NYCB 'Apollo' reviews NYCB 'Swan Lake' reviews NYCB 'Double Feature' reviews NYCB 'Serenade' reviews Boal in reviews Hubbe in reviews recent NYCB reviews RB 'Apollo' reviews RB 'Prodigal Son' reviews Yanowsky in reviews Yoshida in reviews recent RB reviews Foreman Dance reviews more Charlotte Kasner reviews

Susan Strohman’s Double Feature is intended to pay tribute to Balanchine’s choreography for seventeen Broadway shows. It has attracted criticism for its large budget, levity and lack of originality but dancers in tutus and en pointe in the Cinderella-like Blue Necklace recall their colleagues at Radio City Music Hall and are fun. Old hands appreciated the casting of Kyra Nichols against type as the wicked step mother. Yes it was clichéd and most of the expense was apparently due to the wedding dresses in Makin’ Whoopee, but each piece would top off an evening nicely. Both pieces would travel well and it would be a relief from the increasingly unimaginative programming of London-based companies in recent years. Double Feature also gave the lie to the truisms of never working with children or animals. Nichols almost had her thunder stolen by Tara Sorine and Isabella Tobias as the young heroines in Blue Necklace. The technical and artistic strengths of the SAB students make one aware that young dancers are capable of more than a little light skipping in Act I of the Nutcracker. A phenomenal performance from an athletic pug in Makin’ Whoopee has to be seen to be believed and makes one long for the revival of variety and “dog acts”. Doug Besterman stitched the Irving Berlin music together seamlessly with effective use of leitmotif in Blue Necklace.

Another plea would be for Balanchine’s Chopiniana (1972) to be danced in Britain. It displays the essence of Chopin’s music that surely Fokine desired and rescues it from the sickly sentiment and yards of tulle that Les Sylphides usually heralds. In this instance it was danced by SAB students, maturely and with technically proficiency .

Prodigal Son (1929) demonstrates the influence of early Soviet choreographers such as Lopukhov on Balanchine and the years do not diminish its impact when performed as well as it is by NYCB. Peter Boal’s Prodigal was almost Christ-like in his destitution and Darci Kistler, although she lacks flexibility in her upper back, created a paradox of sizzling sexuality and cucumber coolness in the Siren’s barely supported balances, especially the “smoke a cigarette” balance atop the Prodigal that was secure enough to have lasted all day. The Royal Ballet’s effort on Wednesday February 25th with Zenaida Yanowsky and Ivan Putrov looked liked the amateur dramatic society version with a professional Prodigal bussed in. The drinking companions played the entire piece for comedy which worked up until the beating scene when they made no attempt to suggest the brutality and left poor Putrov with nothing to work from. Whereas Boal’s Prodigal was a cocky know-it-all who sets himself up high enough to have a crashing fall and who appears to be extending his hitherto tame sexual experiences, Putrov was an innocent abroad, initially timid of his new-found friends and wide-eyed at his discovery of sex. Yanowsky was utterly miscast as the Siren. Her sheer height gave her the appearance of an Amazonian spider engulfing her victim but made the fiendishly difficult seduction scene ridiculous and downright dangerous. One was reminded of Wayne Sleep’s burlesque pas de deux with an unsuitably tall partner. She strutted a little but looked under-rehearsed and struggled with her cloak. It was a curiously a-sexual experience. Someone should have told her that this whore really is enjoying herself. She rightly decided not to sustain the balances; rather than sitting atop the Prodigal and smoking a cigarette, she seemed more like a nervous midshipman hastily capping the mast and dashing down as quickly (and in this case awkwardly) as possible. Putrov managed to rescue the evening with a truly moving ending which probably left most of the audience wanting to envelope him in a protective, forgiving cloak.

