Robbins Festivities Begin with Brio
Spring Gala 2008: Jerome Robbins Celebration
"Circus Polka," "The Four Seasons," "West Side Story Suite"
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
April 29, 2008
by Susan Reiter
copyright © 2008 Susan Reiter
To launch the spring season's focus on Jerome Robbins, New York City Ballet offered an opening night that emphasized his flair for savvy entertainment. Many of his more profound and complex ballets will be seen in the course of the ten all-Robbins programs that dominate the schedule. This evening, while somewhat low-key for an opening gala, certainly made the case for Robbins' theatrical ingenuity. His confident mastery when it came to arranging and moving large groups with sheer inventiveness as well as maximum emotional impact was certianlyt on display. The program also featured performances by several of the company members (and one guest artist, Robert La Fosse) who had worked closely with the choreographer or have evidenced a special affinity for his repertory.
"Circus Polka," which certainly served as a pièce d'occasion in 1972, has turned out to be Robbins' most enduring work from the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. (It is included on one of the season's programs as well as the upcoming School of American Ballet Workshop.) And why not -- with its 48 young girls in three rank, each younger and smaller than the last. it is irresistably adorable and clever, and certainly must serve as an invaluable learning experience for its participants. This is Robbins the theatrical genius playfully showing off his stuff, and allowing us to have a wonderfully good time in the process. There is the sheer surprise as each successive contingent sweeps onto the stage - and inevitable "aaw" that is heard as the tiniest ones, in pink, appear. But there are also deft allusions to ballet tradition and imagery, as when the mid-sized girls in green become a flock of swans.
Robbins sustains the circus allusions -- which include the girls forming the three "rings" -- deftly, with the Ringmaster's role -- which he himself originally performed -- a central part of the conceit. La Fosse, a veteran in the part, occasionally maintained the air of a stern taskmaster, "whipping" the girls into their formations, but mostly seemed to enjoy the general merriment and bustle around him. Both he and the little girl who scurries out of formation made the most of that well-choreographed break in the otherwise perfect order of the action. When Robbins brings all 48 girls into concentric circles moving in different directions, one can even spot him slightly mocking his own amazing ingenuity near the end of "The Goldberg Variations," created a year earlier, when he assembles the entire cast into kaleidoscopic patterns. In both cases, the possible threat of disorder potentially lurks, but is always cleanly avoided. And surely Robbins, the ultimate master of the "button" that brings a seciton or a ballet to a close with the clarity and confidence of a punctuation mark, toped himself when he arranged for the 48 girls to scurry into positions that form a final image of Stravinsky's initials. "That "I. S." has now for many years been re-designed to create "J. R." as the final image. It's those periods next to the initials -- each a tiny girl, sitting curled-up -- that provide not only literal punctuation but the added theatrical fillip that is pure Robbins.
"The Four Seasons" has proven to be a useful work, becoming a repertory staple over the nearly three decades since its creation. It is an efificient machine -- an often clever variation on the four-movement ballet that Balanchine created in various forms, with a large number of contrasting featured roles. By now it has become an old friend, and its somewhat lumbering quality and cheap-looking costumes are part of its charm. Robbins' instincts in selecting Verdi's ballet music from I Vespri Siciliani were unerring; the music is bright, often witty, and inherently danceable. From the nervously biting strings in "Winter" to the lusciously unfurling clarinet lines in "Spring" to the indolent oboe of "Summer," it is a lovely and varied score.
Sara Mearns' performance as the "Spring" ballerina certainly helped make this a festive performance of the ballet. With her beautfully open carriage and expansive, creamy attack, she brought out all the juice and musicality of this lovely role. There were a few places where she lacked the crisp clarity that was also part of the inimitable Kyra Nichols, the role's indelible originator, but overall this was a luminous and enchanting interpetation. Philip Neal was her deferential partner and brought his own modest verve to his solo, and the four men who become jumping tadpoles did their bit with good-humored precision.
"Winter" is the ballet's section with the least individual stamp on it, and can sometimes have an obligatory feel to it. But here, although Megan Fairchild was not quite invigoratingly robust enough as the one who shakes off the icicles and gets everyone warmed up, it moved along with a certain vibrancy, thanks to Antonio Carmena and particularly Adam Hendrickson as the high-flying wind figures. And Robbins' deft, if by now overly familiar, little jokes as the eight fluffy girls of the ensemble atempt to keep warm remain endearing. Tyler Angle, an impressive dancer whose range continues to expand, beautifully captured the succulent, weighted, vaguely Middle Eastern lushness of his role in "Summer," though his partner Rachel Rutherford, while she looked ravishing, was more restrained than sensual.
