Haglund's Heel

ABT Sylvia 7/8 and 7/9 Matinee

        It was like going through the dessert line twice. Oh my goodness. You know that $35,000 chocolate pudding that Chef Marc Guibert throws together with caviar, high end chocolate and gold, and then molds it into the shape of a Faberge egg? We were eatin' it at ABT’s first two performances of Frederick Ashton’s glorious Sylvia. Oh my goodness. Such beauty and wondrous dancing. And if ever there was a ballet to celebrate ABT’s corps de ballet, Sylvia is it. Be there Friday night or be very sorry.

 

        First, let’s talk about the music by Léo Delibes, possibly the most beautiful music in all of ballet. in the history of the world. within or outside the universe. One cannot listen to this music and not believe one is French to the soul. On opening night Conductor David LaMarche empowered the ABT orchestra to bring its best and received well-deserved bravos at bows. The horn soloist should have taken a bow at the end of the evening, too. We’ve heard that Tchaikovsky admired Sylvia and claimed that if he’d known about it earlier, he would not have written Swan Lake. It’s funny how strains of Delibes show up in Swan Lake, particularly during the turmoil of Act IV. As rich, as delicate, as intricate and as full of grace as this music is, the choreography that Frederick Ashton wove within its architecture is no less.

 

        Ashton uses most of the steps in the book and then adds shovels, rakes, bows & arrows, and wheel barrows just to make them more interesting -- like brisé volé isn’t damned hard enough by itself. Only women who can leap to the rafters, hop on pointe, flip to arabesque on a dime, add a pirouette to everything, and pick their pointes like there’s no tomorrow need apply for the role of Sylvia. This role is a bear, a test, a testament to the beauty of classical ballet vocabulary. Catherine Hurlin and Christine Shevchenko were tangible proof.

 

        Quite different in their demeanor, Hurlin was a robust, authoritative Sylvia whose mood easily switched from heat to cool whereas Shevchenko maintained a more moderate temperature throughout the performance. Neither ballerina aced her entrance with the wind-up string of pique turns that culminate in grand jete, flip to tour jete, flip back to grand jete. They did not match our memories of Herrera and Wiles who were pretty darned fearless back in the day. The pique turns are not “the trick”; they are the preparation for the grand jete, tour jete, grand jete which are "the trick.” Also, both ballerinas rarely found that beautiful position of the arms where one is extended in an upward straight line while the hand & wrist of the other rest on the shoulder in a triangle. Shevchenko particularly swam through that position without showing us the clear form of both sides at the same time. Other than those little complaints, the dancing was superb. Even that awkward, uncomfortable lift where Aminta holds Sylvia’s right thigh to his torso while she tries to make an elegant fourth position with her pointes was spot-on for both performances. Sylvia’s swivels into developpe devant that actually move backwards (how did he think this up?) were flawless. The pointe picking was like delicious sprinkles on the pudding. Such beautiful work from both. Form and lines from the ballerinas were gorgeous although we wish Hurlin would either turn out her knees to match her feet or reduce the angle of the standing foot so as to avoid looking like a potential HSS case study.

 

        If we weren’t already giddy enough about our Sylvias, our Amintas sent us over the top. This is Calvin Royal III’s best role of his career, thus far. He was magnificent. Everything was working for him — the tempi, the temperament, the connection with his partner, his huge jetes and solid pirouettes. It may be that Hurlin inspired him to move beyond his comfort zone. Whatever it was, he sold us another ticket for the weekend. Guest artist Reece Clarke brought all that Royal Ballet uncompromising detail to his Aminta which we pray will motivate every ABT dancer to imitate. The sight of those long arms holding a perfect — repeat, perfect first position while doing rhythmic rotations in his pirouettes with easy, relaxed head-spots was among the most beautiful technical moments of either performance. It’s doubtful one could fully appreciate it from an orchestra level seat, but from above, oh my goodness, it was breathtakingly beautiful. We’re afraid that size matters — oh yes, it does. Clarke is unquestionably blessed with unusual height, length, and good looks, but his technical exploitation of it is the result of a lifetime of work. One doesn’t so much as notice the huge man as one notices the huge performance that he is giving. He did not struggle in the least to command the cavernous Met stage. 

 

        A week after his Polixenes practically sent Leontes to the funny farm in The Winter’s Tale, here was Cory Stearns again masterfully manipulating the plot to his liking as the over-heated albeit cold-blooded Orion. James Whiteside also gave a strong, unsubtle, likable performance in the role.

