"The Dream", "The Seasons"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 26, 2022
by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2022 by Mary CargillFrederick Ashton choreographed his version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Shakespeare's birth. The ballet also celebrated the birth on one of the twentieth century's most noted partnerships, as it gave Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell the starring roles and Ashton's Titania and Oberon are saturated with those dancers' qualities. Alexei Ratmansky's "The Seasons", set to Alexander Glazunov's luscious one-act ballet score, premiered in 2019 and celebrated Ratmansky's tenth year as ABT's Artist in Residence, and its cornucopia of dances, to quote the choreographer, "is a celebration of American Ballet Theatre and its dancers". But ballet dancers don't last forever and new dancers take over roles; fortunately both of these works can bloom with different casts.
Herman Cornejo in Frederick Ashton's "The Dream" photo © Marty Sohl