The mock-heroics and intentionally flashy bravura of the concluding "Autumn" are difficult to deliver convincingly, but Ashley Bouder's bold, sharp attack and playfully exaggerated manner were engaging. Benjamin Millepied, whose temperament is not quite suited to this kind of brazen display, made a slightly diffident entrance, but revved up impressive tricks in his solo. Daniel Ulbricht was in his element, bounding and capering with impressive airborne ease, and tossing in a few girl-chasing jokes in the concluding, deliciously silly, bacchanal.
Before the final work, "West Side Story Suite," a brief film clip of Robbins rehearsing the male ensemble in 1995, when he first staged the peice for NYCB, was shown. "When people come on the stage, I want them to know who they're dancing to and why," the choreographer was heard saying, in an oral history interview conducted by Deborah Jowitt that year. Showing the dancers how to stand, move and behave during the rumble, he told them, "You can't come on like nice ballet boys," and spoke of these gang members' lives and situations.
Now that this potent, vividly staged series of dances from the 1957 musical has been in the repertory thirteen years, it has been turned over to a completely new generation; only Damian Woetzel, who shared the role of Riff with Nikolaj Hubbe early on, and performed it with magentic power on this occasion, is a link to those initial casts. But it remains in excellent shape, honed and focused. The dancers seem to have added more spontaneous vocal interjections -- taunts, shouts of encouragements -- but they deliver them quite naturally. Woetzel's Riff was clearly someone who feels most fully alive in the thrill and heat of the fight, and he also conveyed the suave authority of the born leader. Amar Ramasar cuts a tough, slick figure as Bernardo, stalking across with his two equally dynamic sidekicks (Henry Seth and Sean Suozzi). Georgina Pazcoguin, one of the comany's most versatile and theatrically astute interpreters of many Robbins roles, is growing nicely as Anita. In her debut last season, she was tough as nails, but now she is finding more subtleties and a teasing allure in the role. In the small role of Rosalia, the friend who longs naively for Puerto Rico and is Anita's antagonist in "America," Getchen Smith sang with the flair and accuracy of a Broadway pro.
The Prologue comes across as a bit less daring and in-the-moment than it originally did, but the verve and characterization of the Dance at the Gym remain superlative. The stage vibrates with the competing energies and one-upsmanship of the two gangs, all expressed in purely dance terms. The two leaders strut their stuff and claim their turf; the others simmer with communal bravado and pent-up frustration. Everywhere one looks onstage, there is believable activity that contributes to the focused, cinematically fluent stage picture.
i In the midst of the increasingly layered group activity, Tony and Maria find each other and ever so slowly are drawn together in the center. In one of Robbins' most ingenious masterstrokes, everyone is magically erased from the stage so the two of them can have their eloquently simply dance equivalent of Romeo and Juliet's first, enraptured exchange. And then as the music gradually builds up with tension and and an undercurrent of danger, the masses return, brightly lit, and the two of them must realize their love exists in this imperfect world, not in that momentary bubble. Robert Fairchild is a wonderful Tony, just sensitive enough and brimming with eagerness and openness. He conveys how divided Tony is, wanting to be one of the guys, yet feeling himself apart. Faye Arthurs presents Maria as a dewy tabula rasa, completely open to the influences of others.
"West Side Story Suite" got a deluxe musical contribution from mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who sang "Somewhere" with rich, resonant and heartfelt beauty. Faycal Karoui was the conductor for the evening, which also included, just before "The Four Seasons," a lovely montage of black and white photos of Robbins, as performer and as choreographerin action. There were images of him in the studio with everyone from Balanchine to Baryshnikov to Martins, and a couple of great, relaxed shots of him with Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. It conveyed a sense of the range and influential quality of Robbins' ouevre, much of which will come into sharper perspective during the coming weeks.
Photos by Paul Kolnik: Top: "West Side Story Suite" Middle: Sara Mearns and Philip Neal in "The Four Seasons" Bottom: Faye Arthurs and Robert Fairchild in "West Side Story Suite"
