© Gene Schiavone ABT 'Afternoon of a Faun' reviews 'Afternoon of a Faun' reviews 'Howling Cat' reviews ABT 'Gong' reviews ABT 'Rodeo' reviews Herrera in reviews Carreno in reviews recent ABT reviews more Eric Taub reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

First up was the company premiere of Jerome Robbins' venerable 'Afternoon of a Faun,' his ballet-studio update on the Nijinsky/Debussy classic. As in his welcoming comments before the curtain after 'Faun,' ABT's artistic director, Kevin McKenzie, was to note that this season marks Julie Kent's twentieth anniversary with the company, one might be excused for wondering if this were not the best time in Kent's career for her to be entering Robbins' world of cloistered adolescents discovering their nascent sensuality, and, based on what admittedly looked more like a dress-rehearsal than a finished performance, one would be right. The ballet repertory is filled with roles in which a mature dancer can gracefully portray a much younger character (indeed, the best Juliets seem to improve with age), but the leads in 'Faun,' especially for the woman, are not among them.

Ethan Stiefel, far from a teen-ager himself, traded on his blond, boyish charm to create, if not into the golden youth he might've been here years ago (I don't know if he performed 'Faun' during his years at New York City Ballet), at least a plausible image of a young dancer exploring his burgeoning physical abilities before a studio mirror (it's Robbins' wonderful conceit that in this "room with a mirror," we, the audience, are that mirror). Kent, who's made quite a career out of portraying beauties as either ingenues or innocent naifs, didn't have a dramatic handle on Robbins' girl, who is a bit of both, and neither. That her extensions spoke more of maturity and deliberation than a youth's unconscious ease, and that she often needed little adjustments before attaining some poses didn't help, but couldn't break a spell she never cast. This was a 'Faun' almost entirely lacking in sensuality, let alone the sizzling erotic sparks which can sometimes fly here. I try to avoid comparisons between ABT and NYCB's performances of the same works, but after seeing the brilliance of Janie Taylor's recent edgy, dangerous portrayals, it's hard to take a shine to Kent's affectless prettiness. (However, Kent's surprised me in the past; and could do so again in a later 'Faun' this season, but I'd say she has her work cut out for her.)
 

Next, after McKenzie's welcoming speech, thanking the donors and board members who filled City Center with their tuxes and gowns, came the return of Irina Dvorovenko (who'd taken several months off for maternity leave), dancing the pas de deux from 'Paquita' with her husband, Maxim Beloserkovsky. While both delivered their showiest steps (the choreography was credited as "after" Petipa) well enough, neither were near the tops of their games. Never a dancer of nuance and subtlety, Dvorovenko can bludgeon a role with such a happy sang-froid that she often overwhelms my better sense, inspiring a kind of awestruck admiration, much as you might admire the glint of the sun on the guillotine blade that's about to descend upon your neck. However, last night Dvorovenko's coarseness seemed less a choice than a necessity; she's not back in fighting form (still a bit heavier in the hips than before her absence), and had to overpower her own weaknesses as much as her choreography. Even more telling was that she declined to embellish her fouettés. For his part, while easily mastering his difficult solos (endless double-tours to the knee and enormous sisonnes en tournant), Beloserkovsky while not exactly sloppy, lacked his usual polish, as if he were still mentally on vacation.

Following these somewhat lackluster beginnings, Paloma Herrera was a gift from above, or perhaps Argentina, in excerpts from Kirk Peterson's tango ballet, 'The Howling Cat (Imaginary Tango),' from 2001, set to various works by Jacob Gade, Gary Chang and Astor Piazzola. Now I personally feel the world has more than enough tango ballets for at least five years, but Herrera in a slinky black dress, flashing her legs and, in general, camping it up with José Manuel Carreño, was a perfect gala moment: flashy, trashy and happily lighthearted.