 

        Carlos Gonzales and Takumi Miyake stood the role of Eros, god of love, impressively before pas de chevaling around as the shrouded sorcerer who brings Aminta back to life. Their solos replete with soaring tour jetes and grounded petit allegro were a joy to watch. Virginia Lensi and Sierra Armstrong were featured as Diana, the huntress and goddess of chastity, in well-deserved opportunities. Both are such interesting and beautifully disciplined dancers. Hats off to the two exotic man servants who had to battu their brains out while holding their hands up in the air. Nathan Vendt and Cameron McCune with substitute Luis Ribagorda yesterday were phenomenal. All of the Attendants were gorgeous as were the Muses. It’s always nice to see Nicole Graniero stop by for the Met season. We enjoyed seeing Patrick Frenette dancing with Virginia Lensi as Jaseion and Ceres and look forward to seeing his Orion on Friday.

 

        Friday’s performance is slated to honor ABT’s corps de ballet. This production of Sylvia shows off their collective and individual dancing like no other ballet — although Ratmansky’s Of Love and Rage comes close. It all leaves one breathless thanks to the geniuses of Ashton and Delibes. We’re going to do something a little unusual here and toss our highly prized HH Pump Bump Award, a gold-embossed Givenchy sandal with horn heel, to Conductor David LaMarche and the ABT orchestra for their glorious music.

 

 

 

 

 

ABT Giselle 6/21 Mat & Eve She keeps forgiving him

        Forgiveness used to work. That’s what Giselle reminds us. It was sometimes a path to realizing one's deepest single love. Not so these days, though. "So long” is an easy no-fault click away online. Everyone senses they have options that are better than what they have.

 

        So why does Giselle still resonate? For starters, it’s easy to understand. It has love, betrayal, revenge, and forgiveness in equal amounts which are equally beautiful and justifiable. Viewers don't have to pick sides. We can like and admire everybody: the victims, the perpetrators, those dishing out life sentences, the King, and the poor. It’s a relief of sorts.

 

        ABT opened its generous run of ten performances of Giselle last Saturday. Each of its nine principal women will get a chance to dance the role of Giselle, and guest artist Olga Smirnova is the tenth. The company’s production is and always has been fulfilling but it needs refurbishing of its costumes, sets, and lighting. The peasant costumes in Act I look like rejections from the free box at Goodwill that some local ballet school picked out for their amateur production. They’re horrible. They’re tasteless. They shouldn’t be tolerated. The lighting dims the production for all but the first dozen rows in the orchestra.

 

        Saturday's matinee featured Christine Shevchenko and Calvin Royal III as Giselle and Albrecht. Both artists are long in line, elegant, and possess the same type of introspective reserve. This lack of contrast didn’t always serve the performance. Shevchenko’s Giselle was a classical beauty whose refined phrasings were akin to those of Olga Smirnova in the evening’s performance. Her detailed competence never came off as dry as some of ABT’s Giselles have been, but rather, Shevchenko’s Giselle was heartfelt and genuine. In Act II, especially, she floated like wispy cirrus clouds signaling the approach of severe weather.

 

        There’s something to be said for a ballerina's spiritual devotion to academic standards. Olga Smirnova, a messenger of Vaganova Academy's values and peerless training, boasts physical blessings of length and line that almost look like they were created from a Prequel app that Disneyfies photos into perfection. In her Act I solos, her arms astonished for their length and their refusal to cross that invisible plane in front of her. She seemed intent on showing her artistic heritage and how the choreography can be beautiful without adding Western sauce.  Except for some extraordinary albeit unnecessary detailing in Giselle’s mad scene, Smirnova came off as a thoroughly charming and naive Giselle. She already comes equipped with huge wondering eyes. When she stretched her eyelids open even wider to denote her descent into madness, she looked ophthalmic-ly weird. More importantly, while the insanity came through loud and clear, her victimization did not. After all, Giselle goes mad because she’s a victim of Albrecht’s fraud. The hurt and victimization should show through in addition to the insanity. Smirnova's Act II easily met the bar for being hauntingly beautiful. Every shape we expected was there. Every moment we anticipated fulfilled our expectations. We've never been a fan of having the tempo slowed to a crawl during Giselle's entrechat quatre so that she can jump higher. The fast, low to the ground entrechat quatre are far more theatrical and ghost-like.

