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Reveling in Ravel

"In G Major", "Sonatine", "Pavane", "Errante", "La Valse"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 15, 2025

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2025 by Mary Cargill

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of NYCB’s Ravel Festival, the company has put together a program of five ballets set to the composer’s music, one by Robbins (“In G Major”) and four by Balanchine (three rarely seen brief works, ”Sonatine”, “Pavane”, and”Errante”,  and his stylish 1951 “La Valse”).  The music used for these works were written for the concert hall, which the exception of the second half of “La Valse”, which was commissioned but never used by Diaghilev, and the audience could certainly have enjoyed the evening with eyes closed, though no one would have wanted to miss the number of impressive debuts.

New York City Ballet dancers in Jerome Robbins' "In G Major" photo© Paul Kolnik

 

Old Friends

"Paquita", "A Suite of Dances", "After the Rain" 'Brandenburg"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 1, 2025

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2025 by Mary Cargill

Though still rare, non-Balanchine evenings are being programed at NYCB with more frequency (though Balanchine is referenced in the "Minkus Pas Trois" which opens "Paquita", the dance is a revision of Petipa's original).  The evening’s program featured older works by NYCB stalwarts Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, and Alexei Ratmansky, whose reworking of Petipa’s grand finale of his 1881 version of “Paquita", new last season, returned, its full-blooded dancing even dancier.  Robbins got two works, "Brandenburg", his 1997 excursion into some of Bach Brandenburg concerti, which combined fine, spirited dancing with some overly repetitive choreography, and “A Suite of Dances”, another selection of Bach for an on-stage cellist (Hannah Holman) and Roman Mejia in his debut. Christopher Wheeldon’s 2005 pas de deux from “After the Rain” is a slow, languorous dance to slow, languorous music by Arvo Part, illuminated by the haunting presence of Miriam Miller’s debut.

Mira Nadon and Joseph Gordon in Alexei Ratmansky's "Paquita" photo © Erin Baiano