© Paul Kolnik NYCB 'Mozartiana' reviews 'Mozartiana' reviews NYCB 'Tombeau de Couperin' reviews NYCB 'Le Baiser de la Fee' reviews 'Le Baiser de la Fee' reviews NYCB 'Sonnambula' reviews Fairchild in reviews de Luz in reviews recent NYCB reviews more Eric Taub reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

Aside from its tongue-tripping alliteration, "Musical Muses" was an apt title. For a change, the muses in question aren't in the person of ballerinas, but rather composers. More specifically, the score of each ballet on the program was written by its composer as a tribute to a predecessor. Tchaikovsky's "Mozartiana," his Suite No. 4, was in honor of Mozart; Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin" of François Couperin, Stravinsky's "Le Baiser de la Fée," Tchaikovsky; and Vittorio Rieti's score for La Sonnambula, Vincenzo Bellini.

Mozartiana, from 1981, is one of Balanchine's final works, and, although he drops hints overt and otherwise that we're looking at people who've been touched by death, there's little overt grieving. The dancers' black costumes suggest mourning, and in places Balanchine hints that what we're seeing exists on the edge of a vast eternity, but the ballet's suffused with transcendent joy. To an extraordinary degree, Balanchine lets you inside his head with his ballets, and I can't help but think, as I did watching Suzanne Farrell dance this ballet not long after his death, that this must be Balanchine's vision of a dancing heaven. The woman's not exactly a spirit or angel, but a living, breathing metaphor; in earlier years she might've been draped with a sash spelling out "La Danse" or "Terpsichore." She's dance; she's every woman dancing, and she's also very much the particular woman who's doing the dancing. Mozartiana has proven a great gift to ballerinas: they give themselves to this dance, and it shows them, and us, who they really are. I've enjoyed Mozartianas by dancers who were generally considered ill-suited for it, like Maria Kowroski or Miranda Weese. A great dancer can create something stupendous.

Last night, it was Wendy Whelan. At a time of year when Lincoln Center is bursting with great dancers, who'd have imagined that the hottest couple would be Wendy Whelan and Philip Neal? Yet, after their Diamonds of last weekend, and Mozartiana of this one, they've earned it. As with that Diamonds, Whelan was set free by a conductor's languorous tempi. It seemed fortuitous last week that Maurice Kaplow's somewhat plodding tempi hit Whelan's sweet spot; Andrews Sill, a guest conductor, achieved the same by actually paying attention to Whelan and Neal. From Whelan's first slow bouree forward in the opening Preghiera, Sill's slow, stately pace allowed her full sway to flesh out each gesture of prayer and benediction. To Tchaikovsky's reverent setting of Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus," Whelan danced like a prisoner freed from a long confinement. Swinging her arms slowly up before her as she bourreed, she filled out the gesture, shaping the port de bras that followed with a heroic majesty. Preghiera's almost entirely about bourreeing and arms. The ballerina floats backwards across the stage, as if propelled by her arms pushing against the air, or spins in circles as she drifts upstage to join her coterie of four young SAB students (Isabella DeVivo, Hannah Field, Amanda Kraus and Skyla Schreter) in their penultimate pose, backs to the audience. Whelan and Sill were so respectful of each other, it led almost to an "Alphonse-and-Gaston" moment at the Preghiera's final three faint repeated notes from the violinist (Arturo Delmoni, I think). Trained to follow the conductor's lead, Whelan slowed her arms as she reached for her final, uplifting pose, surrounded by the girls, standing and kneeling, and Sill slowed down each of Delmoni's notes, following Whelan. For a brief, endless instant, both artists were asymptotes approaching the final moment, but never quite achieving it. Perhaps in some other universe that last note and gesture are continuing forever, but fortunately, in this one Whelan and Sill sorted things out, and it was all over but the cheering, of which there was plenty.

