The following was posted by Eric Taub in the News thread about the tour:
http://www.ballet.co.uk/dcforum/news/4057.htmlIt's much more than news and the thoughts expressed are bound to link in with what we see of the company on stage and so I thought I would use it to start the London season discussion thread....
Eric Taub
08-03-08, 06:00 PM (GMT (ST))
"City Ballet Casting and Preview"
New York City Ballet has finally released casting for London. Lately they've been posting it two weeks in advance, but here it is at last. Here are some off-the-cuff comments for people who might be seeing this company and repertory for the first time.
Essential Balanchine
March 12, 16e:
SERENADE: Taylor, Bouder, Gilliland, Neal, la Cour
Janie Taylor has become this generation's Allegra Kent: an ethereal genius whose appearances are rare as hen's teeth. Revel that she's appearing so often in London. She hasn't danced the Waltz Girl in New York yet, and I didn't see her debut two weeks ago in Washington. Given Taylor's almost indescribable gift for wrapping searing emotional intensity in a physical attack which seems always to be courting death, I'd put her portrayal of the Waltz Girl's love, death and transcendence high on the not-to-be-missed list. That she's paired with Ashley Bouder's powerhouse Russian Girl -- a sylph and a hawk -- makes this cast doubly compelling. The tall, leggy Kaitlyn Gilliland describes the otherworldly Dark Angel with great precision and, as yet, little mystery. Philip Neal will be attentive and understated as the Waltz Girl's first partner, and Ask la Cour, if a bit blank-faced, handles his barrage of ballerinas with aplomb. Keep your eyes open for Bouder's leap into the upside-down split draped over his hip. Most Russian Girls are rightfully cautious here; Bouder hurls herself over half the stage.
AGON: Whelan, Evans, Veyette, Krohn, Tinsley-Williams, Reichlen, T. Angle, Ramasar
For over a decade, Whendy Whelan and Jock Soto owned the pas de deux. Albert Evans isn't the partner, or dancer, Soto was, but it won't matter. You'll be watching Whelan. With her famously thin, short torso and extraordinarily long arms and legs, Whelan presents this great duet's angularities and infoldings with miraculous detail and grandeur. Again, not to be missed. Rebecca Krohn, Jennifer Tinsley-Williams should be servicable in the pas de trois with the young, willing but stolid Andrew Veyette. Teresa Reichlen, tall, reed-thin and whip-strong, might well steal the show in the pas de trois with Tyler Angle and Amar Ramasar. In her sinuous, "castanet" solo, she's stunning.
SYMPHONY IN C: FIRST MOVEMENT: A. Stafford, J. Stafford; SECOND MOVEMENT: Mearns, Askegard; THIRD MOVEMENT: M. Fairchild, Garcia; FOURTH MOVEMENT: Peck, Suozzi
The Stafford siblings should be strong and assured as the ballet's "host and hostess." They might attain a happy playfulness, but don't expect radiance. Not entirely unlike Suzanne Farrell, Sara Mearns will present her lush beauty with an introspection which might seem cold, or as if you're spying on her prayers, in the heavenly adagio of the Second Movement with the tall, reliable Charles Askegard. Megan Fairchild has finally learned to spice her always formidable technique with touches of brio. I don't know what you should expect from Gonzalo Garcia: probably generous sloppy jumps and grudging, sloppy partnering. As there's some dangerous, high-speed partnering in Third Movement, I'd expect Fairchild's brave smile to appear particularly fixed. The Fourth Movement ballerina must be a turning demon, as she introduces the scary pirouette to the knee, with the working leg flicking up, out and down, which all four ballerinas must perform in unison at the grand finale. Tiler Peck turns as effortlessly as most dancers breathe, although the gleam of her Broadway smile might well outshine her tiara.
With luck, Fayçal Karoui will not be trying to kill the dancers with his fourth-movement tempi.
March 14, 16m:
SERENADE: Kistler, Borree, Mearns, Askegard, Hanna
The last ballerina to have danced for Balanchine, Darci Kistler is a fascinating artifact of a vanished epoch, from whose Waltz Girl you will be unable to tear your eyes. The second most senior ballerina, Yvonne Borree, is a Russian Girl more high-strung than high-flying. As a reward, you'll see Sara Mearns' grand Dark Angel.
AGON: LeCrone, Evans, Suozzi, Krohn, Laracey, Reichlen, T. Angle, Ramasar
With the absence of Kowroski, who usually alternates Agon's pas de deux with Whelan, Megan LeCrone will get two performances. Lean, intriguingly angular and angelically fierce, LeCrone has a presence which commands your eyes. You might well already have noted her among the corps in Serenade. With such physique and presence, LeCrone looks to inherit Whelan's leotard roles. If injuries hadn't kept LeCrone offstage for years, she'd be a soloist, at least. If she stays healthy, she'll be a principal. In the first pas de trois, and the grand male solo, Sean Suozzi looks like a leaner and hungrier Eddie Villella, with a hint of brooding in even such an uninflected role as this. For Reichlen et. al., see above.