 

        Calvin Royal III as Shevchenko’s Albrecht was a sturdy partner with beautiful lines and picturesque leaps, but he muddled and shortchanged the entrechat six. There’s only one way to unload a full magazine of entrechat six when needed and that’s to practice them everyday. Royal’s Albrecht was sincere without an ounce of intentional cheat. He was a nice guy, but we never saw Albrecht’s flawed character. His overhead lifts of Giselle were exceptionally stirring and beautiful. All of the partnering including the lifted arabesque hops across the stage were gorgeous.

 

        Daniel Camargo was a fully-considered Albrecht whose technique was impressively used to further his story. While we can’t say that Camargo and Smirnova approached our memories of that other Brazilian-Vaganova pair of Gomes & Vishneva, there was enough rapport between them to suggest that a couple of more Giselles might build into something extraordinary. Camargo's Act I Albrecht was sufficiently ambiguous when it came to the question of dalliance or devotion. His choice in Act II of combining a diagonal run of brises followed by the circling sautes in attitude was pleasant to watch but not as thrilling as a double dose of brises where Albrecht desperately falls to his knees so close to Myrta that her lowering spectered arm nearly meets him between the eyes. We’re recalling just such a performance of Stiefel’s Albrecht and Abrera’s Myrta that made us gasp and nearly stopped our hearts. 

 

        Chloe Misseldine’s Myrta in the Smirnova/Camargo cast had much more authority than when we first saw her in the role. Fangqi Li in the Schevchenko/Royal cast had some lovely moments that conveyed spectral intent but her overall dancing was small and ineffective for a Myrta. Neither artist evoked the horizontal wind-shearing effect in her grand jetes. Both seemed more intent on landing big jumps rather than long jumps that covered distance like a ghostly avenging spirit whistling through the wind. Again, we point to Abrera’s Myrta.

 

        In both performances, Zulma and Moyna were disappointments. Zulma’s reversés by Zimmi Coker and Sierra Armstrong which are supposed to be huge and lingering were nothing to write home about. Nor were the pique penche arabesques. Here, we point to Leeann Underwood as having set the high bar for this role. Moyna as danced by Breanne Granlund and Remy Young could not have looked smaller or more unimportant. The expected artistry simply was not present.

 

        Both Andrii Ishchuk and Joseph Markey were fine Hilarions—Ishuchuk was the more genuinely in love whereas Markey was more about rightful possession of Giselle.

 

        The Peasant Pas de Deux was danced brilliantly by Lea Fleytoux and Jake Roxander. We hate how ABT is wasting Fleytoux’s value and career time on these secondary roles. This season should have been her Giselle debut under a huge spotlight. Ditto with the criminal underuse of Elisabeth Beyer.

 

        The Corps de Ballet was mostly well-drilled but the mishmash of sizes and silhouettes disrupted visual continuity. A few did have a problem holding the arabesque line without wobbling in Act II.

 

        The HH Pump Bump Award, a stiletto of simple elegance by Jimmy Choo, is bestowed upon Christine Shevchenko for her beautiful interpretation and clear dancing in Giselle. 

 

observations 6/20

        Haglund didn’t attend ABT's Woolf Works this week. He’s not much of a fan of either Virginia Woolf or Wayne McGregor; so there wasn’t much point in suffering through the work again. Virginia Woolf once publicly referred to James Joyce’s literary masterpiece Ulysses as pretentious, underbred, and inferior after which she went on to try to copy his stream of consciousness style in her own work Mrs. Dalloway three years later.

        Over his lifetime Joyce was described as a musical writer whose language danced. His daughter, Lucia, was an accomplished modern dancer who was admired by many including WB Yeats who once considered hiring her to perform in Plays for Dancers by the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet which he co-founded with Ninette de Valois. That company was short-lived, but Yeats continued to write and de Valois, thankfully, found other meaningful things to do.

        Lucia was also admired by playwright Samuel Beckett who kept a favorite photo of her in her silver fish scales costume. We retrieved that photo by Berenice Abbott/Getty from a fascinating 2018 Irish Times article about Lucia by Deirdre Mulrooney.

 

        This could be from L'après-midi du poisson.

 

 

        James Joyce loved dance and loved to dance on a whim — sometimes sober, sometimes not. His characters danced throughout his literary works with rhyme, reason, allusion, puns, and streams of consciousness that turned their ordinary lives into extraordinary literature. From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

 

"His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before."