Cheers were also plentiful at the appearance of Tom Gold in the subsequent Gigue, his oddly perky character in entirely black garb suggesting Mozart's time, down to the heeled shoes and knee breeches. Rumors that he'd retired after the final performance of his slapstick, Buster-Keatonish figure in Susan Strohman's Double Feature were clearly off base; the applause for Gold announced that this was, in fact, his farewell. It also explained why, in reaching my seat, I found myself stepping over the long legs of a principal dancer from ABT, across the plaza. Diminutive and with a puckish smile, Gold was a bravura dancer with a great jump, flashy technique and, at his best, a winning, crowd-pleasing manner. I remember some rousing performances of Stars and Stripes in which Gold, leading the male corps in Rifle Regiment vied with Damian Woetzel's El Capitan to be the greatest virtuoso trickster. It's not inappropriate, then, that Gold's farewell came close on the heels of Woetzel's. Although he frequently danced principal roles, he remained a soloist throughout his career, and I can only imagine how he felt seeing short, bravura dancers Joaquin de Luz and Daniel Ulbricht promoted to principal over his head.

At City Ballet, the Gigue's become the province of short, showy types like Gold and Ulbricht, though Gold never indulged in Ulbricht's worst hippety-hoppety excesses (Balanchine didn't create those simple hops on both legs so that the dancer might show off his splendiferous elevation). Here, he danced with the vivacity and precision that were his hallmarks, although I still wouldn't have minded a touch more understatement. Perhaps it was Gold's finale which led to the casting of four senior corps girls in the following Menuet: Dena Abergel, Saskia Beskow, Gwyneth Muller and Dara Johnson. I don't think I've seen the Menuet danced with such unity as from these four, as they struck a grave and serene tone. I'd have liked to see a bit more fire in a few places, as in their repeated sisonnes forward leading into a hint of a reverence, as if they're birds attempting to fly but not quite managing the feat. It's a slight quibble; I enjoyed throughout the quiet maturity of these women who've been dancing this ballet for years.

When Whelan emerged again, in the company of Neal, the ballet took off in earnest, with the two little short of brilliant in the long "Theme and Variations" section where they alternate three solos each. I loved how Whelan absolutely nailed the moment in her first solo, as she's moving downstage with some delicate little criss-crossing steps, almost a sideways slide into a pique fifth, repeated in alternating directions, she turns right on the final note of an ascending phrase to a sharp releve in first, back to the audience, and throws her arms up high and wide for an instant, as if that last note struck a brief epiphany. Even in the hard flat-footed pirouettes finishing with one leg off to the side in a not-quite-tendu, she was far more poised than in recent memory. Not only was her technique strong and dependable, she turned each solo into a legato, extended phrase, measuring the stage with delicate steps on pointe or magisterial releves in passe. With each solo, her phrasing grew in magnitude and authority, as Sills gave her time to add little rhythmic flourishes at the ends of her grand, all-encompassing shaping of her arms.

The joy that lit her face was was as much genuine as it was her role's appropriate coloration as with last week's Diamonds, she clearly knew she was in the midst of a superlative performance. She glowed and shone in ever-increasing intensity throughout the ballet as did Neal, who was having one of his best performances. Tall, and with long limbs which beautifully complement Whelan's, Neal is more of a lyrical dancer and perhaps not the first you'd choose for Mozartiana's elfin footwork, but this night he flew through Balanchine's beautiful, brutally hard solos for the man. Even the quickest batterie blinked clearly from his feet, his leaps were happily grand and clean, and he nailed his pretty pirouttes with elegant finishes in a deep fourth position. As with Whelan, his enthusiasm grew with each step, and you could almost see how they reinforced each other emotionally and artistically. Their long and tortuously difficult adagio seemed almost too easy, as Neal effortlessly guided Whelan through even the most complicated of Balanchine's evolutions, all the while effortlessly shaping his long limbs and lanky frame to complement, echo and extend Whelan's poses, or casually reshape a port de bras better to reflect Whelan's own.

