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Letter from New York, 5-9: Robbins Mill
Jerry's kids throw a birthday party
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green
NEW YORK -- New York City Ballet looked exceptionally sharp during the first week of its two-month spring season. Apparently it does make a difference not to have to spend over a month performing nothing but "Nutcracker" day after day before moving on to repertory -- and please understand I am second to none in my admiration for Balanchine's sumptuous, definitive setting of Tchaikovsky. The spring season, officially dubbed the "Jerome Robbins Celebration" in honor of what would have been the late co-ballet master in
chief's 90th birthday, also promised an exceptionally challenging repertory: 33 Robbins ballets, or six more than were performed during the company's 1990 salute, which lasted a mere three weeks. Balanchine and other choreographers will be represented, of course, but this is undeniably a Jerry-built season.
The dancers must also have been buoyed by the
unusually warm welcome of the April 29 opening-night
gala audience at the New York State Theater. The company's under-attended London
tour had been marred by ill-chosen programs, a
ballerina shortage, and being booked in a capacious
theater with the highest ticket prices in town. City Ballet's New York gala audiences are usually a cool, show-me crowd, too,
but this one had been warmed up for the all-Robbins program by its opening number, "Circus Polka." Scores of adorable School of American Ballet children in color-coordinated tutus
were put through their paces by ringmaster Robert La
Fosse to form the initials "J. R." (Robbins had performed this role when "Polka" kicked off the 1972 Stravinsky Festival and the kids formed "I. S.")
"The Four Seasons" and, after intermission, "West Side
Story Suite" kept the good vibes throbbing. No one
could doubt the evening was truly a gala occasion
after Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Susan Graham,
without benefit of amplification, concluded "West
Side" with a mesmerizing performance of "Somewhere."
When Faye Arthurs (Maria) took the hand Robert
Fairchild (Tony) had held out to her at Ms. Graham's
urging, you realized how right Noel Coward had been to
acknowledge "the astonishing power of cheap
sentiment."
Seeing these two ballets back to back offered a
preview of what's to come in this overview of the
Robbins achievement, along with a good look at City
Ballet's present state. "The Four Seasons" remains one
of the more artful examples of Robbins's often
deplored show-biz savvy. Cast to strength at its 1979 premiere when the company was bursting with artistry, it was nevertheless greeted with critical grumping
about so much talent being wasted on spoofing a banal
19th-century format. Robbins had, however, chosen the
frothy score Verdi wrote for "The Sicilian Vespers,"
fleshed it out with astute selections from other opera
ballets Verdi had to compose to be performed by the
Paris Opera, and devised deceptively merry, very
demanding choreography which has retained its zest for
three decades. (One needn't have seen the Bolshoi's
threadbare autumn bacchanal to laugh at the way
Robbins's corps of bacchantes and partners
simultaneously hurtle onstage and triumphantly land on
beat en masse.) Sara Mearns in "Spring," Tyler Angle
and Rachel Rutherford (and in another performance Rebecca Krohn) in "Summer," and Ashley Bouder in "Fall" came
gratifyingly close to their great predecessors. Daniel
Ulbricht obliterated all predecessors and all present
rivals in the role of the frisky "Fall" faun.
"West Side Story Suite," which was repeated that week on the "Bernstein Collaborations" program, was an example of
show-biz savvy prevailing over artistic unity. Leonard
Bernstein's score for the musical fell between musical
comedy and something genuinely powerful, and the 1995
"Suite" heightened the imbalance. Balanchine, upon
learning how Robbins was planning to update "Romeo and
Juliet," told him: "Our boys don't fight." It wouldn't
have dissuaded Robbins but Mr. B should have added,
"Juvenile gangs don't sing and pirouette, either."
Even the most exciting performance of "Suite" starts
to lose me when it segues from a bloody rumble into
merry dances at an impromptu gathering.
Damian Woetzel, who gives his last performance on June 18, turned Riff into a 40-year-old juvenile
delinquent. (Andrew Veyette was more convincing later in the
week.) Fairchild, Arthurs, Amar Ramasar and the corps
sustained a high level of energy and technique
throughout. A body-miked Georgina Pazcoguin scorched
the stage singing "America." (Is it generally known
that Robbins delegated this showstopper to Peter Gennaro during rehearsals for the Broadway show?)
"Dybbuk" (1970) found both our collaborators in bad form and struggling not to admit it. I've no idea how
effective the Ansky play they adapted was, but surely
48 minutes of demonic possession and love beyond death
should have more eerie emotional impact than this. Max
Steiner could have supplied more genuine passion and frissons than Bernstein. Robbins, coping with too much plot involving parents and kabbalah group sessions, fell back on dry schematic groupings. At least
Benjamin Millepied and Janie Taylor, back in action in
peak form, did not disappoint.
Forgive my stating the obvious, but "Fancy Free," the
first Bernstein-Robbins collaboration, remains their
best because their talent and intent perfectly suited
an essentially innocent, blessedly unpretentious tale
of three randy sailors on leave in New York City.