 

Simply put, Act II of Giselle.

 

Here we go into the best week of the season . . .

 

 

ABT Swan Lake 6/11 mat, 6/14 mat & eve Holy Hiss & Spit!

        Those ABT Odiles are a bunch of sharp-elbowed bitches, ain't they? We’ll get to them, but it’s more important to first highlight the initial revelation of the season — one that we have been anticipating for a few years. 

        Last evening Bearcat Michael de la Nuez, a sixth-year corpsman, debuted as Prince Siegfried opposite the company’s adored Swan Lake senior specialist, Gillian Murphy. The profound depth of his characterization came as a shock; we had only expected great dancing. 

 

        When he first appeared at the top of the staircase to tumultuous cheers, it was difficult to tell who was more excited: this new, handsome Siegfried or the peasants below who were thrilled to see one of their own rise to royalty. This was going to be a group effort to make sure that Siegfried stayed the course and soared far above his exospheric leaps. No, there was never a need for the equivalent of the theatrical “Line, please.” But we did have a love-chuckle when Siggie’s buddies under the Maypole obviously re-positioned him back a step before they hoisted him up on their shoulders. And oh my goodness, the broad smiles of the peasants dancing for his benefit could not have been more genuine nor more proud.

 

        It’s been a while since ABT’s Siegfried has so deeply conveyed the prince’s questioning and indecision as to what direction his life should take. De la Nuez’s bare honesty of Siegfried's emotional dilemma captivated us from its very first moment. His long, scrupulous leg lines — there’s something in the Ohio water that triggers them (Klesa, von Enck, Catazaro) — hit their positions in the air and on the floor like magnets snapping together. To repeat, his grand jetes were exospheric in height. Beautifully shaped pirouettes and EF5 tornadic turns a la second were punctuated with exquisitely pointed feet. He aggressively went after the many double tours that landed in arabesque and steered most of them definitively and some elegantly. De la Nuez's partnering of Gillian Murphy had a stutter or two, perhaps from over-partnering, but it was clear that he was going to err on the side of doing too much rather than too little. Siegfried's devotion to Odette, his momentary lapse of fidelity, and his sincere regret were all palpable in this portrayal. Such a fine, fine debut.

 

        Thus far, we’ve seen the Swan Lake performances of Misseldine/Bell, Teuscher/Ahn, and Murphy/de la Nuez. What a roaring start to the summer season it has been. Chloe Misseldine and Devon Teuscher herald a new era of Ivanov interpreters and Petipa progressives just as Gillian Murphy did almost twenty-five years ago. Aran Bell and Joo Won Ahn each have developed substantive interpretations of Siegfried that go with their gorgeous dancing. Bell is elegance personified but is still justifiably cautious compared to earlier seasons prior to injury; Ahn, a technical gambler, is thrilling when he finds his confidence and makes his own luck. 

 

        Words cannot fairly describe the beauty & majestic qualities of Misseldine’s and Teuscher’s Odettes/Odiles. One can only feel their true power in one’s own heart while watching. The viewer believes them. Who could possibly ask for more beautifully-lined limbs that convey honesty and suffering one minute and poisonous treachery the next? And yeah, they not only did all the steps; they relished in them. This includes Murphy who in her penultimate Odile managed thrilling stop-on-a-dime pauses to her pirouette/attitude en dehors combination — with a viper-like glare out to the audience.

 

        Joseph Markey’s purple von Rothbart impressed with its toxic force. Sung Woo Han, Patrick Frenette, and Jake Roxander each excelled in the role of Benno. Frenette’s interpretation was particularly well-developed and suggested his own aristocratic bearing. Are we going to see him as Albrecht, like when, in his next life? Come on … 

 

        Elisabeth Beyer in the Pas de Trois reminded us that women should and can do entrechat six as well as men. Some of the women featured as soloists and demis couldn’t even manage to cheat their ways through entrechat six; some just gave up. The double tours of the corpsmen were awesome. Their coupe jete entournant were beyond formidable. 

 

        The Swan Corps was serviceable and at times rose to the level of great beauty, particularly in Act IV. David LaMarche’s nuanced and sensitive conducting instantly read what each artist needed. Charles Barker’s steady hand allowed the artists to know exactly what to expect. The exceptional violinist should have been credited in the program insert. Can we fix that for the final week of Swan Lake?