There's a dramatic moment in the finale where, to much commotion from the lower strings, Whelan turned across the stage, and at the exact instant when the strings jaunt up the octaves stops on a dramatic punchy note, she flings herself at Neal and strikes a frozen pose for an instant, arms spread wide, attention upstage at him rather than downstage at us. It's breathtaking when the timing's perfect, as it was that night. I recalled that when Whelan danced Mozartiana with Nikolaj Hübbe, they seemed playmates dashing through happy, challenging games; with Neal they shared a sort of collaborative joy, as if together they were building fanciful, ephemeral castles in the air. I know that the ballet as performed today misses much of the sophisticated timing of Suzanne Farrell's time, when she'd play the patterns of her footwork against the score's beat in an almost contrapuntal rhythm, and made of the entire ballet an extended prayer (as she did with most of her repertory). Today's dancers are much more four-square in their metronomy, and while the ballet's lost some of Farrell's risk-taking charge, it's still an eminently valuable and impeccably moving work.

This night, the work was tinged with knowledge of Gold's farewell, even if it wasn't announced formally. At the curtain-raised bows he came onstage after the corps dancers, and before Whelan and Neal, to great applause. He hugged each corps girl in turn, and took a solo bow before Whelan and Neal, both applauding, joined him from the wings. At one point, Whelan knelt at his feet; he bowed in return. At his final, solo bow, he waved at the still-cheering audience and it was the man as well as the dancer saying farewell. He waved again, blew us a kiss, and then he was gone. It was a modest farewell compared to Woetzel's, yet no less moving in its simplicity and grace.

Le Tombeau de Couperin, Balanchine's all-corps ballet from the 1975 Ravel Festival, was a particularly well-polished gem. As Ravel took Couperin's baroque court dances and transformed them into shimmering, atmospheric studies tinged with a slight melancholy (Ravel dedicated each movement to a fallen comrade from World War One), Balanchine's echoed the works courtly underpinnings, with sixteen dancers divided into Left and Right Quadrilles, broken into pairings which suggest the dancers as participants in some heavenly contradance. The work starts with courtly formality among the dancers, and severe symmetry between the quadrilles, but following Ravel's leads, the atmosphere shifts and the dancers kaleidoscopic evolutions suggest everything from dreamy reveries to hearty square-dances. Throughout, I admired the dancers' bright yet understated presentation, and enjoyed their mix of the young and experienced. Tombeau seems to exist out of time. But once the dancers strike their final pose, in which each man tosses his partner into a shoulder-high split before lowering her to freeze on Ravel's last note, it seems to have taken the blink of an eye.

I've always loved the Divertimento from "Le Baiser de la Fée, Balanchine's condensed abstraction of the story of a boy enchanted by a fairy's kiss. It's eerie in how it suggests the ballet's women, Megan Fairchild and an ensemble of twelve, can appear as both happy young peasant girls, and so much more. Although their costumes suggest happy milkmaids Heidi's cousins they slip in and out of poses which suggest otherwise, just as Stravinsky's cheery melodies also have an uncomfortable, buried edge. I'd always thought the corps girls were "normal" and the lead woman the only fey one, but a close look at one of the first poses the girls strike at the very beginning suggests nothing so much as a vampire looming over a crib. Creepy stuff, in a pretty, pretty housing.

Joaquin de Luz was the unfortunate fellow, and he and Fairchild were just magnificent, better than I'd ever seen them. I'd always been a bit discomfited by De Luz's shortness here; he's little taller than Fairchild, and I've often found that his shortness distorted some of the intricacies of Balanchine's duets, and also in the signature moments when Fairchild must almost throw herself at him and plunge to a deep backbend with her shoulders at his waist, she'd pull back from him at the last minute, like a stuntman pulling his punches in a fight. It seems since they last danced Baiser, this pair's done some serious rehearsing, as Fairchild never held back, and De Luz was never in less than perfect control. Moreover, the little height-related distortions in the shape of their partnering are almost entirely gone.
 

