"A Midsummer Night's Dream"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater, New York
January 7, 2010
by Tom Phillips
copyright 2010 by Tom Phillips
Putting on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in January might seem like a perverse attempt by New York City Ballet to prove that ballet has nothing to do with the world outside. (It’s as crazy as showing “Nutcracker” outdoors at Saratoga in July, which they have also done.) On the other hand, running “Midsummer” just a few days after ending a month of “Nutcrackers” might also be seen as a master stroke of programming – a bookend of Balanchine masterpieces, each built on the same template. With that in mind it was a pleasure to see two beautiful young dancers, Sara Mearns and Ana Sophia Scheller, as Titania and Hippolyta in “Midsummer,” with a fresh memory of the same pair as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Dew Drop in the winter classic.
Parallels between the ballets are strikingly clear when they are presented so close together. The first-act divertissement for Titania and her Cavalier is similar in form and content to the pas de deux for Sugar Plum and her similarly green-clad mystery man. And just like Dew Drop amidst her Flowers, Hippolyta dashes on and off stage amidst her hounds, pausing in the center to whirl off her fouettes and other bravura turns.
Structurally, the ballets are each two-part inventions, two acts in two hours. The entire plot is taken care of in Act One. With the conflicts resolved, Act Two is pure dance – a formal celebration of victories won and disasters averted. For Balanchine the Platonist, these are two planes of existence: the hurly-burly of life on earth with all its drama, and the peace and sanctity of the ideal realm, where all you need to do is dance.
At 23, Mearns still has room to grow into full command of these imperial roles, but she is visibly developing into a regal presence -- not in the sense of being stiff and aloof but just the opposite, a being who can take extraordinary risks because she appears to be immune from danger. Like the young Suzanne Farrell, she believes in the step enough to give herself completely to it. The result is an extraordinary push through her limbs and a breathtaking sweep in her gestures, a flashing arc as her pointed foot goes in a beat from the floor to the vertical. The emotion that registers is a fierce joy in movement, a faith that ballet works, so just do it.
Sugar Plum and Titania are warm, even hot. By contrast, Dew Drop and Hippolyta are cool, and Ana Sophia Scheller is the essence of cool, classical elegance. Her specialty is the straight line, and she used it to sell a step that I’d never been able to see before – drawing her bow, then shooting a leg up and forward like an arrow.
Act One works only when it’s done with abandon at top speed, and it worked only some of the time this night. As Helena and Demetrius, the unmatched pair of lovers, Arch Higgins and Janie Taylor went at each other with loony verve. On the other side, Andrew Veyette allowed himself to look ridiculous as Lysander, but Abi Stafford merely danced through her part as Hermia.
Adrian Danchig-Waring got his laughs as Bottom, and Troy Shumacher got his as Puck, but Schumacher trivialized his role, acting more like a cartoon character than a mythical agent of dark mischief. He also pussy-footed around the stage rather than running as if his pants were on fire, as the best of his predecessors have done. Erica Pereira was light and fleet as the Butterfly, but as Oberon, Gonzalo Garcia seemed too, too solid. He’s a lovely classical dancer, but this role calls for a demon.
Ideally, Balanchine’s “Dream” culminates with a second-act pas de deux that is like a walk through heaven – a series of slow turns and low lifts ending with the ballerina turning and falling to rest in her partner’s arms, all this to an ethereal adagio for strings. It looks easy but it’s just the opposite, and I’ve seen it done to perfection only once in recent years, by Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto. On this midsummer night in January, Jared Angle and Jenifer Ringer had exactly the right conception, and their gestures were as unhurried and gracious as they might be in heaven, but they were unable to make the steps flow so continuously as to take us out of time.
Some people say Act Two is boring, but that’s only if you don’t like weddings and formal occasions. Here we have a triple nuptial, with a royal retinue, continuous movement in perfect patterns and Mendelssohn’s own wedding march in its original Shakespearean setting. Just sit back and drink it in.
The main pleasure of the acoustically renovated David H. Koch Theater (besides walking down actual aisles) is to hear the music in greater depth and clarity than ever before. The bass notes used to be muffled, but now they boom out, and the brass section can rise to a robust ring. Unfortunately this also clarifies the boo-boos for which the NYCB horns are notorious. They came through loud and clear. Andrews Sill conducted.
Copyright 2010 by Tom Phillips
Photo of Ana Sophia Scheller by Paul Kolnik
