More Action, Please

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The New York Sun

American Ballet Theatre’s first-night galas, which have been on the upswing during the past few years, backslid Tuesday night at the opening of its annual City Center season. The programming was stolid. The personnel were needlessly restricted, and the performances should have been better. ABT’s galas in recent years have included novelty items, often pairing the dancers with noted classical musicians. This time there were no special occasion pieces, but a news peg was the company premiere of George Balanchine’s “Ballo della Regina.” Balanchine made the work at New York City Ballet in 1978 as a vehicle for Merrill Ashley, who has now staged it for ABT.

For every ballerina he worked with, Balanchine created anew — designing a unique blending of her signature with his. No one has ever been as good as Ms. Ashley in “Ballo.” (And why should they be?) “Ballo” can seem like a crowded laboratory experiment in speed, unusual step permutations, and phrasing. It is set to cheerful ballet music that Verdi wrote for the Paris opening of his “Don Carlos.” On Tuesday the ballet seemed, if rather slight in the context of Balanchine’s overall output, nevertheless continuously stimulating in the new possibilities that it did uncover. ABT’s first performance, however, was bumpy.

Gillian Murphy, who has been so good in Balanchine’s “Ballet Imperial” and “Symphonie Concertante,” struggled to wrap herself around a syntax designed for Ms. Ashley. Throughout the ballet, Ms. Murphy seemed clenched. Her feet are very strong, but not fluid and articulate enough for the work here. In “Ballo” she must perform steps — such as hops on pointe — that can be accomplished generically through strength but are put together to require delicacy and hair-trigger responsiveness; in a couple of places she encountered speed bumps. She and David Hallberg were a fine partnership in “Romeo and Juliet” during ABT’s season at the Metropolitan Opera last spring, but here their brief adagio was just a matter of getting through things.

In his solo passages, Mr. Hallberg gave a silky exhibition of his own personal style. It was lovely, but had nothing to do with Balanchine’s ballet. Mr. Hallberg floats, lingers, and articulates every step. Balanchine wanted a harder, more dynamic, and more finite silhouette in the air. Furthermore, “Ballo” was made for the New York State Theater and seemed cramped on City Center’s much smaller stage. Indeed, the only time I thought I was really seeing “Ballo della Regina” or a true exhibition of Balanchine’s style was when the women of the corps de ballet made diagonal passes downstage in pairs. Jennifer Alexander and Karin Ellis-Wentz conveyed the right brio and attack. Next was the fourth duet from Antony Tudor’s “The Leaves Are Fading,” a ballet that returns in full to ABT’s repertory this season after a 10-year absence. Michele Wiles was partnered by Alexandre Hammoudi. Ms. Wiles was an outstanding Hagar in Tudor’s “Pillar of Fire,” three years ago, but moving at high speed through Tudor’s characteristically whiplashed movement on Tuesday her torso was blocky and her preparations for pirouettes interrupted the kinetic and musical flow.

Next came Paloma Herrera and Jose Manuel Carreño in the grand pas de deux from “Don Quixote,” that warhorse of warhorses. I’m sorry to say that Mr. Carreño gave the worst performance I’ve ever seen from him: Its scale was diminished, and he resorted to all sorts of cheating and faking. Ms. Herrera — who wore a strange, long, and droopy tutu — was much more spry than her partner, but without the most incisive attack orany real physical ebullience.

Also on the program were excerpts from Stanton Welch’s “Clear,” which is about seven bare-chested men bouncing around to Bach. A sole woman is involved; she dances a duet with the lead man. The inherent emotional content of their duet is all but nill, more a matter of meaninglessly posturing. Xiomara Reyes on Tuesday night resorted to frenetic emoting, which made the entire premise seem more ersatz. Herman Cornejo tried and succeeded in achieving a new gravitas as the totemic, shamanistic, or talismanic figure he is meant to be.

After the intermission came Jerome Robbins’s “Fancy Free,” made for ABT in 1944. Since then it has closed umpteen ABT performances, as well as quite a few of its galas. And so something fresher would have been appreciated to conclude Tuesday night. Here the performers seemed unaware that City Center’s stage is both small and very close to the audience, and, as a result, can be an unforgiving space. Mr. Cornejo, Sascha Radetsky, and Marcelo Gomes are each well-suited to their roles, but they mugged so furiously that within seconds of their appearance as three sailors on shore leave, they had turned themselves into cartoon cutouts.

Julie Kent showed a more detailed and fluid style of acting when she appeared as one of the two girls the gobs fight over. Her face is extraordinary mobile, especially considering how prominent her bones are. Furthermore, her moues, takes, and reactions registered as expressions of some mental or emotional reaction. Her pantomime was relaxed and communicative; her torchy duet with Mr. Radetsky was not bad, but wasn’t as smooth as it could have been. As the second young woman, Stella Abrera seemed strained. The three men’s solos found Mr. Cornejo in stiffer condition than one would have guessed from his earlier performance in “Clear.” The whole of what Mr. Radetsky did seemed less than the sum of its well-imagined parts. Mr. Gomes’s solo was a little self-indulgent, but at least had freedom. Although this was not the tightest or most disciplined performance of “Fancy Free,” it also didn’t register as the most spontaneous.


The New York Sun

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