'Allegro Brillante' reviews 'Somewhat elevated' reviews 'The Waltz Project' reviews Maffre in reviews Vilanoba in reviews recent SFB reviews more Renee Renouf reviews

Whether the Sterns ever used the area as a summer retreat before Mrs. Stern donated the acreage for public use and recreation I don't know. After the dedication and an initial concert by the San Francisco Symphony in 1932, Mrs. Stern incorporated the non-profit Stern Grove Festival Association in 1938. This set in motion the Stern Grove Sunday summer concerts, free of charge to anyone wanting to tote a picnic lunch to the slopes, the benches, or, with luck, to the tables overlooking the stage.

The stage was a splintery affair as San Francisco Ballet veterans will tell you, but the company has been a fixture in the annual performance schedule since 1938. Happily, the stage has been gradually improved with the use of marley floors. Within the past three or four years a removable canvas ceiling has been installed to protect the stage surface from the fog, known to drip through the eucalyptus trees and endangering performances on the marley surface.

For all the acoustic wonders of this natural amphitheatre, the continuing variable is San Francisco’s summer weather. One can shiver or swelter depending on what Nature dishes up any particular Sunday.

This Sunday we were served the semi-shivers plus Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante; a William Forsythe excerpt from In the middle, somewhat elevated; Peter Martins’ The Waltz Project and we almost got Paquita. Sunday’s program also marked the final San Francisco Chronicle assignment for Octavio Roca. In September Roca assumes the dance critic's post for the Miami Herald.

For Allegro Brillante we had Vanessa Zahorian in the role created by Maria Tallchief and Zachary Hench dancing the Nicolas Magallanes part. One could see the rather straight, darting port de bras of Tallchief, softened slightly by Zahorian. Hench’s attack is stronger, less liquid than my memory of the Magallanes style. Allegro Brillante seems to alternate between formal floral bouquets and popping or receding shoots, thanks to the speed of the pointe work. Of the eight supporting dancers, I was more impressed with the men: Brett Bauer; Rory Hohenstein; Hansuke Yamamoto and Kiril Zaretskiy. Ray Bogas presided admirably at the piano and Andrew Mogrelia conducted his debut as San Francisco Ballet’s principal conductor and musical director.

After a brief pause Muriel Maffre and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba squared off in the excerpt from In the middle, somewhat elevated. Receiving the strongest applause of the afternoon, Maffre knows how to inflect her phrasing to ever increasing effect and Vilanoba works with her at the same level. The pair are conspirators on stage, part friend, part adversary; the results are extraordinary.

Peter Martins’ The Waltz Project is a definition of New York cool, a sketch of youth and political games between young men and women. This is most notable in the opening sequence where the men posture and the women climb in, out, over and under their bodies to the complicated sounds assembled by John Cage. The purple pas de deux between Amanda Schull and David Arce and, more romantically, the yellow with Julie Diana and Brett Bauer, making a debut in the role, linger in my mind. Arce would make an ideal Mac in Filling Station, U.S. nonchalence and can do ability. He evoked Lew Christensen for me; no less so as he broke off a twig, waiting for Schull to resolve her choreographic quandaries. Bauer is tall, a concerned and competent partner, and Diana, well, she’s special, a genuinely lyric ballerina. When Schull and Diana appeared wearing white sweaters in the finale, the audience had a subliminal signal for what was to follow.

The almost was the Union stipulation protecting dancers from performing when the temperature dips below sixty degrees. We were deprived of Vadim Solomakha and Gennadi Nedviguine’s skill, plus Kristin Long in the title role. The three variations belonged to Katita Waldo, Clara Blanco and Mayo Sugano; Frances Chung and Rachel Viselli would have flanked Nedviguine.

It was a memorable few minutes to see twenty women in stiff tutus, black shoulder wraps, many limbs encased in leg warmers with Ashley Wheater and Helgi Tomasson deciding whether we would see Natalia Makarova’s staging. Solomakha and Nedviguine paused, bent and stretched in their elaborate tunics and white tights. Helgi Tomasson finally had to explain to the audience it was "no go" for the dazzling variations set to Minkus music. I hope someone photographed the moment.