LINCOLN CENTER
Koch Theater
New York City Ballet
Jewels - Balanchine
http://www.nycballet.com/Season-Tickets/Spring-2014-Programming/JEWELS.aspx
"Jewels is an exquisite beauty, impressively layering the music of three disparate composers and marrying each section to its own precious stone for an opulent experience. It is a masterpiece in a league of its own: the world’s first-ever plotless full-length ballet.
Inspired by a visit to Van Cleef & Arpels, Balanchine linked each section to a precious stone through music and movement. Emeralds floats at Fauré’s mesmerizing pace, evoking an underwater setting, while Rubies races like lightning through Stravinsky’s jazz-inflected piano capriccio. With its symphonic Tschaikovsky score, Diamonds venerates the order and regality of Imperial Russia — a magnificent climax to a grand display."
Still Revealing New Facets, After Sparkling for
Half a Century
‘Jewels’ Returns to New York City Ballet’s
Repertory
George Balanchine’s full-length “Jewels,” new in 1967, remains a perfect
education in the art of ballet — in particular the diversity of ballet as
he refashioned it in the mid-20th century. I go on learning from it myself.
Part of its fascination is that its three parts — “Emeralds”
(to pieces by Fauré), “Rubies” (to Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano
and Orchestra) and “Diamonds” (to the last four movements of
Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony) — are so unalike. “Emeralds” is
Romantic-medievalist, French, seeming to occur in a large garden, deep glade or
forest. “Rubies” is 20th-century American, indeed New York: merry, hard, dense,
high-rise. “Diamonds” is imperial Russian, courtly.
On Wednesday — Balanchine’s 110th
birthday — “Jewels” returned to the David H. Koch Theater with New York City
Ballet, the company for which he created it. Just over 47 years after its
premiere, its lead roles remain among ballet’s most illustrious. This cast was
led by nine senior principals: Ashley Bouder with Jared Angle and Sara Mearns
with Jonathan Stafford in “Emeralds”; Megan Fairchild, Joaquin De Luz and
Teresa Reichlen in “Rubies”; Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle in “Diamonds.”
We can and should argue about
aspects of their performances — other troupes performing this ballet have
sometimes matched or surpassed the current standards of this company (which
offers other casts next week) — but everything was intelligently focused,
lucid, bold. Even some of City Ballet’s hitherto more guarded performers just
now seem to be communicating their love of dancing. It’s infectious. They know
this ballet intimately and made it newly engrossing.
Though the décor for the company’s
current production (by Peter Harvey, who also designed the 1967 premiere, with
sets still used by the Mariinsky Ballet) is too broadly cartoonlike for my
taste, I enjoy the way its gems carry different suggestions. In “Emeralds” I
see dew hanging on garden cobwebs; in “Rubies” the bright lights of a city at
night; in “Diamonds” snow suspended in a clear winter sky.
For some, all three are urban
ballets: Paris, New York, St. Petersburg. And though the sets and Karinska’s
costumes strongly characterize each part, it’s the choreography that most
creates the three different worlds. In “Rubies,” dancers sometimes flex their
feet, tread hard on their heels and thrust their hips in ways that would be
unthinkable in the other two works. In the first “Emeralds” solo, a ballerina
extends and withdraws her arms with a quality both crisp and perfumed that’s
exclusive to that piece. And the central sections of the grand “Diamonds” have
a particular remoteness; its ballerina scarcely addresses the audience until
the finale.
Yet “Jewels” is one ballet rather
than three. Certain images, steps and motifs bind its parts together. All three
feature variations on the same grand port de bras, in which the female dancer
moves from a concave shape to a convex one while she changes positions from one
leaning forward with hands meeting, to a position outstretched with a bent back
and arms open wide; all three show the ballerina revolving powerfully en
attitude (her raised leg bent behind her), an orb whose facets catch the light
differently as she turns.
“Emeralds” and “Diamonds” feature a
slow, weighted walk; in “Rubies” there is an irrepressible jog or trot. In all
three parts, dancers stretch one leg and both arms up in various upward
directions (forward, sideways or behind); to me these indicate aspects of the
radiance of jewels.
And each has a central male-female
pas de deux: ceremonious, harmonious, but also dramatic. At one point in each,
the ballerina, while the man holds her, bends her head, spine and arms in a straight
horizontal line; it’s suddenly as if he’s holding not a woman but a tense,
magical creature, and there’s a sense of an impasse in their relationship, as
if, amid all their brilliant cooperation, she still resists him.
The central role in “Emeralds”
extends the shrewd, brilliant Ms. Bouder marvelously. She’s a formidable
virtuoso in many roles, but here you see her keen sense of atmosphere and
nuance. Often the most knowing and least innocent principal dancer in New York,
here she’s deeply absorbed by a stage milieu larger than herself. Jared Angle,
always a superlative partner, helped her sail beautifully through many lifts.
Ms. Mearns, often so exuberant and vivid a dancer, is at her most beautifully
aloof as the work’s other ballerina; as with Ms. Bouder, her absorption deepens
the “Emeralds” spell. Mr. Stafford, who retires this season and has had many
injuries, danced stylishly and was her admirable partner.
Ms. Fairchild, always a strong technician,
danced the lead of “Rubies” with a twinkling confidence and percussive
musicality that seemed to be personal breakthroughs. She still lacks eloquent
line, upper-body plasticity and stage-filling amplitude, yet the way she took
risks in covering space set high standards for Balanchinean impetus, and her
lower-body sparkle was terrific. As her consort, Mr. De Luz exemplified the
same virtues, with more than a touch of braggadocio.
Meanwhile, the most definitive
“Jewels” performance anywhere today is that of Ms. Reichlen as the female
soloist. Sly and outrageous by turns, she hurled her beautiful legs up into the
air with a power this company has seldom seen since Suzanne Farrell.
You can watch all these women
(Ashley Laracey was especially fine in the “Emeralds” pas de trois) and still
gasp at the first sight of the spectacular Ms.
Kowroski in her “Diamonds” tutu. She’s the ultimate tall, slender,
long-limbed ballerina, with feet and neck to match. And her persona is
enthralling: she’s both shy and imperious, combining elusive grandeur with
tender surprise. What she often lacks is stamina, a full-throttle bravura
technique and a fluent line that makes her legs and arms move in a single
impulse. She has forged a bond with Tyler Angle — like his brother Jared, a
refined and redoubtable partner — that is deepening her command of each
ballet’s poetry. Hers is a daunting role; on Wednesday you could feel and love
her courage.
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