 

        The H.H. Pump Bump Award, designed for acceleration and long mileage, is bestowed upon Michael de la Nuez for his courageous debut as Siegfried.

 

 

 

 

 

observations 4/11

        In a stunning but artistically important move, Cassandra Trenary will leave ABT to join the Vienna State Ballet as a principal dancer working under the guidance of Alessandra Ferri who is about to become the company's director. Vienna dances traditional ballets but also more wide-ranging, artistically adventurous works, which it can afford to do with generous governmental support. It does not live or die by the commercial successes of its Swan Lake and Nutcracker.

        This is how it should be at ABT & NYCB. A principal dancer should give the best that they have while it is still the best that can be had in their company's signature works and then go feed their artistic souls elsewhere. Don't hang out so we can watch the technique start to decline, steps drop like ATT cellphone calls, and artistry stagnate while upcoming talents wither away waiting for opportunities.

        Haglund had kinda hoped to see Trenary lead Lady of the Camellias, but it doesn't seem that production will land on ABT's stages any time soon. Best of luck to her, and we hope that other local talents are watching her move closely.

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        We're pretty excited about some of the upcoming casting for the first week of NYCB's Spring Season. Big, big opportunities for Owen Flacke, Ashley Hod, Domenika Afanasenklov, and Charlie Klesa. We're relieved to see Isabella LaFreniere return after being on the IL for too long. And we are looking forward to the cast of tall Muses in Apollo - Nadon, Miller, Kikta! Soooo, how's that broken foot coming along on Davide Riccardo -- anybody know? We're fairly anxious to get him back but we certainly don't want a repeat of Harrison Ball's foot history that ended his career.

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        At this point in time, we have to recommend saving your money by giving Roundabout Theatre's Pirates, the Penzance Musical with David Hyde Pierce a pass. Pierce is in way over his head as Major General Stanley. At 66 years old, he's a very old 66 and tends not to move his body in this dance-heavy musical. His voice is weak and the patter songs are colorless and less than entertaining as he struggles with the speed and lyrics while standing still. Ramin Karimloo as Pirate King carries the show -- even with leaving his shirt on but, of course, unbuttoned. Warren Carlyle's choreography holds up well and basically holds up the show when it really shouldn't have to. Haglund may go again when the understudy for Major General Stanley steps in.

 

ABT Crime and Punishment 10/31 When the ballet requires super titles

— or a heavy lean on another artist's reputation or gimmicky angst & yank choreography of the type that neither William Forsythe nor Jorma Elo could make stick, it’s time to reassess the campaign to force the genre to progress in a certain direction for no reason other than to claim easy attention. As we have chanted before, there is no such direction in art as “moving forward” or “progressing”. Those are marketing tags to make people dissatisfied with what they have so they will buy something new. Art creation simply expands like the universe; it doesn’t move along any progressive line. Music didn’t progress from Mozart to Nico Muhley. Painting didn’t progress from Rembrandt to Gerhard Richter. Architecture didn’t progress from Louis Sullivan to Norman Foster. Art ideas expand and mutate and are born from the imaginations in human brains which haven’t changed all that much since Rembrandt’s time.

 

        ABT, in its misguided effort to look progressive, has suffered yet another failure in Helen Pickett’s Crime and Punishment, a mediocre dance version of Dostoevsky’s epic novel about a character's road to hell that is paved with a trumped-up good intention to commit a crime in order to enrich himself and collaterally help others. Did we even really need to revisit Raskolnikov’s criminality, self-indulgent suffering, conviction, imprisonment, and election to the presidency? Hold on . . . we sense a troubling digression. Let’s all pause to focus on our breathing. Thumbs & index fingers together, palms up, breathe.

 

        Okay. 

 

        Was there anything to admire about Crime and Punishment? Well, yes: the dancers’ commitment and determined effort to sell the angst & yank to the audience. In this particular performance on Thursday, Herman Cornejo quite literally threw himself into Raskolnikov’s steps, rolls, flails, and head-holding. Skylar Brandt portrayed with soulful obligation the beautiful, innocent Sonya who truly loved Raskolnikov but was forced into prostitution. Aran Bell was Razumikhin, Raskolnikov’s friend who didn’t know how to help him. Raskolnikov’s sister, Dunya, (Catherine Hurlin) loved Razumikhin (they kissed passionately - in the dance, not the book) and had to fight off the affections of Svidrigailov, portrayed with skillful theatrical shading by Patrick Frenette. Hurlin and Frenette danced a vigorous Mayerling-like pas de deux that involved a gun. She rejected him and tried to shoot him, but in the end, he decided to shoot himself behind a glass door at the top of a staircase to nowhere. (In Mayerling, the suicide by gun was behind a bedroom screen.) 

