"Chaconne", "Brahms/Handel", "Vienna Waltzes"
New York City Ballet & Orchestra
Opera House
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
March 4, 2009
by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by George Jackson
In the evening's first two ballets it was the dancers' placement that greeted the eye. The human body, elegantly stretched and intriguingly articulated, is the sort of opening chord one expects New York City Ballet to strike. As the curtains lifted on "Vienna Waltzes", the program's last item, light filtered through a scenery of trees to cast a web of brightness and shadow onto the stage. People, like motes momentarily illuminated in sun- or moon-beams, appeared, danced and disappeared. The ribbon tying together George Balanchine's bouquet of 4 waltzes plus a polka is the passage of time.
To take roles in the five miniballets that make up "Vienna Waltzes", the dancers must rely much on skills that are beyond technique. In the opening "Tales from the Vienna Woods", Balanchine not only alludes to a popular tale but suggests the sort of society in which the story is set. It is early in the reign of that long lived Hapsburg monarch, Emperor Franz Josef I. He, his court and his domains are young. Propriety governs, yet how gently is shown by the bows, curtsies and friendly gestures that frame the sequences of waltzing. Postures are upright. How lightly these people's bodies touch. This is a fresh and healthy assembly - after all it is out into nature that it has been drawn along with its etiquette and games.
Franz Josef, so the story goes, met the young woman who was to become his wife, the Empress Elizabeth nicknamed Sissy, accidentally while they were both walking in the woods one day. Neither knew who the other was. He was supposed to become engaged to her older sister, but was so taken with Sissy's open manner and gemuetlichkeit that he insisted on the arrangements being changed. As Balanchine's waltzers play just a little hide-and-seek amongst the trees, it is implied that the leading man may be Franz Josef: his military apparel is in black and gold, the Hapsburg colors. That the woman who attracts him recognizes who he is only halfway thru the scene, after her brief clustering with the other women, is suggested by the very deep curtsy she then makes. At the conclusion of "Tales from...", he offers her his arm for a sustained and contented stroll together into the future - at least that's how this marriage starts.
Like much of cast, the charming Rachel Rutherford and the princely Tyler Angle were fairly new in their roles. They seem to be on the right path but as yet these performances lack patina - sufficient awareness of who these people in the woods are supposed to be, what their stations in life were, and of the nature of the society they belonged to. There's less story telling in the next two sections of "Vienna Waltzes" but characterization and style are crucial. Fanny Elssler, the Viennese girl who became the Romantic era's ballerina of pagan allure, and her partner Anton Stuhlmueller are, most likely, the models for "Voices of Spring", the only balletically classical part of "Vienna Waltzes". Megan Fairchild caught Fanny's woodsprite bearing and bounce, and Benjamin Millepied the unabashed joy of the "handsome boy" who fathered one of Fanny's children but did not marry her. Of course, not everyone in the Hapsburg empire danced with the court or on the stage of the court theater. There were also the plebeians, direct and down to earth in manner, vulgar but bracingly so - which Sterling Hyltin , Arch Higgins and their comrades had no trouble putting over in "Explosion Polka". It isn't certain that Balanchine saw this lower class behavior as the spark that might ignite society in years to come.
In "Gold and Silver", the Hapsburg capital has turned worldly, a bit blase. Romance exists without innocence yet it still excites, which Balanchine illustrates using a "Merry Widow" theme as his ploy without going into the particulars of its plot. Jenifer Ringer's Widow in glamorous black was right, from the tilt of her shoulders to the bend of her back, and on to the knowledge in her eyes. All this, though, should have been stronger - particularly since Nilas Martins, cast as her wary beau, was projecting powerfully. About to resume his relationship with the woman he once loved, the Martins character walks the walk of a man attracted and yet on guard. He takes hold of Ringer as an object he has known intimately in the past and now longs for. Undercurrents of punishment and pleasure are exposed as his body makes contact with hers. As they waltz, and Martins knows how to, these characters leave no doubt that this time their encounter is terminal. The principal male role in "Gold and Silver", even more than that of Pearly King in "Union Jack", justifies Nilas Martins' place in NYC Ballet.
"Rosenkavalier", the final section of the ballet, shows waltzing at its height, but it is haunted waltzing. Memories, past loves, seem more urgent than the treasures of the moment. This empire, despite its genius, is about to disappear. The figure emblematic of this fate is seen dancing alone at first. It is a female figure, and although troubled, she is splendid in her isolation. Her deep curtsy should be wistful, like a sigh. Alas, Darci Kistler fussed and was stiff in the role. That her waltzing lacked sweep wasn't the fault of her ghostly cavalier, performed by Charles Askegard. Balanchine had meant this dance of demise to have dignity but Kistler dramatized it as an attack of hysteria. "Vienna Waltzes" deserves a nobler ending than on this occasion.
Too turquoise but still full of promises at the start, "Brahms/Handel", the program's middle ballet, stumbles into self conscious cleverness, recovers its balance for a passage here and there, and finally turns out to be an experiment that didn't work. Oscar de la Renta follows up the gross color of his first set of costumes with dour swamp green for the second team. Surprise - the green and the turquoise don't clash, yet the sum effect is ugly. When the choreography's quips didn't get in the way, the dancing was lovely - especially its sensitivity to the tempos and tempers of the musical somersaults Brahms makes Handel's theme turn. Abi Stafford and Gonzalo Garcia, the plumper pair, led the turquoise team and Wendy Whelan* and Andrew Veyette, the slimmer pair, headed the greens. Whose fault, though, are the stretches of contrivance? Of the two choreographers who worked on this ballet, I suspect Twyla Tharp more than Jerome Robbins because the doodles so resemble things in Tharp's "Brief Fling".
"Chaconne", Balanchine's finely wrought Gluck ballet on elysian themes from "Orpheus and Eurydice", was first on NYCB's opening night in Washington. The dancing, the playing by Faycal Karoui and the New York musicians, Karinska's simple costumes and the serene glow of Mark Stanley's lights were in complete accord. Whelan, in the ballerina role, stirred the waters of the river Styx, rowed against and with the current, and paddled to the distant shore in those long, low lifts with their remarkable sequences for the leading leg. She did it with strength, smooth strokes and utter poignancy. What a satisfying performer she is now that she's overcome her youthful astringency without loosing the energy she needs. Philip Neal partnered seamlessly and danced solo passages buoyantly. Erica Pereira was filigree, dancing with Adam Hendrickson, in the first pas de deux; tall Ask la Cour darted thru the pas de trois with its instrument-strumming port de bras, accompanied by Saskia Beskow and Gwenyth Muller. Stephanie Zungre led the linear play of the women's quintet. "Chaconne" was the pearl on this program.
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*Whelan replaced Sara Mearns, who likely will not appear during the Washington season.