala, it was certainly an improvement over recent years past. What a joy it was to see the Tudor and MacMillan masterpieces brought back to life. Haglund’s not sure that he ever envisioned this day coming, but the H.H. Pump Bump Award, a Louboutin burning sunset orange stiletto, is bestowed upon Hee Seo and Cory Stearns for their gorgeous PdD from Concerto. Here’s hoping that the full ballet is waiting around the corner.

 

 

ABT contract negotiations

        Here is a link to the letter recently sent by the dancers to management along with a similar letter sent to management during the 2017 contract negotiations. The 2017 contract dispute was resolved after the dancers voted to strike and upend an upcoming tour.

https://www.musicalartists.org/letters-sent-to-abt-in-2017-and-2023/

        Given that the ABT Board knew for several years, possibly as many as 5 or more, that it was about to lose nearly half its season each spring at the Met Opera House, there really is not much of an excuse for not developing a plan to replace those weeks in its most important market. Nor does the Board have much of an excuse for the lame strategy it came up with to re-build the cultural force of the company by dedicating it to woke-ish DEI initiatives. It needs to dedicate itself to great dancing. We saw lots of great dancing this past week, and we saw some formerly brilliant artists hanging on for dear life to careers that need to be closed out so that more wonderful artists can move into the spotlight. The ABT Board can do better at planning, and the artistic management can do better in making sure that the company puts its best feet forward all the time.

        At present, it seems that the frustration of the dancers may be due to management not having its decision makers at the negotiating table. Get the decision makers to the table. Put Andrew Barth and Sharon Patrick in the room and get the job done. If Bob Iger could sit in on the negotiations that ended the Writers' Guild strike, Andrew Barth can sit across the table from the ballet dancers -- perhaps even next to them. Come on, people, get it done.

 

 

Courageous dancing from ABT on Opening Night

        Balanchine is a tough act to follow, no doubt about it. A mere 72 hours after New York City Ballet closed one of its most artistically brilliant seasons in decades, American Ballet Theatre took to the same stage ready to show that it could wow the same audience and also differentiate itself in valuable ways. This is the first season actually planned and cast by the new artistic director, Susan Jaffe, and it has revealed that she has a much sharper sense of what the audience appreciates than her predecessor.

 

        Returning to the stage after a long overdue absence, Harald Lander’s Etudes thrilled the audience with precision, academic beauty, and bold risk taking by the principals. As the saying goes in ballet “If you plan to bail, you plan to fail.” A dancer should always try to meet the challenges of a role head on or not bother to put on the costume. 

 

        After debuting a taxing principal role in the first ballet (Piano Concerto No. 1), the 20ish-year-old Jake Roxander – so new to the company that he has exactly two lines of minor roles listed under his biography – stepped into an even more taxing principal role in Etudes. Cheering in the front row of the audience was Joaquin De Luz who several decades earlier had been in Roxander’s shoes and knew the pressure of being new to the company and being thrown into the same role with its high expectations and high risks. Roxander soared brilliantly through the batterie, pirouettes, and grand allegro. The revolution in his pirouettes may be the radical change that topples perceptions of ABT as declining into regional ballet status. After 30 minutes of a spectacularly strenuous display of technical and artistic achievement, Roxander faced down the finale. He knew what our expectations were — they were the same as his own. He walked to the center of a moving mass of breathless dancers flying back and forth in grand allegro. His chest heaved up and down once and he then powered through a series of double tours with pirouettes that ended with several high risk consecutive jumps that Roxander held onto by the skin of his teeth. He didn’t bail; he didn’t fail. No one should miss his performance of this role on Friday.

 

        The cast included the enormously talented Joo Won Ahn who got a strong start in his variations but then allowed a couple of off-pirouettes to kill his confidence. He is another courageous dancer who can turn a tumble into a triumph. (But will he ever live down dropping our beloved ballerina Veronika Part and tripping over her in Le Corsaire? Nuh-uh. Roxander almost dropped the evening’s prima during the finale of Etudes, but managed a save.) Ahn’s batterie was crisp and clear and his jumps impressive. His partnering was beautiful for the most part, and he was a handsome match for Devon Teuscher, the principal ballerina in Etudes. We always find him immensely likeable and are always rooting for him to find his concentration and focus.