Premiered by Ballet Theatre in 1944, "Fancy" didn't
enter NYCB's repertory until 1980. As a fitting
acknowledgement of American Ballet Theatre's claim on
this all-American masterpiece, a different ABT
superstar was invited to join two City Ballet dancers
for each of three "Celebration" performances. Ironically, Ethan Stiefel, whose defection from NYCB in 1996 left a still-gaping hole in its roster, was
the first to appear. He should have been welcomed back with an ovation after he cart-wheeled on as the Second
Sailor. It is comforting to think that Stiefel was so
deeply into the role of a goofy country-bumpkin
swabby, his hair sticking out in all directions from
under his cap, that he wasn't recognized. Actually,
despite a harrowing stretch of injuries and
operations, he looked his old self, as uniquely lithe
and loose as ever. (Whether Robbins, a notorious perfectionist, would
have approved of anyone's changing a role inspired by
its gentle creator, John Kriza, is another question.) A further irony: The performance marked Stiefel's
reunion with ABT defector Joaquin De Luz, now a City
Ballet principal, as the First Sailor. A slinky
Woetzel rounded out the trio. Genuine camaraderie prevailed, despite the potential for competition and conflict -- just like in the ballet, come to think of it. Tiler Peck was a knowing Second Pickup.
(ABT's Herman Cornejo and Marcelo Gomes were scheduled to appear in "Fancy Free" after this Letter was filed. City
Ballet has also extended invitations to ABT's Julie
Kent and to the Royal Ballet's Alina Cojocaru and
Johan Kobborg to perform "Other Dances" and to Paris Opera Ballet etoile Nicolas Le Riche to appear in "A
Suite of Dances.")
A predictable drawback of building a season around an
overview of a driven artist like Robbins is that
achievements better left overlooked inevitably get
dredged up. "Watermill," Robbins's grinding 58-minute
foray into The Higher Seriousness, has lost none of
its numbing stasis since Edward Villella did a
slow-motion striptease down to his ballet belt in 1972
while a six-person combo on Asian instruments droned
and bonged out Teiji Ito's score. Noh theatrical
traditions and Robert Wilson's untheatrical concept of
stasis were cited, or rather blamed, as influences. Once Villella roused himself to jog around the stage. Nikolaj Hübbe, who took his leave of City Ballet last February, left his duties as the newly appointed artistic director of the
Royal Danish Ballet to risk conjunctivitis in three
exposed, immobile performances. Unfortunately, his
muscle tone looked so reduced since his commanding
farewell performance in "Apollo" one presumed he'd
lifted nothing heavier than a telephone over the last
three months. There was now even less reason to look
at the stage during "Watermill."
"Symphonic Balanchine," performed twice the first
week, demonstrated the hazard of programming by theme. Few City Ballet regulars would object to viewing "Symphony in C" and "Symphony in Three Movements" on the same evening; each is a sterling example of,
respectively, the master's classic and neoclassic
style. The corps looked sharper than usual under
ballet mistress Rosemary Dunleavy's supervision.
(Balanchine, I should add, was notoriously indifferent
to Rockette-style precision.) I would have enjoyed
"Symphony in C" more if Abi Stafford, a gifted
technician, could have danced the First Movement on a
bigger scale; however Mearns, lovingly partnered by
Charles Askegard, is well on her way to making the
precious Adagio her own; Gonzalo Garcia did well in
his debut in the scherzo with the ever-dynamic Bouder;
and Peck and Sean Suozzi kicked off the finale with
unprecedented power and clarity.
In "Symphony in Three Movements," a slimmed-down
Albert Evans brought a new, welcome authority to the
pas de deux with the anything-but-overweight Wendy
Whelan. (Definitely an acquired taste, Whelan gives
performances this balletgoer finds uniquely
addictive.) The big news, however, was Ulbricht's
debut as the jumper opposite Sterling Hyltin. The
seven other men leaped higher than ever to keep up
with him, to no avail; they lacked not only his
seemingly effortless power, but his flawless control
of it.
But this was a "symphonic" program, wasn't it? So that
leaves -- "Western Symphony"? Is there a more mechanical,
increasingly creaky example of what Balanchine called
his "applause machines"? Hershy Kay assembled a
genuine score out of Sousa marches for the more
inventive, genuinely witty "Stars and Stripes"; for
"Western," Kay alternated folk ballads with Stephen
Collins Foster airs and Negro spirituals, and
Balanchine responded with a hodgepodge of folksy hi-jinks and classical steps. It could have been replaced
by at least 30 superior ballets had the program been
called "By George."
Music director Faycal Karoui drew vigorous, clarified
playing from the orchestra throughout opening week.
There was a shaky trumpet solo during "Spring" of "The
Four Seasons" on opening night, but this familiar flaw
did not recur at the next performance. Any ballet
conductor who greets his musicians with "Bonjour!"
when he enters the pit and who remains at the podium
to applaud the dancers during curtain calls is going to contribute more than brisk tempi to a performance.
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