"A Midsummer Night's Dream"
New York City Ballet
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, New York
July 7, 2010
by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2010 by Tom Phillips
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center was conceived and built as a summer home for New York City Ballet, and the company inaugurated the center in 1966 with a ballet set, like the stage, in a forest. Back then it seemed like the perfect match, but in recent years relations between the company and SPAC have been strained, and the ballet season has been cut to less than two weeks. But on July 7 some of the magic returned, along with the crowds, as New York City Ballet brought back "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Of all Balanchine’s masterpieces, “Midsummer” may have been the closest to his heart. He danced it as a child, knew the play in Russian, and demonstrated all the parts as he re-invented it for NYCB in the 1960s. It’s an invention of enormous complexity and charm, and reveals new aspects with every viewing. This time, I was struck by the symmetry of the two acts: Act One takes care of Shakespeare’s plot – a mind-boggling mélange of worlds, with ordinary mortals and monarchs contending with each other as they stumble through a dark wood ruled by equally contentious fairies. Act Two is devoid of conflict – like Bottom’s dream, it is pure beauty, an act of grace. All this can be seen in the several pas de deux that punctuate the plot. In Act One, every duet is fractured by some conflict or misunderstanding: Titania’s interlude with her cavalier is interrupted repeatedly by Puck trying to steal her little page boy; her dance with Bottom is a drug-induced prank. But maybe Balanchine’s neatest trick was the pas de deux between the mismatched lovers Helena and Demetrius -- where he turns the conventions of partnering into a furious wrestling match, a contest between clinging and flinging.
Act Two then gives us back the pas de deux in its purest and loveliest form. In the adagio divertissement, two nameless dancers become one, as the ballerina is lifted, turned and led through every step of the way, right down to a slow, diagonal walk across the stage. This little walk, repeated verbatim a second time, is Balanchine at his simplest and most universal. The ballerina bourrees on pointe, with her partner walking by her side, gently supporting her wrist-to-wrist as their arms circle slowly overhead, in the opposite direction of the stroll. What is it? It could be the rings of Saturn, or the great wheel of the Milky Way. Whatever it is, it catches the floating, effortless movement of Mendelssohn’s string symphony, composed when he was a 14-year-old boy. Paradise regained, for a few shimmering minutes.
I can write that thanks to Wendy Whelan and Jared Angle, who did this divertissement justice, the first time I’ve seen it accomplished since Whelan and Jock Soto did it years ago. The level of concentration was intense, the difficulties were visible only occasionally, and even then surmounted with grace.
Act Two was all the more enchanting because of the intensity of the struggles in Act One. Maria Kowroski was in imperious form as Titania, towering over her Oberon, Joaquin de Luz, as she rejected his pleas for the little page. Adam Hendrickson tore through his paces as Puck, the magician who makes a big mistake. But best of all was the battle royal between Rebecca Krohn as Helena and Arch Higgins as Demetrius. You could practically hear the curses flying from his lips as he tried to thrust himself clear of the pest who would be, and will be, his bride. Higgins is a first-rate comic, maybe because he’s serious about it. Henry Seth, as Bottom, was more of a ham, needlessly exaggerating his donkey gait.
More fine dancing came from Teresa Reichlen, firing her extensions like arrows as Hippolyta, and Erica Pereira as a peripatetic, lighter-than-air Butterfly.
One serious drawback was a sound system that reduced the sound of the NYCB orchestra to a unidirectional screech. The amphiteatre at SPAC is built for orchestral sound, and the organization boasts of its world-class acoustics. Why then feed the music through six underpowered, over-amplified speakers clustered high overhead? Especially in Act One, the speakers drowned out the orchestra itself, and mashed the singing voices into a garble. Mendelssohn, Balanchine and Shakespeare teamed up only once in the history of the world; their “Dream” needs loving care.
Copyright 2010 by Tom Phillips
