ABT 2018 - Romeo and Juliet

My ballet season has been strange - it seems like my tickets are so far apart!  Though, part of the fault is mine.  I never found the time to blog about my trip to La Bayadere, which I enjoyed, I just never wrote about it; and I never made it to Harlequinade, unfortunately.  I had a work event and I just completely forgot to go.  I hope hope hope it comes back next year, it got great reviews and I love to keep up with what Alexei Ratmansky is up to!

I got back into the ABT swing of things last night, though - I got to see the sublime Stella Abrera in Romeo and Juliet.  You'll remember that I adore this ballet (take a look at some reminders HERE, HERE, and HERE) and last night was no exception. Well, there were a few exceptions, which I'll mention later.  First, I should say that I still haven't gotten my "don't talk to me" sign repaired, because as soon as I sat down, the gent next to me asked me if I go to the ballet often, had I seen Harlequinade, and on and on.  He seemed quite nice, but I was perplexed about why he wanted to talk to me instead of his date.  Ah well.  I'm going to have to work on my subtext placard before my next outing...

photo credit: John Grigaitis

Moving on.  I was thrilled to be able to see Stella's NYC debut as Juliet.  She was absolutely stunning.  Her dancing is always so silky and lovely, but she was just gorgeous in her acting, as well.  You know I am partial to a good storyteller.  I used my binoculars quite a bit and her work was so specific and real.  I really thought she was wonderful and had tears in my eyes throughout the evening, knowing how much it also meant to her to be dancing the role (if you have a subscription to the NY Times, check out this article about Stella: NY Times article).  Her story is inspiring.  She was especially glorious in the last third of the ballet - from the bedroom pas de deux on, her performance was simply electric, and the scene in the crypt was incredible.

Like the last time I saw this ballet, I found James Whiteside to be underwhelming as Romeo.  He is a strong dancer and attentive partner, but he is rather inert and lacking an 'it' factor when acting.  So that did put a damper on things.  I loved Arron Scott and Luis Ribagorda as Mercutio and Benvolio; their rapport (and their dancing) was clear, but Whiteside was blank.  His dancing, at least at the beginning, also seemed sloppy to me.  Perhaps he was just overexcited - it's obvious he has great affection for Stella, their curtain call was lovely.  If he could get that sort of emotion into his dancing, it would help things a lot.  I thought Thomas Forster was terrific as Paris, very moving and eager.  Even though he doesn't do a lot of dancing, he still registered very strongly.  I also loved Alexandre Hammoudi as Tybalt.  I've seen him play Romeo and Paris before, but I thought this was his strongest performance yet.  I really think he's been studying fencing, because his sword work was miles above everyone else's and he was very forceful in his acting as well.  I really knew this Tybalt and greatly enjoyed his interpretation.  I also really appreciated Alexei Agoudine as Juliet's father, he was quite evil and his performance worked well.

The corps de ballet was a tad ragged last night, especially during the mandolin dance.  That was actually a hot mess, between the out-of-sync dancers and the completely terrible solo performers in the orchestra.  It was kind of shocking how bad it sounded.  The harlots were very good, though one had on so much white makeup, she looked like a kabuki performer, which was odd.  I thought the dancer playing Rosaline was very fine, though I still can't understand why her costume can't be a little more distinctive.  She did a good job making herself (and her character) be seen, though.  There was one gent in the ensemble who was a tad too contemporary in his gestures, but other than that, it seems like the whole company took their storytelling duties to heart and presented a very nice Romeo and Juliet.  If only the Romeo had been up to the superior level of Juliet, the evening could've been even more sublime.  I just hope Stella gets the chance to shine in this role again someday soon...