Tchaicowsky Piano Concerto 2 (1941, aka Ballet Imperial) treats the music somewhat literally; a fitting tribute to Petipa but not enhanced by Balanchine’s removal of the décor in 1973. Curiously, his attempt at modernisation seems to make it look more dated, but it balanced the programme. It was mirrored in style by Symphony in C (1947) which closed the the Royal Ballet’s triple programme and suffered from the same literal dullness of choreography. Mikayo Yoshida managed to sparkle a little and the corps are considerably neater than their counterparts at NYCB, but it was politely correct rather than a fitting tribute to the glories of classicism.

Peter Martin’s Swan Lake (1996) was a surprising interpolation in a Balanchine tribute. The dancers struggle against garish set and costumes. In Act I poor Siegfried looks as if he is wearing a bright blue, nylon track suit with courtiers in glaring yellow and orange and Benno in pillar box red that makes one pray that he will not be placed next to the courtiers too often. The set was a fuzzily painted nondescript range of yellow arches that suggested that the court was out of focus and already in collapse. Well perhaps. The Act II set looked like a boardroom of a slightly less than blue chip company that became camouflage for the brown on brown corps. A saving grace was the opening cloth which, purportedly based on geology, managed to suggest a dramatic slab of granite shot through with quartz or a Byronic thunderstorm and promised a powerful court about to be destroyed that was never fulfilled.

Small touches such as rotating the cygnets during the petit jetés and turning the swans during the temps leve that are more usually performed in rigid lines were appreciated; Benno and the black swans less so. The pragmatic inclusion of Benno to assist an aging Pavel Gerdt does not need to be perpetuated in a ballet that has changed out of all recognition from its early productions; it simply deprives Siegfried of an opportunity to dance and to establish his character. Similarly the inclusion of a jester, whilst delivering bravura dancing, becomes an intrusion, although in this production he is used as a dramatic device by Siegfried to avoid dancing with prospective marriage partners. The ending, with Rothbart withering under the power of true love and Odette bouréeing en arriere amongst the swans to leave a grieving Siegfried owes more to Giselle and makes a nonsense of the musical intention. It might have been more interesting to see Balanchine’s one act version.

Donizetti Variations (1961), like Tchaicowsky Piano Concerto 2, was charming and well danced but shows its age. The lack of épaulement, attention to detail in the terre a terre work and sustained adage mean that the influence of Bournonville is not apparent enough to make it work as a period reference. With the correct coaching, it may suit the Royal far better, although the standardisation of female ballet bodies trained mostly for androgynous athleticism has almost put the delicacies of the Bournonville style out of reach.

In spite of last minute cast changes, Apollo (1928) proved why it is a signature work for the company; none of the dancers in this performance worked with Balanchine but his style and approach seemed imbued in their bodies and minds. Nikolaj Hübbe is blessed with suitably god-like looks and is young enough to convince that, in spite of his in-born authority, he is undergoing a voyage of personal discovery. There are clamours for the original birth scene to be re-instated and for the ascent to Mount Olympus to be more naturalistic but it is now almost too well-known to need such embellishments to its pared-down clarity.

Apollo can be a very hard act to follow, however Serenade (1934) made the experienced New York audience gasp collectively at the beauty of the first tableau. A semi-narrative ballet created on the original SAB students melds music and movement in a sublime combination. See this Serenade and die.

The opening work in the Royal Ballet programme was Agon and what a let down after the joys of New York. They have danced it much more convincingly in the past, but this performance was more like a half-hearted walk through. The girls were prim and looked like RAD exam candidates, occasionally simpering a little when they forgot their nerves. Last minute absences did not help, placing Yanowsky in her first piece of miscasting of the evening opposite Carlos Acosta in the Part II pas de deux. Maybe this was a deliberate attempt to revive recollections of Arthur Mitchell and Diane Adams; if so it was mistaken. Yanowsky has provided some fine dramatic dancing on previous ocassions but seems to lack a suitably tall partner. Acosta was masked for most of the section but seemed to be a fairly attentive in a difficult pairing. The other major disappointment was from a probably under-rehearsed Lauren Cuthbertson replacing an injured Maria Nuñez in the bransle gay. This should be a subtly sexy piece with flowing movement that acts as a counterpoint to the percussive orchestral castanets. The arm gestures that travel from shoulder to knees were shorted to flipper-like flapping that looked like a dismissal of a hemline insect. There should be no excuse for this travesty of movement when so much is easily available on video. The whole company danced behind the beat, totally destroying the sharp attack for which Balanchine dancers are justly famed. Not so much a competition but a tea party dance that must not frighten the horses.

