Veronika Part

Untitled

October 22, 2012 by Tobi Tobias

American Ballet Theatre / City Center, NYC / October 16-20, 2012

American Ballet Theatre, financially afflicted like many a dance company in these stringent days, gave a Fall “season” consisting of just one “week”—October 16-20. Did the brevity of the run ensure the excellence of the repertory? Presented at the City Center, it consisted of seven ballets or stand-alone excerpts, none of which was filler or “novelty.” Most were safe (and worthy) favorites—Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, for instance; Antony Tudor’s The Leaves Are Fading; Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room. The most thrilling item by far was the first of three new ballets that Alexei Ratmansky plans to set to Shostakovich scores. To this choreographer—Russian-born and trained, once head of the Bolshoi Ballet—Shostakovich is the composer who holds the place that Tchaikovsky did with Petipa, Stravinsky with Balanchine. The new piece is called, austerely, Symphony #9.

ABT’s Polina Semionova and Marcelo Gomes in Alexei Ratmansky’s Symphony #9, named for its Shostakovich score

Photo: Gene Schiavone

But what else might it have been called? It portrays both the literal and the abstract without a second’s pause between modes. Is that a platoon or a corps de ballet going through its maneuvers? It’s both. Simultaneously. And yet the mingle coheres. As Balanchine’s did (and continues to do), Ratmansky’s work trains his viewers’ eyes to see more swiftly and keenly.

The dance, in intimate communication with the music, evokes the inevitable death toll of war juxtaposed with the ecstasy of victory. Ratmansky, well endowed with the ability to perceive myriad attitudes to a situation in close range, revels in such ironic possibilities even to the extent of showing a latent vein of humor in them. Is s/he really dead? you wonder when a body collapses, or is s/he just playing dead? Why are the bodies often stricken in stop-motion mode? And what role do these strange views of the action play in the ballet’s overall treatment of events and emotions? As usual, the moment you’ve seen a Ratmansky ballet for the first time, you want to see it a second time to have questions like these answered as well as having the opportunity to revel in the choreography’s command of structure and its sheer theatrical power.

Semionova and Gomes in Symphony #9

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Unlike some of Ratmansky’s earlier works, even the most rewarding (Namouna, for instance), Symphony #9 was tight as a drum at its premiere on October 18. The dancers’ vitality and precision were at a peak I haven’t seen at ABT in ages.

It’s no surprise that the challenging choreography does much for its leading dancers. Marcelo Gomes looks more than ever like the Big Man on Campus, only one whose personality includes a devilish sense of humor. Polina Semionova discards her usual type-casting as the girl who can do every damn step perfectly and becomes a real (and way sexy) woman. Simone Messmer, hair cropped short like that of the feisty heroines of yesteryear’s books for girls (think Jo March, after she sheds her tresses), proves herself, once again, to be an original. Craig Salstein is the boy who dares—part Rookie of the Year, part class clown—with a serious under layer that should free him forever from roles that conceive of him as “the hero’s best friend.” Ratmansky takes all these talents in hand and makes them more wonderful than they or we could ever have imagined on our own.

Herman Cornejo in Symphony #9

Photo: Gene Schiavone

And I haven’t yet mentioned Herman Cornejo, who, so very rightly, is assigned no partner. He emerges, gradually, as the pivot of Symphony #9 or, if you will, its soul. The audience’s reaction to the solo with which he closed the ballet made me think of an ardor that, almost literally, wanted to devour him. The ballet’s curtain line is his stream of tours à la seconde (the body whirling as if without end, one taut leg extended parallel with the floor) mapping out an earthly geometry. To think that many a viewer once believed he wasn’t tall enough or conventionally handsome enough or whatever enough to be a danseur noble—in other words, fit to play a prince! Cornejo is the model of a post-modern danseur noble—technically breathtaking yet never show-offy, and infinitely thoughtful. I’ve never heard him speak a word. I’ve never needed to.

