"Concerto Barocco", "Liturgy", "Les Gentilhommes" & "Liebeslieder Walzer" i.e., Program 2
New York City Ballet
Opera House, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
December 11, 2009
by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by George Jackson
The solution for a sluggish box office seems to be good programming and quality casting. The small portion of NYC Ballet which is in Washington this cold December week has attracted customers galore with its decidedly non-Nutcracker repertory. It even happens that two of the ballets, the first bill's "Dances at a Gathering" and this program's "Liebeslieder Walzer", take place ostensibly during one of the year's warmer seasons. Programming savvy was in evidence too when the three shorter works on bill 2 were presented as a triptych, separated only by brief pauses. Not that "Barocco", "Liturgy" and "Gentilhommes" have similar or complimentary essences. Quite the contrary, but their proximity helped in seeing what each had to offer - which wouldn't be the case with the ballet that followed a full intermission, "Liebeslieder".
The dancing of George Balanchine's ballet "Concerto Barocco" sparkles. It also speaks with and to its music. Whether the cast's 10 women are dressed in white (as in the current production) or in black (as of yore by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo), the choreography's phrasing must be sharp and its linearity emphatic. Some people see church vaults in the raised arms and the hands that resemble Gothic arches as they almost meet directly overhead. Others feel that that the hands are about to fold in prayer. One viewer wrote an intriguing essay to suggest the tracery of orchids as the source of such poses. Whatever imagery you imagine, heed the music - J.S. Bach 's concerto in D minor for double violins. Each of the two leading violinists has a dancer as counterpart. These 4 soloists can stress the notes' baroque pulse or their more romantic melody. Kurt Nikkanen and Oleg Rylakto, the violinists, did a bit of both. Their Dopplegaenger ballerinas - elongate and articulate Maria Kowroski and compact, bounding Abi Stafford - favored the rhythmic interpretation when together. Kowroski also had a male partner for the adagio, stalwart Stephen Hanna. He doesn't exactly correspond to any instrument but perhaps represents the conductor, Maurice Kaplow. With Hanna, Kowroski became more lyric. The corps of 8 women contributed to the conversation by keeping time punctiliously. When the ballet concludes it leaves behind a sense of accomplishment, of having used every fleeting moment. Life may be transient, but it is richly so.
Christopher Wheeldon's "Liturgy" is a duet of a dark and solemn glow. It starts on a pulse which for the first moments seems hyper-baroque but quickly turns chaotic and disappears. Then motion and sound consist of line. The linearity Wheeldon devised for the music of Arvo Part is strikingly eccentric, austerely imposing and persistent. Silences in the Part score are audible and matched by motion that seems frozen in its tracks so that lines merge into slabs. The dancing doesn't so much converse with the music but, rather, both voices arise from one source. Wendy Whelan embodied the traffic of this classically based, profoundly transformed choreography and Albert Evans was her absolutely essential infrastructure. Life, from this vantage of Wheeldon's, is daunting.
Peter Martins' "Les Gentilhommes" is a white ballet. In fact it is white-on-white (shirts and tights over dance belts) for, of course, an all male cast. There are 9 men. One is an old-fashioned type - a short, bravura soloist with muscular legs. He holds first rank. The other 8 are his more streamlined, more anatomically modern companions. Martins' choreography takes antique dancing and fencing thematic, adapting it to current classical technique and setting it on a musical pedestal from Handel's work. After an ensemble in which the soloist leads, there is a set of 4 double variations followed by a set of 3 trio variations. The finale is again an ensemble led by the soloist - Daniel Ulbricht. He's been a technical whiz for some time but this season seems no longer to be giving in to his urges for excess and penchant to show off. The duos were danced in the following order: Sean Suozzi and Allen Peiffer, Daniel Applebaum and Andrew Scordato, Adrian Danchig-Waring and Christian Tworzyanski, Adam Hendrickson and Antonio Carmena; the trios were Applebaum/Suozi/Tworzyanski, Hendrickson/Carmena/Ulbricht and Scordato/Peiffer/Danchig-Waring*. This admirable assembly of male strength was adored by the audience. Congratulations to Ulbricht for growing up as an artist! Danchig-Waring is dancing with notable new polish.
"Gentilhommes" sits neatly atop its music. There's a formal relationship between what is seen and heard. The many variations for the men are competently assembled but, save for some of Ulbricht's, they seem dry. Still, all of the piece is welcome. Among the ballets of Peter Martins, "Les Gentilhommes" is one of the most sufferable. It displays technique and style, links them to anatomy, provides just a hint of the erotic (Alain Vaes' costumes, the Mark Stanley lighting) but is silent about meaning and life. Peter Martins' strength is as an academic, not as poet or prophet.
For "Liebeslieder Walzer", Balanchine's choreography engages not just two sets of songs by Brahms but also the songs' poetry. The action starts in the lovely reality of a 19th Century salon and opens up to the gardens outside and to the sky. How important that sky was for Balanchine became apparent when he was restaging the work for the Vienna Opera. The lighting technician there was playing with different illuminations when Balanchine happened to walk in. He watched as a deep yellow, almost a saffron, began to glow beyond the salon's open doors and decided to use that yellow sky instead of an originally designated deep blue. The current NYC Ballet production, with scenery by David Mitchell and the Ronald Bates lighting recreated by Stanley, opts for a dusky blue. During the second half of the ballet, the cast of 8 dancers, 4 singers and 2 pianists responded to it sensitively. Personal experiences of love, life and nature are supposed to dissolve within ideal forms in this second scene and did so.
The dancers had a harder time with the ballet's first half in which they portray actual people. Showing distinct temperaments and indulging in personal habits, they seemed somewhat studied and made the scene's supposed spontaneity look forced. It was easier for the original 1960 cast of "Liebeslieder" dancers. They had simply to be themselves in order to seem like characters. Today's dancers try to merge their predecessors' traits with their own and that doesn't always work.
Darci Kistler, in her last Washington role prior to retirement, partly rescued the reputation she has lately jeopardized. She and Charles Askegard merged dignity with passion as the tall pair and seemed the senior couple among the dancers. Janie Taylor and Tyler Angle were the eager juniors. Jenifer Ringer with Jared Angle appeared as a careful couple, and Jennie Somogyi with Nilas Martins as a casual one. These traits, distilled, appeared to best advantage in the second, the balletic half of "Liebeslieder". Marvelous in both the ballroom and balletic dancing are the choreography's sudden Biedermeier lifts and playful port de bras.
Returning to the salon from under the open sky, the dancers, who had been moving to Friedrich Daumer's poetry, simply listen to the last song, for which Brahms set verse by Goethe. They are at peace with the world having achieved some sort of satisfaction beyond the personal.
The pianists were Richard Moredock and Susan Walters; the singers, whose German was sometimes quite comprehensible, were Amy Justman, Katherine Rohrer, Michael Slattery and Thomas Meglioranza. As music, words, movement and locale interweave in "Liebeslieder", the work's texture becomes wonderfully alive.
Photos by Paul Kolnik):
Liturgy: Wendy Whelan and Albert Evans
Liebeslieder Walzer: Jennie Somogyi and Nilas Martins
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*Courtesy of the NYC Ballet Press Office
