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The second program presented by the Suzanne Farrell Ballet during the company’s November engagement at the Kennedy Center Opera House included five Balanchine dances: Bugaku, Ballade, Pithoprakta, Meditation, and Fourth Movement of “Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet.”

Meditation (1963) was the first dance Balanchine created for the then 18 year old Farrell. In a way, it was his autobiographic piece. This melancholic, fleeting pas de deux reflects the choreographer’s personal affection with the young ballerina. The theme of unattainable love luminously embroiders the narrative of this dance.

The opening and closing images of Meditation are very communicative: a kneeling man buries his face in his hands in despair. He remains motionless for a time, completely surrendering to his sorrow. A young girl in a white flowing dress comes into sight. She is so beautiful and serene, as if only a vision. The man finds an evanescent consolation in her gentle embrace. The same power that had paralyzed him renews his strength. They dance together, gliding on stage in a slow, elegant manner. Suddenly, the girl disappears as though she had never existed.

This lyrical duet epitomizes the drama and poetry of Balanchine’s illusion (or disillusion) with the newly found muse he saw in Farrell. The music accompaniment - Tchaikovsky’s romantic and elegiac Meditation (Op. 42 from Souvenir d’un Lieu Cher), beautifully orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov - deepens the emotional portrait. The choreography is very simple, yet ineffably sublime.

The dancers, Natalia Magnicaballi and Runqiao Du, delivered equally compelling and convincing performances. Du gave a soulful, dramatic interpretation of the heartbroken hero. This character role suited him very well; he conveyed the emotional distress and torment of the protagonist sincerely, without exaggeration or overplaying. The enchanting Magnicaballi created an ethereal image of the dream-like heroine. Even though the story itself may seem idealistic and even naïve, the excellent dancing made it both genuine and deeply moving.

Unique for its music and style, the dynamic Pithoprakta (from Greek, “Action by Probabilities”) was a highlight of the evening. Created in 1968 for Farrell and Arthur Mitchell, this piece was originally part of a diptych, “Metastaseis & Pithoprakta.” The ballet takes its title from the composition of Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001). Blending sound and science, Xenakis pioneered intrinsically distinct “stochastic” or chance music. He visualized his compositions graphically, drawing analogies between mathematical and musical principals.

Pithoprakta is a perfect example of the eclectic musical tastes of George Balanchine and his desire to explore new territories and experiment with unusual rhythms and dynamics. The kinetic energy and stochastic disorder of the score is reflected in the highly unconventional movement vocabulary of this modernistic dance.

To bring Pithoprakta to life, Farrell had to recreate “lost” sections of the dance by adding her own choreography. The new staging has a fresh, modern appeal; and the refurbished dancewear – black unitards for the corps de ballet and white for the leading couple – looks very attractive and stylish. Farrell also added a black-and-white backdrop for the stage décor. It resembles a mathematical diagram filled with masses of short black lines and numbers – a mural-size replica of the original Xenakis’s score of Pirthoprakta, bars 52-60 for pizzicato glissandi. (It’s said that in measures 52 through 60 of Pithoprakta, Xenakis coupled Bernoulli's Law of Large Numbers with Boltzmann's Kinetic Gas Theory. I hope you get the picture.)

Balanchine’s aesthetic of chaos brings a multi-focal perspective of stochastic movements, where “everything comes at once.” Twelve members of the corps de ballet and two soloists constantly change their poses and distribution onstage. They jiggle and wiggle; run and roll on the floor. Sometimes they freeze. Or they randomly walk. At times we see only their silhouettes projected on the background. (The lighting effects were quite remarkable throughout the entire piece.) Created nearly 40 years ago, Pithoprakta, with this new face lift, feels refreshingly young and invigorating and looks exceptionally good on the energetic Farrell dancers.

The evening began with Bugaku to salute the forthcoming festival, JAPAN! culture hyperculture, which will take place at the Kennedy Center in February. The program also included Balanchine’s romantic Ballade.

Throughout his career, Balanchine created only two dances to music of French composer Gabriel Fauré: Emeralds in 1967 (almost 10 years later, this ballet was expanded and became the first part of the Jewels trilogy) and Ballade in 1980.

The poetic Ballade, a dance of passionate lyricism and virtuoso footwork, was made on the principal ballerina of the New York City Ballet, Merrill Ashley, eminent for her superb dancing technique and musicality. Originally, the ballet was danced in elaborate, Degas-inspired attire; and the stage was decorated with heavy drapes. Later, Balanchine decided to replace the period dresses with simple white costumes for the leading dancers and long pale-pink frocks for the corps de ballet to underscore the abstract nature of the choreography.
 

Ballade is a romance in motion – an affecting love story where the main heroine and her cavalier unite, part and reunite again, only to say goodbye for good. Even though the essence of the dance is their duet, Ballade is primarily the ballerina’s story. There is an aura of quiet loneliness and contemplation surrounding her character. Throughout the dance, it feels as if she relives her bittersweet memories of the past over and over again; her partner is only a reflection of her imagination. The music – Fauré’s elegiac and tender Ballade for Piano and Orchestra – sets a reflective, subdued atmosphere for her nostalgic reminiscences.

With its intricate choreography, the role of the ballerina is a real challenge to dance. The elegant Bonnie Pickard embraced this part with all her spirit and gave, if not technically perfect, a dedicated performance, portraying her heroine with touching gentleness and romantic fervor. Runqiao Du was a charismatic cavalier.

Danced with freedom and abandon, Fourth Movement of “Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet” offered a vivacious culmination to this remarkable evening of Balanchine dances. The Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Ron J. Matson, gave a superb rendition of Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms Piano Quartet No.1 in G Minor. The leading dancers, Bonnie Pickard and Momchil Mladenov, were a festive centerpiece in this utterly enjoyable and uplifting dance.