The Balanchine Trust provides Balanchine dancers as international repetiteurs to enable the repertoire to retain resonance and technique but, as the generation of dancers who worked with Balanchine retires, the works may wither and age. There is a suggestion of the watering down of the spirit of the pieces already at the Royal Ballet. His choreographic style has influenced twentieth century dance but the pendulum shows signs of swinging away from hyper-extensions - and multiple hip replacements. The continuing lack of musical education in dancers and choreographers makes it unlikely that a new choreographer will develop with a similar technical approach to music or with the financial backing to commission so much contemporary work and it appears that some of the musicality has not travelled well across the Atlantic. It will be interesting to see if the Balanchine repertoire looks this strong in New York in twenty years time and whether it remains recognisable by those of thus who have seen some of the creators of the tradition when danced by the Royal Ballet.

A final evening worthy of note from New York was provided by the Buglisi/Foreman Dance company founded in 1994 by ex-Graham dancers Jacqulin Buglisi and Donlin Foreman. The Joyce Theatre is well worth a visit on its own account. A converted cinema (a last laugh from live theatre!), every seat in the house is good and, for early arrivals, there are a limited number of personal lockers available that are useful in cold weather when burdened by a coat etc.

The world premiere of Rain was by far the best piece of the evening. It was danced behind a gauze into which was projected close-up images that complemented the rain forest-like sound effects and which initially made the dance feel suffocated. Once the eye had adjusted, it seemed to be less important to watch the dance throughout and more acceptable to be almost hypnotised at times by the dripping. Costumes and lighting were superb and complemented the dance in a sort of kinetic sculpture. It was a true piece of Gesamkunstwerk where none of the artistic partners lost out but could be disconcerting for those who expect music and set to take a back seat.

Lisa D (2002) was choreographically dull although danced with enthusiasm. The tension and release became monotonous with little variety in the relationship to the music. The costumes were so similar that one felt that a large role of budget cloth had been used throughout and ocassionally dyed somewhat ineptly in an attempt to provide a little variety. The saving grace of the piece was the on stage playing of the Cassatt String Quartet. It might have been expected that they would provide a distraction but instead it enabled the musicians to achieve a rare parity with the dancers and what a treat not to listen to recorded music.

Requiem (2002), a retrospective tribute to those who died on September 11th, was simply dreadful. The dancers writhed, wrapped in yards of cloth on top of rostra that made them look like some kind of pole dancer. A case of shut one’s eyes and listen to the sublime Fauré requiem. It had a poignancy because of the location; it was obvious that many in the audience still had raw nerves and the peculiar intimacy of strangers that lingers after such events was evident in the foyer on the way out. What a pity that such an energetic, exciting company could not have devised a more fitting memorial.

Incidentally, the ticket prices at Covent Garden compare very unfavourably with the totally unsubsidised New York State Theatre. The amount paid for a ticket at the back of the amphitheatre, partly behind a pillar, at Covent Garden would have secured a perfectly good seat in the centre of the fourth (out of five) ring at the New York State Theatre. A few seats further near the front of the amphitheatre in Covent Garden cost the same as a seat at the front of the dress circle in the London Coliseum. Unless the Royal Ballet improve their interpretations and casting and provide more interesting programming, Covent Garden will become the sole province of the corporations and the ocassional, uncritical visitor and the company will become even further removed from their claim of national supremacy.