ABT 2016 - Sylvia

Last night was one of my favorite nights of the year - my first ballet subscription ticket! It seems like forever ago I got my season tickets in the mail and now the time is finally here. Now summer can really begin.  My habit is to leave work a little late and take the bus uptown, so that's what I did last night.  I almost didn't make it to the theater on time - there was an accident and all the buses were being rerouted and traffic was terrible.  Thankfully, I made it to the Met with time to spare for just a few photos...

Not only was last night my first ballet night, but it was also the first night for ABT itself. They're starting the season off with Ashton's Sylvia, set to a lovely score by Delibes. Sylvia is a very nice ballet, with beautiful choreography, but not much in the way of characterization or plot.  It's really one of the sillier ballet plots out there, at least the way it's been put together as a ballet, story-wise, but usually the music and dancing carry the day. Unfortunately, last night seemed to be an off night for everyone.  Pretty much everything seemed to be a little precarious and sometimes it seemed as if they were dancing underwater.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I changed the night of my series because I may have work commitments on Tuesday nights from now on, so I had a different seat than last year.  It was nearly the same, just one row back, but still in the center section.  I'm hoping my Ms. Crabbypants seat neighbor was a one-off and not my series seat neighbor, because boy, was she a pill.  When I arrived, I was directed to one aisle, but when I looked down, there were only two people (I thought) sitting in my row.  I thought I'd be nice to them and enter from the other side, so they didn't have to get up.  Unfortunately, when I did that, I suddenly came upon Ms. Crabbypants, who was ducking down under her seat looking for something.  When I got to her and needed to pass, she says "Are you kidding?  You couldn't enter from the other side?!"  I said, sorry, I miscalculated when I tried to be polite.  She said, "Well, at least you apologize for your mistakes."  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  That got us off to a great start.

As I settled into my new seat, I looked up to prepare for one of my favorite parts of the evening - when the chandelier rises to the ceiling as the house lights dim.  When I looked up, I saw that the chandelier was already raised!  Oh no!  I hope that's not a new thing at the Met this year!  I'll keep you posted.  I guess I should've figured I was in for something a little off...

As for the ballet itself, I don't want to say I was disappointed exactly, ballet at ABT has never really disappointed me, but I guess I was surprised that the entire performance seemed less than sharp. The corps didn't have a lot of unison, especially at the top of the show, and the leads felt a little tentative as well.  I admire Gillian Murphy a great deal, she is a gorgeous technician and is usually fearless. Her first scenes were dynamite - strong and powerful. But she had a near tumble in the second act and seemed to take things pretty carefully after that. Don't get me wrong, her dancing was still lovely, but it seemed passive to me. I'm no expert on the ballet, but the choreography suddenly seemed awfully simple. So that meant her partner, the perfect-in-every-way Marcelo Gomes, also seemed a bit tentative in his partnering, though not in his solos. His solos, especially in the final scene, were glorious - effortless and airy, yet still manly and with vigor. James Whiteside, as Orion, the villain of the piece, went balls to the wall out there, which maybe was too big compared to the smallness of what Gillian and Marcelo were doing, but his technique was impeccable. In my untrained opinion, of course.

photo credit: Rosalie O'Connor

I also think there was a technical malfunction somewhere, because the gent playing Eros seemed to have a hard time coming down some stairs in the second act and I also saw a technician pushing the boat along at the end of the act. At least I saw some legs in jeans behind that boat.  That can't have been planned. So maybe something was in the air and last night was never going to be magical, no matter what.  Which is too bad.

I did greatly enjoy the last scene - the corps were back on track and the duets between Gemma Bond & Joseph Gorak, Christine Shevchenko & Calvin Royal, and Melanie Hamrick & Alexandre Hammoudi were all first rate. They got the pulse (and the tempo of the music) quickening a bit. And Devon Teuscher was fantastic in the role of Diana - very strong and direct, with gorgeous arms. So the ballet ended on a better note than where it began. Of course, it could've been hard for the dancers to muster up much energy when the house was so sparsely filled; that was a surprise. The story ballets usually sell very well, so I'm not sure why last night seemed empty in all sections, but I'm hoping things will pick up as the season goes on. I wish last night had been more of a triumph, but I guess they can't all be, right? On to the next! Hurray for ballet season!!