 

        The stage was constantly in a buzz of activity — not dancing, but the dizzy swirling in and out of the scenery walls. It has become all the rage for dancers to move the scenery on and off the stage instead of using union stage hands. Ratmansky did it in On the Dnieper, his first ballet for ABT, and then Wheeldon began doing it with his Broadway shows and ballets. There was a lot of obnoxious scenery moving by dancers in ABT’s “Lifted” a few years back, too. This time, however, the audience got to listen to the barking of the stage manager’s instructions from the wings as part of the charm.

 

        The music composed for this dance by Isobel Waller-Bridge was, at its best, unremarkable. Not a minute of it would stand alone on its own merits. Boisterous and dramatically obvious, it was like music running through an old silent movie to predict and warn the viewer of the action ahead. Not a note of it reached the soul of the audience.

 

        Haglund wanted to cry at the end of Crime and Punishment. Cry because of the donors’ money wasted by ABT. Despite all the extraordinary full length works at its disposal, ABT has opted for mediocrity for no reason other than to pander to some audience sub-sector that it thinks it needs. On the horizon, however, it appears that it has the good sense to bring in Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale for next year — but possibly too late, because ABT allowed Wheeldon to recycle many of his ideas from The Winter’s Tale for the dud production of Like Water For Chocolate. People will remember. Balletomanes have elephants’ memories.

 

        A dance that depends on super titles flashing across the stage to explain to the audience what is going on despite two magazine-sized pages in the evening’s program full of helpful Cliff-like notes is a dance in trouble. This was one more sign that all of Pickett’s good intentions could not ameliorate the artistic crime.

 

ABT Fall Season What's old is new again

        The saying in the world of antique furniture is that refinishing a museum-quality piece knocks the value out of it. It is the preservation of the artist’s original work that is important, not what the piece looks like compared to today’s manufacturing standards. On the other hand, if the antique is something that is to be handed down from generation to generation for the family's enjoyment, use, and reflection on a time and the lives of members who are known only by name and an entry on a family tree, then refurbishing can actually enhance its value. We’re somewhere in the middle of those two camps of thought with regard to our classical ballets for which we desire to retain their original intent and quality of patina while enhancing their finishes and strengthening their hinges to allow them to continue to be enjoyed.

 

        American Ballet Theatre’s The Kingdom of the Shades from Petipa’s La Bayadere as lovingly remembered by Natalia Makarova, undergoes periodic reupholstering as significant new talent emerges from the ranks. The same is true for Balanchine’s exquisite jewels Ballet Imperial and Sylvia Pas de Deux and Lander’s illuminating treatise on the systematic development of the ballet artist in Etudes. Thanks to these four works, ABT’s Fall Season, thus far, has amounted to a sensational comeback of good sense and good taste. 

 

        Ballet Imperial, aka Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No 2 at New York City Ballet, benefitted from elegant new costumes by Jean-Marc Puissant which were designed with colors and themes similar to both the retiring costumes and the current NYCB costumes. The ballet further benefitted from pristine technical performances by Christine Shevchenko and Chloe Misseldine and the fine partnering by Calvin Royal III. But was it a good idea for ABT to try to distinguish its version of the ballet from NYCB’s version by using tempi so painfully glacial that the ballerina had to punctuate phrases with chin throws? Everything is open to debate, of course, and this will be, too. Those of us who have watched Shevchenko her whole career and clearly remember her blistering speed in Piano Concerto No 1 know that she isn’t a dancer who requires a grandma pace for a Balanchine ballet as perhaps others required in past decades. In fact, the initial swivel turns off pointe that finished in tendu probably would have been cleaner and easier had they been up to speed. But she was very lovely to watch in most every respect. And the corps de ballet probably would have been more bright and energetic if they had been able to anticipate the music rather than wait for it to appear. Not to belabor the point, but the corps dancers are of a generation that can move a lot more quickly than past generations. Why not let them do so when it would benefit the work?