Needless to say I went back to see the second cast—which proved to be nowhere near as effective as the first, though things may improve to a certain extent with further rehearsal and further performance. In the Gomes role, Roberto Bolle, who can’t act, tried to, ineffectually, while in the Semionova role, Veronika Part, who can, did so, puzzlingly, with soap-operatic exaggeration. Jared Matthews, assigned the Cornejo part, was as valiant as a good dancer can be when faced with a challenge to which he’s neither equal nor suited.

Symphony #9 ensemble

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Symphony #9’s glamorous black and white costumes, by Keso Dekker, feature the slashing contrast of shades. The menswear is hugged by a belt of giant rhinestones; the hems of the women’s striated skirts brush the ladies’ knees as if murmuring to the wearers about what’s going on. The graduated darks and lights of Jennifer Tipton’s illumination provide many an apt mood clue, though the feelings charted by the choreography would be evident even on Times Square in relentlessly dazzling sunlight or in dusk shading ominously toward a complete black-out.

Armchair Travel

May 25, 2012 by Tobi Tobias

American Ballet Theatre / Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NYC / through July 7, 2012

We are in India, a long and mythical time ago. A Brahmin priest lusts after Nikiya, the loveliest of the temple dancers, a situation acceptable neither to his gods nor to the young woman. She loves the warrior Solor, who returns her feelings. Solor, however, has been promised to the rajah’s daughter, Gamzatti, who, in desperation (or an access of evil), finishes off her rival with a poisonous viper embedded in a basket of flowers. Nikiya has a busy time of it in her afterlife—beginning with the sublime Kingdom of the Shades scene and ending in cataclysm, after which she and her beloved are finally joined for keeps in a luminous apotheosis. American Ballet Theatre takes us on this tour with Natalia Makarova’s staging of Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère, a combination of colorful hokum and classicism at its purest.

In a single week ABT fielded no fewer than seven ballerinas in the role of Nikiya. Of those I saw, the one that ignited my imagination was Veronika Part. Shedding her long uncertainty about her technical capability, she has come into her own to the point that her rendition of the role extinguished my desire to see any other.

Veronika Part (as Nikiya) and Marcelo Gomes (as Solor) in Natalia Makarova’s production (after Petipa) of La Bayadère for American Ballet Theatre

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Possessing extraordinary personal beauty in face and figure (tall, exquisitely proportioned, with just enough flesh to give her a voluptuous air), Part is, just physically, a perfect object of desire. Strangely enough, though, In the world of classical ballet, good looks don’t count all that much; dancing is unquestionably the key factor. Galina Ulanova, among the greatest of the 20th century’s ballerinas, was plain-faced and stocky, but the eloquence of her dancing—which I saw only at the end of her career and then only briefly—remains one of my touchstones.

At least half of the ravishing dancing Part did in Bayadère was predictable. For some time now audiences have reveled in her softness and liquidity. Her Nikiya seems to be dancing on plush and moving, as people once said of Margot Fonteyn, like honey poured from a jar. Her line has always been magnificent—an ever-shifting picture of grace, harmony, and royal breeding—but only now does she display it with full confidence, giving her audience example after example of what classical dance (that strange, exacting art) makes possible. What’s more, nothing she does looks forced; she doesn’t appear to be making any effort at all. (Needless to say, this is an illusion.)

Other elements in Part’s evolution—the strength, the control, the precision—are probably the last thing her admirers expected. In the past, although she offered her fans enough for them to consider her unique and wonderful, she’d hold back in her attack on a step, a phrase, a balance, or a lift, apparently through anxiety about her ability to execute it securely. Her hesitation was frequently so evident that her spectators grew nervous too. Now she trusts herself more and the audience can trust her in turn.

Part and Gomes in La Bayadère

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Part’s interpretation of Nikiya has a distinct through-line logic. Her Nikiya personifies the powerful innocence of a child; she’s a creature who knows exactly what she wants (Solor, forever). Single-minded, she pursues her goal, dangerously loath to recognize evil—shocked time and again by its manifestations—or even opposition. Confronting Gamzatti to insist upon her claim to Solor, she’s completely unaware of the conniving familiar to the world of wealth and power.

