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

By ALASTAIR MACAULAYJAN. 23, 2014

        

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.