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Transferring Nahat's total company operations from Cleveland to San Jose, after the Cleveland half of the two-location company went belly up, was a laudable, major achievement, aided by Santa Clara County fiscal supporters. The efforts of the orchestra's musicians to meet the 2000-2001 budget and the supporters to locate affordable housing in one of the country's most outrageously priced rental markets has been a tribute to the City's wanting the company and the Company's saying "yes." Based on this program, the joint venture is rewarding everyone. While it is by no means chill classic perfection, Ballet San Jose presents a lively program enthusiastically danced and filled with a comfortable, human-sized charm.

Phaedra
Composer: Philip Glass
Choreographer: Flemming Flindt
Lighting: Sara Lini Slocum ( after Tony Tucci)
Costume Reconstruction: Teresa Schmidt
Decor: Courtesy Internationale Ballet, Indianapolis

Phaedra: Joanne Jaglowski
Theseus: Stephane Dalle
Hippolytus: Ramon Moreno
Nurse: Emi Hirayama

Driving from San Francisco in a steady rain, I arrived as the ballet commenced with two giant puppets in white robes on stage. They loomed impersonally on either side of a line of dancers in silvery white milliskin arrayed in a semi-circle behind Phaedre, Theseus and Hippolytus, It was a good choice to emphasize the work's transpersonal nature to audiences probably unfamiliar with Greek mythology. The Philip Glass score, in its first live performance, continued the relentless pace of the rain with its foreboding, minimally varied ebb and flow. The music clearly cued the viewer something quite unfortunate was about to occur.

Flemming Flindt, the gifted Danish dancer turned choreographer, created Phaedre February 18, 1987 for The Dallas Ballet with his wife Vivi in the title role. He used 18 scenes of varying length, each based on a line from Euripedes, with lighting to create the inner and outer nature of Theseus' palace in Athens. On reflection, his use of chiseled positions en pointe, the placement of virtuoso display, and spatial formations for the military or the minions of the court possessed an affinity to my impressions of the late Dame Ninette's Checkmate.

If Nahat had his druthers, I feel Anna Lobe would have danced Phaedre, a striking raison d'etre for the ancient tale. Instead Phaedre was danced by Joanne Jaglowski, a tall blonde dancer whose model-like figure was well displayed in the white Milliskin unitard given to all of the women. Jaglowski rendered all of the steps but conveyed the feeling churning inside Theseus' queen by knit brows and an open mouth, puppet like.

Stephane Dalle's Theseus reviled Phaedra with a Gallic aplomb proclaiming European sophistication displaced in the hinterland. Ramon Moreno's small, fleet Hippolytus would do credit to a boy scout earning merit badges for good behavior, hewing to the straight and narrow. Moreno hinted at a genuine astonishment over his predicament with incredulity why his choices should be questioned at all. The irony of his size and tidy sensuality contrasted with the vapid glamour of Phaedre, a psychiatric study in the obvious instead of the fated.

The surprise for me was the casting of Emi Hirayama as the Nurse. Tall for a Japanese, slender to the extreme, with nearalarming flexibility, she reflects a Balanchine-like text book clarity, and a sweetness to make me long to see this work transformed into a Japanese setting.

There are enough dancers in the San Jose company to give Phaedre alternative casting. Although the existing cast seemed an array of anomalies, I am grateful for Nahat's decision to present the work and would love to see it again, if harmonized in temperament and physiques.

Gaiete Parisienne
Music: Jacques Offenbach (arrangement Manuel Rosenthal)
Choreography: Leonide Massine
Costumes: Cleveland Ballet Costume Department, 1979
Setting: Atlas Scenic Studio, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1979
Staging: Dennis Nahat by arrangement with Lorca Massine

Flower Girl: Grethel Domingo
Glove Seller: Maydee Pena
The Peruvian: Raymond Rodrigues
The Baron: Sean Kelly
The Dance Master: Kwang Suk Choi
The Officer: Daniel Gwatkin

Like the theatricality of Petit's Carmen seen last year, Massine's tale of flirtation, effrontery and mayhem with a romantic denouement is something into which Ballet San Jose can throw itself with apparent effortless effectiveness. If Greek tragedy currently eludes their comfort zone, this tale fashioned by Count Etienne de Beaumont does not. Even though it's at the opposite end of the theatrical spectrum, that says a lot for the company's expertise. Not everyone can be convincing with the worldly wise maneuvers of favors exchanged, often with the likelihood of discrete receipts of cash.

Whatever the reasons, the Etienne de Beaumont decor was not used and the costumes only approximated. Those of us who enjoyed the originals, however shopworn by the 1950's, could see the difference. Tights replaced trousers, probably a budgetary need, ruffles on the can-can dancers briefs were missing, as well as the hoop for La Lionne, the lady in red.

Grethel Domingo made a frothy Flower Girl, bustling around arranging things as much as she flirted and Maydee Pena was a warm, rounded Glover Seller, just the right size for Sean Kelly's Baron, well danced but fatuous in demeanor. Raymond Rodriguez, noted for his timing and delivery, was an excellent Peruvian. I kept remembering Leon Danielian and the old Warner Brothers' version with Leonide Massine himself. Kwang Suh Choi outdid himself as Tortoni and as the Dance Master.

The company as a whole attacked their assignments with verve. I remember that each of the waiters, Shingo Yoshimoto in particular, going over the details of their tables. The various little touches Massine had injected into his trifle were alive and well. However slight the ballet may be, it displays one marvelously crafted bit of business after another. Ballet San Jose understood this and delivered in handsome fashion.