 

        Teuscher was the glistening, delicate, beautiful, soft-faced, ass-kicking ballerina whose dancing illuminated the transformation of the artist's daily ritual into stage performance in spectacular fashion. She truly out-did herself at this performance. Etudes requires a full-service ballerina, and Teuscher fit the bill brilliantly. Everything she did was phenomenal.

 

        The corps de ballet did itself proud, too. The spotlighting of the women’s feet and legs during the beginning of Etudes revealed lovely insteps and balletic musculature throughout the corps on stage. Although the dancers' energy never flagged, we did wish that the back legs in arabesque sautes and jetes would have been higher, especially among the men. The back legs were frequently missing the grand battements in tours jeté.

 

    The evening opened with Alexei Ratmansky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 which originally was the third part of his Shostakovich Trilogy. The Shostakovich Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings was fabulously played by Jacek Mysinski and Maximilian Morel. Excerpted from the whole ballet, Piano Concerto No. 1 is little more than a frenetic rumble with a lovely little pas de deux thrown into the middle. It was originally tailored to the individual talents and outsized personalities of Vishneva, Osipova and Vasiliev who premiered it at ABT in 2013. It’s not a good fit for just any good technician. Even though Christine Shevchenko debuted in its second cast ten years ago and did a fine job substituting for Gillian Murphy at the last moment, it’s not a piece that she was able to fully bring to life last evening. There was no doubt that she and Calvin Royal III were exceptionally well matched and executed the choreography admirably, but the outsized personalities were missing — thankfully. 

 

        Skylar Brandt and Jake Roxander couldn’t work around not being Osipova and Vasiliev in their roles. They were technically impressive and their pairing was attractive. But this choreography with all its running around and frenzied faux drama is not strong enough to stand on its own and requires show pony personalities. ABT doesn’t seem to have any of those right now, knock on wood.

 

           It was nice to see Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort once again after so many years.  Kylián is one of those very individual dance makers whose imagination sometimes outperforms the dance. Petite Mort is different enough from everything else in ABT’s rep that it should be able to make an appearance a little more frequently. It’s best not to ponder too much about what’s going on when watching all the sword swinging and paper doll like dresses rolling around. Rather, just admire the movement, the unison, the imagery, the unusualness of it. The Mozart piano concertos were divinely played by Evangelos Spanos.

 

        ABT’s opening night was a surprising success. We could not be more thrilled with the return of Etudes and hope that more ABT dancers are challenged to dance the principal roles. It is truly a teaching instrument. Our HH Pump Bump Award, Alexander McQueen's punk crystal stiletto, goes to Devon Teuscher and Jake Roxander for delivering the thrills on opening night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

observations 8/28

        Smart move by ABT to upload its casting earlier than in years past. Had hoped to see some principal casting for Curley, Frenette, Klein, and Ishchuk. They may show up in underpants in Petite Mort but would rather see them suited up in the royal regalia of Ballet Imperial and Etudes.

        Cornejo, Bell, and Roxander in the more virtuosic solo in Etudes should be electrifying if they all can get those arabesque legs up and hang onto their double tours. Remembering Ahn's bravery in his knock down, death-defying Ali in Le Corsaire a few years back made Haglund think that he'd be pegged for this role, but he'll be fine in the other role in both the second and third casts. Hopefully, Cornejo, Bell and Roxander will understand that the audience won't care if they accelerate the double tours past the tempo; just get the damn eight in -- or do nine if there's time. Not sure what to expect from the corps which generally gets from Point A to Point B cleanly in white acts, but needs to dance from Point A to Point B in the Etudes finale. Fingers crossed. So happy to see Devon Teuscher leading opening night.

        It will be great to see Michael de la Nuez's beautiful jumps as Olga's Fiance in On the Dnipro, but it's a shame that room couldn't be made for Eric Tamm's reprisal of the role, too.

        Shevchenko, Royal, and Misseldine in Ballet Imperial on a program with Cassandra Trenary and Aran Bell in The Dream will make for two glorious performances.

        Not much to complain about; so, we won't. Tickets on sale Wednesday, September 6th at noon.