"Bournonville Divertissements" and “La Sylphide”
The New York City Ballet
Opera House
JFK Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
March 6, 2016 (Sunday matinee)
by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2016 by Alexandra Tomalonis
An all-Bour- nonville program isn’t what one expects from the New York City Ballet, but Bournon- ville, along with Petipa, is an artistic ancestor of George Balanchine. Both Bournonville and Petipa studied with Auguste Vestris, the magnificent late 18th century star and great teacher in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century. One of Bournonville’s pupils, Christian Johansson, came to St. Petersburg and was an honored teacher there. Johansson died in 1903, just before Balanchine was born, and his influence must have still been felt.
Balanchine himself had a connection to the Royal Danish Ballet, the company whose aesthetic and style was formed by August Bournonville. Balanchine worked there briefly in the 1930s and again in the 1950s. He invited Stanley Williams, a noted teacher with the RDB, to come to New York, and while Williams was not a Bournonville teacher per se, he brought much of what he had learned at home. Balanchine was quoted, to explain why he felt that “ballet is woman,” that one reason was because “boys don’t have a speedy leg.” But Danish male dancers do, and Balanchine coveted it, inviting several noted Danish men to dance at the NYCB. One of whom, of course, is Peter Martins, now the director of the NYCB.
Lauren King and Anthony Huxley in August Bournonville’s Bournonville Divertissements. Photo credit: Paul Kolnik
The “Bournonville Divertissements” (staged by Peter Martins’ son, Nilas) that opened the program we saw here was an abbreviated version of what Williams had staged for NYCB a few decades ago: only the ballabile from the first act of “Napoli” and the pas de six, solos (by Hans Beck) and tarantella from that ballet’s last act, with the “Flower Festival in Genzano” pas de deux as a centerpiece. Alain Vaes’ scenery was a metaphor for the elder Martins’ relationship to Bournonville, perhaps. The ballabile is set in Bournonville’s classroom; and after a bright side trip to Italy for “Flower Festival” (by David Mitchell), the finale is danced on the rooftop of the Royal Theatre, looking out over the city of Copenhagen to the world beyond.
Overall, the dancing was more Bournonvillian than it had been in the company’s earlier stagings. The men have mastered one of the most difficult aspects of early 19th century style -- a torso that must be fluidly erect, but never stiff, and arms remaining modestly low -- as though they’d been dancing this way for years. Ask la Cour, who really has been, danced the male role in “Flower Festival” brilliantly, and softly emphasized every musical point and every mime gesture. Teresa Reichlen isn’t the typical Danish “Flower Festival” female soloist, being tall and obviously a very strong dancer, but she came very close to getting the shy, look-away glances that the young woman gives her young man during the flirtatious adagio. In the ballabile and pas de six/tarantella, the dancing was quite clean and the dancers made a very good attempt at mastering the style, but were less successful at being vibrant Italian villagers.
The other work on the program was Bournonville’s “La Sylphide” (1836), which contains all of the themes associated with Romanticism: interest in the supernatural and the exotic, love of nature, yearning for something one cannot possess, and an emphasis on emotions rather than logic. Bournonville staged his own version of the ballet, which originally had starred Marie Taglioni and was choreographed by her father, and that had lit the flames of Romanticism at the Paris Opera Ballet in 1832. Somehow, against all odds, Bournonville's version has survived, and, although non-Danish casts often miss some of the thematic or choreographic points, in this staging, by Peter Martins (assisted by Petrusjka Broholm), the dancers caught so much of the spirit and buoyant dancing that it was a very gratifying surprise.
NYCB hardly specialzes in story ballets, and the dancers’ lack of experience showed a bit. The corps in the first act danced like a traditional corps – a backup group – rather than a group of friends, and some of the main characters were a bit subdued, but Sterling Hyltin’s dancing seemed to say, “Watch me fly!” She caught the style beautifully, and it’s easy to imagine this Sylph enchanting James (Andrew Veyette) so that he would leave his fiancée minutes before they were to be married and run away with her to the forest.
To really succeed, “La Sylphide” needs a strong Madge, the magic-aking evil witch whom James has insulted and whose revenge drives the ballet’s plot. Marika Anderson was stunning in the role. She played Madge as a young, energetic witch who enjoyed her power. Her performance was at star level, but never over the top.
The one thing that did not work were Susan Tammany’s sets, especially that for the first act. It looks as though James lives in a barn – a newly built barn, it seems, as the beams are the color of raw wood. One of the main points of “La Sylphide” is the contrast between the warm and cozy, if claustrophobic, room in which James must spend most of his life, and the forest, the world outside. There’s no way the dancers could create a party in this room, although it is very understandable that James would want to leave it as soon as possible.
The costumes, too, are at odds with Bournonville's use of plaids (the distinctive pattern that identifies each Scottishi clan). At first, in most productions including the traditional RDB one, Effie and James wear different plaids; then Effie changes into James's plaid for the wedding. In the second act, when James witnesses Effie and Gurn's wedding procession, Effie now wears Gurn's clan's tartan. James's mother remains in her plaid throughout, gently refuting Balanchine's claim that there are no mothers-in-law in ballet. The women's skirts, too, are pretty ballet dresses with full short skirts in typical Romantic ballet style rather than the kilted skirts that Scottish women wear (and was part of the ballet's exoticism).
Aside from Hyltin and Anderson, the dancers haven’t yet created vivid characters. Veyette was a rather passive James. It’s important that Effie is a vivid charmer, and Brittany Pollack could amp up the charm a bit; and while I was glad to see Gurn played as a comic character (he’s often been played as a nice, earnest young man who is James’s friend and rival), Daniel Ulbricht was a bit too vivid.
Martins has said that he didn’t change the production but staged what he had learned growing up, and dancing James, in Copenhagen. There were a few things I hadn’t seen before: one of the witches who helps Madge poison the scarf is a child, a scamp, who tries to steal the scarf and run away with it. Also, I’d never seen this rather simple version of Effie’s first act solo. I was told that there was not a solo in the original production, and that the one the RDB danced until recently (which was much more interesting) had been choreographed by Hans Brenaa. Martins’ production runs straight through, without an intermission, with the witches scene serving as a time-out for the set change; whether this is a change or going back to the original way it was done (that scene must have had a technical as well as a dramatic purpose). It’s tight, lasting just about an hour, and I think the fast tempo that bothered some is appropriate, not only because Herman Løvenskiold’s beautiful score is played at concert tempo, but because Romanticism wasn’t sweetly pretty in its day, but a wild rush of passion -- and speed kills.
The dancers, of course, floated above the tempi and weren’t bothered by the speed. In the second act, the dancing of the Sylphs was beautiful; no pseudo-romantic mannerisms were visible. Perhaps Bournonville, looking down, whispered, “Just dance it, dears!” and for this scene, that works.
Photo above:
Sterling Hyltin in Peter Martins’ staging of August Bournonville’s La Sylphide. Photo credit: Paul Kolnik