ABT fall season - GUEST BLOGGER ALERT!!

I went out of town last week and sadly had to miss my other ABT performance at Lincoln Center.  Happily, my impossibly handsome ballet buddy was there to save the day!  Below is his beautifully written report - thanks, impossibly handsome ballet buddy!

IHBB at ABT

Hello all.  I’ll be your guest blogger for the evening.  You can call me IHBB.  I’m a frequent companion of MissTari when she attends dance performances and in fact I accompanied our favorite blogger to the ABT matinee last Sunday.  She referred to me in her blog by a name that’s flattering but far too embarrassing to repeat in print, so for now I’ll go by the moniker IHBB.  When a business trip forced MissTari to give up her ticket to last Sunday’s ABT matinee she suggested that I go in her place and blog about it.  I leapt at the chance to see some for our beloved performers strut their stuff.  I was not disappointed. 

First, as a matter of form, I feel I should provide a “seat-neighbor review,” a feature I know to be a staple of a Magical MissTari blog post.  Overall it was a VERY well attended matinee and I was pleased to see the David Koch Theatre so full.  My most striking impression of the audience occurred as I was taking my seat in the fourth ring.  As I got to the base of the very steep aisle on which I was seated, I saw a white-haired woman with a cane.  “How is she going to make it up these stairs?” I thought.  No sooner had I thought that, did her (I assume) son, a robust grey-haired man, come down the stairs and said “How do you want to do this?” and proceeded to try to carry his mother up the stairs. Before getting very far he stopped and said “This is ridiculous.  Let’s see if we can find you a seat down here.”  Well duh.  Ushers came to the rescue and found the family seats more easily accessible to folks with mobility issues.  Otherwise, I have no real complaints about those patrons seated close to me with the exception of the very knowledgeable older man behind me who during the third piece uttered to his wife (presumably for her edification) “this is the theme” and then ‘this is the first variation.” “Dear God,” I thought, “is he going to announce every movement?” (He did.)  Fortunately he was silent for the first two pieces.   

photo credit: Rosalie O'Connor

First on the program was Michel Fokine’s Les Sylphides. It’s interesting to revisit this classic which is so often parodied or at least referenced in theater and film. I’d forgotten how many of my ideas of what ballet is I can trace back to this particular piece. It’s rewarding to see the choreography given a straightforward, un-ironic, and unapologetically romantic staging. It was an opportunity to showcase the beautifully precise, yet dreamily fluid ABT corps de ballet, ably led by Adrienne Shulte and Sarah Smith. MissTari has in the past described Cory Stearns as stalwart, which hardly seems glowing praise, but in this particular ballet it is a quality that works to great advantage particularly in the pas de deux, when his primary responsibility is to provide a solid underpinning for the lithe grace of his partner. He was alas less sure-footed and unfortunately somewhat turgid in his solos in this Sunday’s performance, however. The three ladies he partnered on the other hand were superb, particularly Polina Semionova whose expressive back and dainty footwork make her seem as if the subject of a grand manner portrait had begun to breathe and flutter against her painted backdrop. 

The second piece was Frederick Ashton’s A Month in the Country which in my opinion was, in a word, exquisite.  I’d never encountered this piece before and now I wonder where it’s been all my life.  The curtain went up to enthusiastic applause, the lush set and costumes designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman genuinely breathtaking. It may be the most elaborate set I’ve seen in an ABT production, with an ornate floor painted to look like inlaid marble and high French doors which afforded a view beyond of a tiny footbridge and colorful backdrop depicting expansive grounds. It immediately gave the impression of an opulent and aggressively idyllic country estate in mid-nineteenth century Russia.  It’s a warm summer afternoon and the house seems to throb with a complex life of its own.   Curtains flutter, watch fobs go missing, and numerous doors and windows give ample opportunity for characters to enter unobserved by others onstage.  The Chopin score is a perfect pairing with the Turgenev play about a handsome young tutor who upsets the delicate emotional balance in the home of a wealthy landowner and his wife.   Ashton’s choreography uses the music beautifully to tell the story.  At once expressive and humorous it never condescends to the characters but rather mines the depths of the score to find their passion and emotional complexity.  The cast is uniformly outstanding and I found myself falling in love with each of them in turn.

Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Julie Kent is sublime. Knowing MissTari’s affection for Ms. Kent, I hope she gets the opportunity to see this performance, because the dancer seems tailor-made for this role.  It is a wonderful showcase for her talents particularly in the pantomime scenes.  It is perhaps the mark of a truly great ballerina that she is as commanding seated stiffly on a chair or fanning herself languidly on a divan as she is in her more technical solos.  Daniil Simkin as the pre-adolescent Kolia is delightful. Hardly a youngster at 26, Simkin is nonetheless all youthful ebullience and innocence in this role, while at the same time displaying crisp technique and deft musicality. He effortlessly bounces a ball while performing a few tight, clean pirouettes and then seems perfectly natural and boyish as he leaps off-handedly over furniture in order to get his toy kite aloft.  Guest artist Guillaume Cote as the attractive tutor who is the catalyst for most of the drama is more than merely a handsome presence. He is a wonderfully confident, technically beautiful dancer, but in his solos, and in each of his duets he displays an understanding of how the movement delineates character and tells the story.  When he dances with Kent, yes there is heat, yes there is a connection, but there is something more as well.  Together Cote and Kent find the shadings in Ahston’s choreography; the pull and the tug; the romantic longing at war with the sense of duty; the sheen of noblesse which hides a deeper longing.  Both dancers understand that Ashton’s movement is as much about the force that keeps bodies apart as it is about the momentum that hurls them toward one another.     

George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations with exciting music by Tchaikovsky rounded out the program, and it was a marvelous way to cap things off. There is no subtext in the elegant Balanchine setting and therefore no place for performers to hide. This ballet is about dancers moving to music, which the company did to exciting effect. Despite their romantic trappings in bejeweled tutu and cavalier uniform, Paloma Herrera and James Whiteside didn't display a lot of passion in their duet, but performed with an ease and effortlessness that puts you in mind of those elegant married couples you admire from afar at parties who seem to make everything look so easy.  (Having photo caption issues now: for the photo at right, the credit should be Andrea Mohin.)

A delightful afternoon at the ballet for me.  Thank MissTari!  I also share below (In MissTari tradition) some pictures of my post show meal at Café Luxembourg as well as my pre-show repast (something you WON’T see in a MissTari review)...

Pre-show wine at Bar Boulud

Remnants of my pre-ballet oysters. Looks like it should be a Warner Brothers character.

IHBB at intermission avec champagne

Post-ballet Manhattan at Cafe Luxembourg

Post-ballet burrata salad. This was really tasty.