 

        Calvin Royal III delivered some truly beautiful allegro and classic lines in addition to attentive partnering. Chloe Misseldine soared through the grand allegro soloist role with energy and crystal clarity which turned out to be a mere preamble to her radiant performance in Sylvia Pas de Deux with Aran Bell at the ABT Gala the next week. Terpsichorean in the most Balanchine sense, she was the music on the stage. All of that blessed length made for stunning arabesques of grand statement. Bell’s allegro was plush as velvet, not showy, with an effortless nobility. We’d love to see him as Apollo.

 

        Alexei Ratmansky’s Neo pas de deux was created during the Covid shutdown and premiered as part of a digital program by the Joyce Theater in May 2021. The can’t-stop-us explosion of energy was instantly recognizable by those of us who danced like crazy people in the small spaces of living rooms, kitchens or garages trying to release pent-up wattage, frustration, and impatience while retaining some sense of normalcy. Just let it out of your system however you can, the choreographer seemed to convey. 

 

        The music for the piece, Neo by Dai Fujikura, was the composer’s first for the Japanese instrument shamisen. He said that his aim was to create something that was like distortion on an electric guitar, and that he treated the piece like a guitar solo in a rock concert. His hope was that the audience would scream at the end like they were at a rock concert. Check. We did. It was crazy fun by Catherine Hurlin and Jarod Curley. Playing on stage, Sumie Kaneko ripped the shamisen like she was Peter Frampton.

 

        The excerpt from Lynn Taylor-Corbett's Great Galloping Gottschalk whetted the appetite to see the whole ballet again. The originators of the pas de deux were Susan Jaffe with Robert La Fosse who was beaming as a member of the audience. Sunmi Park and Calvin Royal III hit their stride on their second performance, releasing joy and warmth and dancing as though they were improvising throughout. 

 

        Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room received serviceable treatment but was less grounded (less urban, less “downtown”) than previous generations managed to make it. Standouts in the cast we saw were Devon Teuscher, Aran Bell, and Joseph Markey. Memories of Laura Hildago and Maria Riccetto as the joined-at-the-hip bombers in red pointe shoes were running in the back of the mind while watching the current bombers on stage struggle somewhat with unison and finding their fierce energy.

 

        The highlight of the season was the restoration of The Kingdom of the Shades which as a stand-alone ballet is enjoyable but not to the extent that it is within the full production of La Bayadere. It exposes the classical caliber of the company like few other ballets do. The sight of the 24 Shades calmly descending from the heavens via arabesque after taxing arabesque was mesmerizing at each performance. We wondered, however, why most of the Shades smoothly peeled their feet from the floor to initiate their arabesques while a few stopped to do point tendu before lifting the leg to arabesque. Something tells us that Makarova probably has issued a memo or two on this over the years.

 

        At the gala, Christine Shevchenko and Isaac Hernandez were scrupulous and glimmering in the excerpt. What a beautiful transition from Gamzatti to Nikya Shevchenko has made. Such crystalline shapes and flowing port de bras made us ache to see this whole production again. Hernandez grabbed us into the story with his first step and was well-matched with Shevchenko in form and temperament. After a so-so start to the season in Ballet Imperial, his Solor soared with Hernandez’s fabled brilliance. He’s the dramatic heft that ABT needs more of right now. Teaming up with Hee Seo for two other performances of The Kingdom of the Shades, Hernandez was even more effective in his solos. However, Seo’s technique appeared fragile, particularly during the scarf section where she had considerable difficulty with the turns. Despite her unique ability to embody Nikya’s love and suffering, the role has always been on the outer edges of her technical abilities and is more so now. 

 

        Surely, Makarova must have watched Lea Fleytoux as the first Shade soloist and realized she was witnessing her next Gamzatti and Nikya. Oh my goodness, what an utterly gorgeous solo Fleytoux danced. She is, indeed, small (possibly as small as Makarova), but her textbook use of port de bras makes her appear larger on stage. The technical brilliance so apparent in her calm multiple pirouettes, balances, and generous jumps are more indications of a comeback for ABT. Now, listen up. Fleytoux and Miyake or Roxander in Balanchine’s Theme and Variations could possibly eclipse that pair from the 1970s. And while we know that Fleytoux is destined to be a great Giselle, let’s hope that she doesn’t get pigeonholed in 2nd cast Petipa. She is clearly a full-service ballerina on the cusp of greatness. Jaffe should move her along in the way that Baryshnikov moved Jaffe along.

 

        The H.H. Pump Bump Award, the "Paloma" diamond stiletto from Sophia Webster, is bestowed upon Lea Fleytoux, one of the brightest glimmers of hope for ABT’s future.

