LINCOLN CENTER
David Koch Theater
New York City Ballet
Jewels
Music - Gabriel Fauré, Igor Stravinsky, and Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky
Choreography - George Balanchine
Inspired by a visit to Van Cleef & Arpels, this full-length masterwork manifests the multifaceted opulence of three coveted stones to awe-inducing effect. Sight and sound conjoin in a brilliant display of music and mood, eliciting audible gasps from every audience.
Balanchine distilled the brilliant facets of precious stones into a grand display: Emeralds moves at Fauré's mesmerizing pace, while Rubies races like lightning through Stravinsky's jazz-inflected capriccio. With its symphonic Tschaikovsky score, Diamonds venerates the regality of Balanchine’s classical heritage.
Understanding Balanchine’s ‘Jewels,’ a Perfect Introduction to Ballet
By ALASTAIR MACAULAY•SEPT. 27, 2016
Tiler Peck in “Emeralds” at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
Next year, George Balanchine’s pure-dance triptych “Jewels” will have its 50th anniversary. It remains a perfect introduction to ballet: Few full-length story ballets are as satisfying as this storyless one, which returns Wednesday to New York City Ballet, for which it was created.
Nobody can miss how vividly different its stage worlds are: the green romantic medieval French forest of “Emeralds” (music by Fauré); the red Modernist high-energy American urban world of “Rubies” (Stravinsky); the wintry white (both snowscape and palace) grand imperial Russian classicism of “Diamonds” (Tchaikovsky). What other artist could conjure these three dissimilar realms with such easy mastery? The big ovations go to “Rubies” and “Diamonds,” with their spectacle and virtuosity; but hundreds of ballet devotees will tell you that it’s the poetically mysterious “Emeralds” they love the most.
One of the fascinations on re-viewing is to trace what the three ballets have in common. There’s the imagery of jewelry: the patterns of the female corps de ballet in “Diamonds” show us — inevitably — diamonds; “Rubies” opens (sensationally) with a tense, semicircular group tiara; and a necklace-like corps chain occurs in “Emeralds.” In all three ballets, women stretch one leg and both arms upward in lines that suggest the refraction of light from a jewel.
Teresa Reichlen in “Rubies.” Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
A separate thread — a central motif — is a particular forward-to-backward movement of the arms and entire upper body (“grand port de bras” in ballet terminology). In “Jewels,” it has the quality of both ritual and vital process, as if a strange impulse made the dancers first bend the torso, head and arms forward to make a concave shape (the hands meet like a beak or prow), and then — the same impulse — transform themselves by straightening and arching the back, arms now swept back and out, like wings. As the whole thorax moves from a closed position to a boldly exposed one, each dancer seems both ceremonious and driven. In each ballet, however, this movement acquires a different character.
A third link is the incorporation of pedestrian movement: walking (in “Emeralds” and “Diamonds”) and running or jogging (in “Rubies”). Both pas de deux in “Emeralds” begin with formal walking. The tremendous pas de deux of “Diamonds” begins as the ballerina and her partner advance toward each other along zigzagging paths to center stage as the bassoon plays the main theme of Tchaikovsky’s long andante movement; in “Rubies” the couple enter trotting breezily together.
And the pas de deux in all three ballets have configurations that suggest the man is a hunter who has found a fantastic creature that eludes him even while he grasps her. While preparing the ballet, Balanchine took Suzanne Farrell (the original “Diamonds” ballerina) to see the medieval “Lady and Unicorn” tapestries at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Late in the “Diamonds” pas de deux, the ballerina evades her partner while the strings play tremolos. Then she summons him to partner her in the most extraordinary sequence in the trilogy. While he supports her waist with one arm, she points her head, arms and leg horizontally forward as if she were the unicorn (8:43 in the video below).Choreography by Balanchine. Diamonds Video by sanitsilosani
Then, while the bassoon returns to that haunting theme, she slowly steps forward on point, in profile to the audience, while doing that grand port de bras into a powerful backbend (ending at 8:51). She was closed; now she’s open; yet she’s still grandly unfathomable, a chimera.
Since Balanchine’s death in 1983, “Jewels” has become a boom industry. Today it’s danced by the chief ballet companies of Russia, France, Britain as well as by companies all over the United States. Wednesday’s City Ballet cast features (among others) the principals Tiler Peck, Teresa Reichlen and Sara Mearns, who give heartfelt personal introductions to it on this video.
As usual, the company is fielding two casts in each ballet. Ms. Reichlen dances the soloist — mistress of ceremonies — in “Rubies” in two performances, the “Diamonds” ballerina in the two others. A special event on Wednesday is the return of the firecracker virtuoso Ashley Bouder to the “Rubies” ballerina after a nine-month leave in which she had her first child. Her first postbaby appearance (in “Vienna Waltzes”) occurred last week; she’s dancing with a newly affectionate glow. In “Rubies,” one of her most brilliant vehicles, it will be interesting to see if and how her luster has changed.
Photograph: Russ Rowland