There's far more beautiful and evocative dancing here than I can begin to go into in one review. Fairchild's somewhat affectless manner made her a perfect fairy, as the hints of increasing strangeness in the choreography made me wonder what depths lurked beneath her frozen smile. Her solos had some stunningly rapid and intricate turns along a diagonal she handled them with such unstressed power and speed, you could easily believe in supernatural powers slowly manifesting themselves. De Luz has truly taken over this role, one of the greatest Balanchine ever made for a man. When he joined City Ballet a few years ago, I'd never have imagined him becoming heir to Helgi Tomasson and Peter Boal, and yet, he has. His feet barely kissed the stage in soft, soundless landings from his tricky, intricate leaps, and if he imbued the famous solo with its final manege of assembles falling to the knee with a bit of yearning-poet eyes, well, he's not as cool a character as the Icelandic Tomasson was, that's all.

As with Mozartiana, Sill gave the dancers enough time to fully invest themselves in their steps, and De Luz's exit from the aforementioned solo was a little masterpiece of melodrama. He landed from the last assemblé near the left-hand wing, stepped through and sank to his knee, bending down and forward as he swept his downstage arm forward. He rose to half-toe, stretched his upstage arm up past his head and backwards, as he arched into a deep dramatic backbend, all the while staring intently offstage. At the last instant before losing his balance backwards, he swept his downstage arm forward and let it pull him offstage, still deep in the possession of this particularly latin rapture. I'm not sure Balanchine would've approved, but somehow, with De Luz, it works. Is it the boyish smile?

Unlike the evening's other ballets, La Sonnambula has a plot, a rather odd one a wandering Poet arrives at the party of a nasty Baron, who throws his mistress, The Coquette, at said Poet (not literally). She falls in love with him, but he abandons her for the mysterious Sleepwalker. Finding her to be the ultimate submissive, he takes her offstage for God knows what, the Coquette finds them, calls out the Baron, who stabs the Poet to death (the Coquette apparently didn't see that coming). The Sleepwalker carries the Poet's body off to her bedroom, or, perhaps, the stars. Here, the Poet was Sebastien Marcovici, and while he didn't dispel memories of the departed Nikolaj Hübbe, he managed well enough to convey both the Poet's hunger for inappropriate women, and also to move with a rich, heavy plastique which gave an appropriate emotional weight to his joys and tribulations. I found Yvonne Borree's Sleepwalker depressingly flat; she didn't emerge from her stairway as if blown by a wind, but stepped out, measured, sanely, carefully. Although she did well enough in her duet with Marcovici to convey the frictionless effect of bourreeing without resistance, there were times when her hand on her candle would shake (with nerves?), and hers was a sleepwalker of little drama or mystery. I could see the Poet having his way with her just because he could, but Borree's Sleepwalker presented the Poet with little temptation other than her perfect submission. Usually the Poet's fired up to possess this woman's unattainable soul; here his target was more attainable and worldly. Sara Mearns continues to be an entrancing Coquette, with ardor and anger chasing each other across her face, even when she was masked. Usually it's clear why the Poet forsakes her, but Saturday night she was the most interesting person on the stage.

Or the most interesting lead. Amar Ramasar was a tolerable Baron, but I still miss the heavy anger James Fayette brought to the role. I enjoyed all the divertissement dances, especially Daniel Ulbricht's awesome Harlequin, with astonishingly high Russian splits, and Ana Sophia Scheller's piquancy and Vincent Paradiso's wonderful beats in the exotic pas de deux.

Fate dealt a kinder hand for me than the poor Poet; along with the free coffee, it held out hope for recovering at least some of my lost years of music and pictures. Somehow after this first-rate program with first-rate (mostly) dancing, I wasn't quite so anxious. Beauty's always all around us, and even if our computers fry, it's still always around us. What better lesson could I draw from this heavenly program?