 

 

 

 

ABT 3rd cast Etudes Takumi Miyake rings the bell

So sorry we missed this performance and this corpsman's bravery and accomplishment of nine incredible double tours in the Etudes finale. Bocca, Corella, Sarafanov, and now Takumi Miyake.  So glad I-gramers were there to make this incredible record:

 

 

ABT Fall Opener 10/16 Better than the Mets' game

        At least ABT didn’t get blown out of the water 8-0. Not an emphatic start to the Fall Season, however. Whatever happened to “start strong, end stronger” in ballet seasons?

 

        ABT’s opening night included a new work by Gemma Bond, a new work by Kyle Abraham, and an old, but gleaming Etudes by Harald Lander. Not exactly a “This is who we are” opening statement.

 

        Gemma Bond’s La Boutique with music arranged by Respighi after Rossini made one thing clear:  we have a serious choreographer, refreshingly serious about acquiring composition skills to which she can apply her own appealing musicality and love of moving within the classical idiom. Some may recognize the music from Leonid Massine’s previous story ballet La Boutique Fantasque about a toy store; but here the music supported no narrative, only new combinations of mostly classical phrasing that really had us paying attention. 

 

        Three main couples — Devon Teuscher & Aran Bell, Sunmi Park & Cory Stearns, Skylar Brandt & Carlos Gonzalez — led a vivacious corps of men and women in Bond’s intricate and inventive patterns that occasionally became too busy and crowded, not just with dancers but with new ideas instead of offering fewer ideas that evolved in a thematic way. But we’ll take it. And we’ll run with it. But first we’ll strip the dancers and turn on the lights.

 

        Oh my, what a costume, scenic, and lighting mess. Would Jean-Marc Puissant’s costumes look good under different conditions? Yes, but black tutus against a scuffed black Marley floor with low lighting will miss every time. White bodices with colorful details that clash with the lighting backgrounds will miss every time. What happened here? Did ABT repurpose the lighting scheme from some other Clifton Taylor ballet design and just throw it onto the stage for Bond’s new work? How could this lighting not have been immediately replaced after a dress rehearsal? None of it works and it all is a detriment to the ballet.

 

        Kyle Abraham’s Mercurial Son to the bombastic, unlistenable noise by Grischa Lichtenberger was too obvious an effort to claim relevance to those who think a hard-hit foul is just as good as a bunt to first base. Wriggles, head rolls, wavy arms, and some swirling turns to loud music — with obnoxious low lighting (again) and costumes that had no rhyme or reason or theme — the flowy fabric and the arm waving were like throw-away edits from Paul Taylor’s hilarious insects dancing in Gossamer Gallants. It would be unfair to call this choreography bad; it was terrible and amateurishly elementary. Next.

 

        The evening closed with an okay performance of Lander's Etudes. Isaac Hernandez’s introductory performance wasn’t from his top shelf. His nerves were evident upon entering the stage and they messed with his pirouettes for most of the night. His allegro was stunningly clear, however, and he managed well the partnering of the vivacious Catherine Hurlin. She was fantastic throughout the ballet. Everything was working for her: lines stretched to the max, solid pirouettes, eager to race at Ormsby Wilkens’ spirited pacing of the orchestra. During the finale we thought maybe she hit the proverbial wall but then bounced off it to finish strongly. 

 

        Jake Roxander repeated his brilliant turning role from ABT’s last fall season, and truly lifted up the performance several notches. We know he wants to conquer those consecutive double tours in the finale, and he will; and we’re excited to watch him and the other ABT men continue to try to nail them. Bocca did them. Corella did them. Sarafanov did them. Roxander will do them, too. His command of the stage was the strongest of the evening, Everything he did was worthy of admiration. The guy’s charisma, power, and precision are the equivalent of NYCB’s Roman Mejia’s — and aren’t we the lucky ones!

 

        The Corps de Ballet mostly kept up with the speed and precision, but the effort was showing by the end. How happy we were to see Cameron McCune back dancing at full pace and form. Sierra Armstrong and Léa Fleytoux were exceptional as well. However, there were a few veteran corps women who had trouble lifting themselves into the air and making those all important arabesque lines.

 

        The H.H. Pump Bump Award, a classic platform with plenty of spike and a big tank, is bestowed upon Jake Roxander for his performance in Etudes.

 

 

 

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.