SYMPHONY IN C: FIRST MOVEMENT: Scheller, J. Angle; SECOND MOVEMENT: Whelan, Neal; THIRD MOVEMENT: Hyltin, Carmena; FOURTH MOVEMENT: Peck, Higgins
As LeCrone's dancing the Agon pas, Wendy Whelan will be performing the adagio second movement of Symphony in C. While Whelan's best days in tiara and tutu might be behind her, in this magificent adagio she's expansive and exquisite. Philip Neal's a particularly strong and attuned partner.
Jerome Robbins, an American Icon
March 13, 15m, 15e:
This all-Robbins program combines the light-hearted The Four Seaons, the witty, Mittyish The Concert, and the odd-but-fascinating Moves, performed in silence. It's also odd that the program begins with The Four Seasons, which is a grand-finale ballet if ever there was one. Similarly, The Concert is a great curtain-raiser.
THE FOUR SEASONS: JANUS: Fowler; WINTER: J. Peck, M. Fairchild, Hendrickson, Carmena; SPRING: Gilliland, Mearns, J. Angle; SUMMER: Shepherd, Rutherford, Hanna; FALL: Seth, Bouder, Millepied, Ulbricht
The first dancers listed for each season are allegorical figures representing that season; their main qualifications are looking good in the beautiful fabrics of Santo Loquasto's costumes. With her fusillades of petit allegro, Megan Fairchild will generate plenty of heat to dispatch with the taunting winter sprites of Adam Hendrickson and Antonio Carmena, with much celebration and jumping for all. How brightly Fairchild's crystals will sparkle remains to be seen. In Spring, while Sara Mearns' aforementioned physique fits well the lushness of Verdi's and Robbins' springtime, her introspection is an odd contrast. In her first two performances, she had some difficulty with the tricky direction-shifts of her solo, but perhaps by now she's made the role more her own. She'll have tremendous help from Jared Angle, who is quietly assuming Jock Soto's mantle of the company's best partner. You can expect Rachel Rutherford and Stephen Hanna to be beautiful and handsome in Summer, but not to deliver the glowing sensuality promised by Verdi and Robbins (and Loquasto's exquisitely sunny yellow-and-orange costumes). Fall is Robbins' affectionate pastiche of the Soviet era's overheated bacchanals. Daniel Ulbricht will pull out whatever stops remain to him as the acrobatic satyr who starts the festivities; he'll be spectacular, if not, perhaps, the most subtle of satyrs. With an ocean safely separating him from The New York Times' Alistair Macaulay, Benjamin Millepied might feel safe in eschewing the tricks Robbins made for Baryshnikov in the male solo. Or, as Macaulay will doubtless assign himself the coverage of this season, perhaps Millepied will have gotten in sufficient shape to carry them off, particularly the hopping a la secondes, without unintentional drama. (Robbins left out these tricks in creating Peter Martins' version of the role; I never missed them.) In her first bravura role in London, Ashley Bouder will bring down the house. Repeatedly.
Moves is fascinating, not just for its abstracted, yet recognizable, portrayals of hipster youth in vaguely disturbing situations (back in Robbins' day, you didn't have to be rich to be a hipster), but also for the glimpses it provides of Robbins' intellect testing and worrying the ballet's conceit, and taking it farther than I could've imagined. I expect Rachel Krohn and Jared Angle to be strong, clean and precise in the central duet, but the last time it was in the repertory, the ensemble seemed uncomfortable with both its hints of late-night horrors, but the jazzier bits. If one must shout "Hi, Daddy-O" with one's body, one should leave out the quotation marks.
While some of The Concert's supporting cast are quite good at Robbins' barbed renditions of concert-goers daydreams, Sterling Hyltin hasn't proven herself to be a great dramatic or comic actress despite being Martins' first-cast Juliet. She's filling in as the ditzy beauty in the unfortunate absence of Maria Kowroski, the company's best comedienne. Nevertheless, Robbins' increasingly outré fantasies will show his wicked humor and wickeder timing, and I hope you'll see Nancy McDill as the wonderfully magisterial pianist.
Four Voices: Wheeldon, Martins, Bigonzetti, Ratmansky
March 18, 20m, 21:
CAROUSEL (A DANCE): Peck, Woetzel
I've never cared much for this redundantly named ballet of Christopher Wheeldon's, which belabors Richard Rodger's beautiful Carousel Waltz with a surfeit of circularity and waltzing. However, the May-December pairing of Tiler Peck and Damian Woetzel rescue Wheeldon's familiarly romantic duet to "If I Loved You." Young and savvy, Peck can spin Wheeldon's clichés into dramatic gold; older and savvy, Woetzel easily combines romantic ardor and technical bravura with his charming insouciance.