Next was Mark Morris' 2001 'Gong,' a plotless ensemble work, as loosely inspired by themes from Balinese dance as the score, Colin McPhee's 'Tabuh-Tabuhan,' is by Balinese gamelans. Isaac Mizrahi's brightly colorful costumes (one color for each dancer) also echo this ballet/Bali theme, with flat tutus of one plate, it seems set off against golden toe shoes and bracelets for wrists and ankles, while the men wear similarly adorned tops and tights, with the addition of big, bold pirate-sized earrings. Morris punctuates three ensembles with two duets, each performed in silence. While ballets-in-silence are often clichés, these were different, engrossing, as Morris had the dancers toss motifs between them, or play slow and fast movements in counterpoint. Gillian Murphy's duet with Sasha Radetsky was stunning in her strength, clarity and generosity, she once again showed herself to be one of the finest ballerinas in ABT, and on the New York stage.

After the intermission came our first look at ABT's revival of Agnes de Mille's 1942 'Rodeo,' long a staple of the company's repertory, although it's been several years since last performed. The Copland score sounds as wonderful as ever (and as good as the ABT orchestra managed last night the Minkus was unfortunate). Nowadays, in this world of Supermoms and overachieving Young Urban Professionals, de Mille's story, of the tomboyish cowgirl who can't get the attention of her crush, the Head Wrangler, until she abandons her boyish ways, puts on a dress like the other girls, might seem quaint, even sexist. Certainly this point could be debated for ages, but on seeing 'Rodeo' again after decades (my last Champion Roper was the incomparable William Carter), I was impressed by the deft strokes with which de Mille creates her prairie community of cowhands and farm girls, and even more by its inclusiveness: once the Cowgirl dons her dress (a bright-yellow one in Santo Loquasto's 1990 redesign) she's not only instantly accepted, but becomes an object of desire for both the Head Wrangler, and the Champion Roper who's cheered her up and danced with her when no others would.
 

If, at the ballet's rollicking opening, where the cowboys vie for the attention of the beribboned and bonneted girls, some of ABT's men looked a bit sheepish (as they did last year as prehistoric Russian warriors in 'Polovtsian Dances'), they soon bestrode their imaginary steeds and whirled their imaginary lariats with a winning gusto. Here, the cleverness and wit of de Mille's vocabulary the men appear to move effortlessly between walking and riding, yet you can almost see their horses is quite stunning, even today. (Of course she borrowed more than a bit from Eugene Loring's 'Billy the Kid,' but that's another story.) The Cowgirl a role de Mille created for herself must prance and ride with the best of the cowhands, yet also convey moments when her wild mount rushes out of control, scattering the cowboys like flies, or terrifying the proper and beauteous womenfolk. Here, Erica Cornejo, sister to ABT's wonderful Herman Cornejo, had her first chance to shine in a lead role (she's spent most of her career at ABT marking time in such things as the pas de trois from 'Swan Lake'). Coached by Christine Sarry, herself a notable Cowgirl, Cornejo is a whirlwind in jeans and boots, both virtuosic and wild as she attempts to control her invisible mount, yet reduced to speechless shyness when confronting the matinee-idol Head Wrangler (played to self-satisfied perfection by Isaac Stappas). De Mille created some sweet and telling mannerisms for the Cowgirl. Cornejo mastered the Cowgirl's plucky way of hitching up her pants by her beltbuckle (which surfaces at the Saturday Night Dance, when she tries to pull up a non-existant belt on her dress), but I wanted more vehemence in the way she would slap the Roper or Wrangler on their chests when overcome by emotion. I wanted her to smack harder, like it was the manifestation of an emotional volcano also, the delicious moment when the Cowgirl smacks the Wrangler and realizes with horror what she's just done seems to have slipped away from this production.

As the Champion Roper, Craig Salstein, a wonderful dancer who's wasted hoisting goblets during ABT's Met season, showed the charisma and ease onstage he displayed two years ago in 'Fancy Free,' and last year in 'Three Virgins and a Devil.' He shone in the tap-dancing solo with which he wins the Cowgirl's attentions back from the Wrangler. Of course, 'Rodeo' has a happy, boisterous, and, dare I say it, timeless ending, a wild, leaping hoedown whose infectious high-spirits sent me out onto 55th Street humming bits of 'Oklahoma,' and looking forward to seeing still more performances of this underrated classic.