ZAKOUSKI: Borree, Hübbe (18); M. Fairchild, De Luz (20, 21)
How wonderful that Nikolaj Hübbe is returning as a guest artist to dance Peter Martins' Zakouski one more time with Yvonne Borree. Hübbe easily disguises Martins fussy slavicisms as high art, while Borree can find them hard going. Megan Fairchild and the diminutive, handsome and ever-so-crowd-pleasing Joaquin de Luz will doubtless be kinder to this brutal ball of fluff than it will be to them.
IN VENTO: Reichlen, Millepied, Fowler
Teresa Reichlen (making a debut), Benjamin Millepied and Jason Fowler should almost make sense of Mauro Bigonzetti's angular and oblique meditation on the Individual versus the Group (or something like that).
RUSSIAN SEASONS: Krohn (18, 29) Pazcoguin, Whelan, Rutherford, Evans
Alexei Ratmansky's Russian Seasons is certainly the best of this mixed choreographic bag, with its comic and somber looks at a passing year. Whelan's particularly fine, and the only female lead from the original cast. In Sofiane Sylve's role with its confoundingly difficult pointe work, Rebecca Krohn will strong and clean, and Georgina Pazcoguin dramatic and spirited.
Ballet and Boadway: A Musical Celebration
March 19, 20, 22m, 22e
THOU SWELL: Kistler, Borree (19, 20) Taylor (22m, 22e), Arthurs, Mearns, J. Angle, Martins, Askegard, Ramasar
Lavishly accoutered, Martins' fantasy of an Art-Deco nightclub promises more than it delivers. As his four couples dance through old standards by Rodgers and Hart (mostly), the actual choreography seldom gets beyond ersatz ballroom we've all seen before. Only Janie Taylor's wild child can transcend her clichés, with a hint of her manic debutante from Balanchine's La Valse. Kistler glows as if this party's just for her; in a way, it is.
TARANTELLA: Bouder, Ulbricht (19, 22e); M. Fairchild, Garcia (20); Hyltin, Garcia (22m)
Ulbricht and Bouder. What to say about the pairing of City Ballet's best bravura dancers in this high-voltage bon-bon? Don't miss it, and bring your heart pills. Daniel Ulbricht will indulge himself with jaw-dropping leaps and shameless mugging, but Tarantella can withstand plenty of over-the-top. While Ulbricht's big, fast and a bit sloppy, Bouder's the epitome of steel-sinewed control, even when she showing off her own speed and amplitude. She, too, has been known to play to the crowd.
Megan Fairchild will be strong and sassy, but I don't know what you should expect from Gonzalo Garcia, who sauntered with great nonchalance through his first Tarantella at City Ballet. Sterling Hyltin is also strong and a good jumper, but this ballet's hard-edged wit might be a bit beyond her.
WESTERN SYMPHONY:
March 19, 20
ALLEGRO: A. Stafford, J. Stafford; ADAGIO: Hyltin, Evans; RONDO: Reichlen, Hanna
March 22m, 22e
ALLEGRO: Tinsley-Williams, Martins; ADAGIO: M. Fairchild, Hendrickson; RONDO: Reichlen, Woetzel
Western's a particular favorite, and Balanchine's synthesis of the symphonic ballet form he perfected in Symphony in C with themes and music from the American West is still brilliant, even if the humor is sometimes a bit thicker now than in earlier years. These are strong, if not outstanding casts. Sterling Hyltin hasn't quite found the humor of the second movement's dance-hall Giselle, while Albert Evans lays it on with a trowel. Megan Fairchild and Adam Hendrickson should be clearer both in the jokes and the dancing. Teresa Reichlen is dynamite in the last movement's competition between the women and men. Watch Reichlen's slow fouettes from a high leg in second to a deep arabesque, while hopping downstage on pointe. This is only ballet which requires the ballerina to prepare for fouettés while blowing her partner a kiss. Stephen Hanna should be a winning big lunk, but the dancer to be seen, again, is Woetzel. On the verge of retirement, Woetzel's still a formidable virtuoso (the best turner I've ever seen) and as charismatic as ever: d'Amboise and Villella wrapped in one. Like Symphony in C, Western ends with one of Balanchine's finest "applause machines." (Connoisseurs may wish to take their eyes off the finale's festivities and take a gander at the size of the kisses Hanna and Woetzel will be laying out on the always-surprised Reichlen.)
WEST SIDE STORY SUITE:
March 19, 20
Millepied, Woetzel, Ramasar, Arthurs, Pazcoguin, Smith
March 22m, 22e
R. Fairchild, Veyette, Ramasar, Arthurs, Pazcoguin, Smith
There are moments of brilliance in this oddly disjointed presentation of Robbins' choreography excerpted from West Side Story: the Jets' cocky strut into their rumble with the Sharks; Maria and Tony's first sight of each other at the dance at the gym; Anita singing and dancing "America." Damian Woetzel's Riff, the leader of the Jets, combines casual brilliance with a hint of menace, and isn't half bad singing "Cool." As Anita, Georgina Pazcoguin a dancing firecracker, although her voice is more energetic than true.
As for everything else about the season, you'll have to find that out for yourselves.
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