At the same time she’s impulsive—ready, literally, to plunge a dagger into Gamzatti if her rival insists on co-opting the man she loves. When the priest offers her an antidote to the viper’s poison (as I’ve suggested, the narrative of Bayadère requires utter suspension of disbelief), she sees Solor leaving the scene with Gamzatti and opts for death. Part’s Nikiya is also, tragically, incapable of realizing that people can be of two minds about an issue of utmost importance, Solor being the poster boy for that state.

Of course I doubt that Petipa was concerned about subtle motivations for his characters. It’s the people who subsequently staged Bayadère who tried to make the narrative acceptable for their own time, so that Petipa’s choreography, similarly adjusted, would be remain available.

Part and Gomes in the apotheosis of La Bayadère

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Part was matched with the Solor perfect for her—Marcelo Gomes, who is not merely an imposing dancer, but also an intuitively supportive partner; no ballerina could do better than to be in his care.

Gillian Murphy, who plays Nikiya on other occasions, here gave the role of Gamzatti a sympathetic psychological dimension. At first she’s the rajah’s daughter, assuming her entitlement to Solor. Then, in an affectingly developed solo, she realizes that her beauty, her regal status, and its accompanying stupendous wealth are not enough to possess him. Rightly, she doesn’t go so far as to realize the unpredictable, irrational (or at least inexplicable) nature of love, because that would make the ballet a tragedy when it was surely first conceived of as an entertainment—albeit an entertainment created by genius.

The quality of the dancing throughout the ranks was excellent; the female corps de ballet in the Kingdom of the Shades scene was superb. Throughout, from its reaction, the audience, ensconced in its red velvet chairs, seemed to know what was good enough, what was really good, and what was beyond belief wonderful. Without question Veronika Part’s dancing fell into that final, sparsely populated, category.

Starry Night

May 16, 2012 by Tobi Tobias

American Ballet Theatre: Gala / Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NYC / May 14, 2012

The 15 items presented in American Ballet Theatre’s gala opening night program proceeded, one after another, like items on a To Do list. The individual numbers, most of them familiar (at least half of them overfamiliar), provided many an occasion for multiple fouettés for the ladies, kamikaze feats both old and startlingly new for the gentlemen, and crises of passion for the couples. The show fulfilled its ostensible purpose of presenting every principal dancer on the roster—and many of the soloists. As a whole, though, it was exhausting to the eye and the spirit.

Considered individually, of course, almost every entry contained something very fine or at least instructive to notice. Here’s what I noticed:

American Ballet Theatre dancers in Christopher Wheeldon’s Thirteen Diversions

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Sections of Christopher Wheeldon’s Thirteen Diversions (music: Britten) opened and closed the program. Every dancer participating seemed as swift and sleek as a human being could be. However, the choreography—to my mind, some of Wheeldon’s best—suffered mightily from being broken up.

Strangely excerpted from Le Corsaire (Anna-Marie Holmes, after Petipa and Sergeyev; music: Adam), three Odalisques revealed clear individual temperaments. Sarah Lane demonstrated the beauty of small things rendered with exactitude; Misty Copeland represented vitality; Isabella Boylston proved, once again, that clarity has a spiritual dimension.

David Hallberg in La Bayadère

Photo: Rosalie O’Connor

Trailing clouds of glory, David Hallberg showed that his concurrent work as a member of the Bolshoi Ballet is the graduate schooling for his talents. In the Act II pas de deux from La Bayadère (Makarova, after Petipa; music: Minkus) with Polina Semionova, his dancing was clearly more spacious and forceful, with no loss of subtlety. Semionova is not the best partner for him, even though she does complement him in height; she’s too much of a strongwoman, while he projects dreams you can understand as if they were your own.

The program returned to Le Corsaire—a ballet clamoring to be excerpted—but Paloma Herrera and Cory Stearns failed to distinguish themselves in the “Bedroom” pas de deux. Without doubt, Herrera is technically superb, but her representation of feeling always looks painstakingly learned, not experienced. As for Stearns, he is perhaps not the guy you’d want to trust to let go of you mid-air.

Veronika Part is invariably fascinating to watch, but even she can’t transform Susan Jaffe’s Blue Pas de Deux (music: Alessandro Marcello) into a silk purse. Her partner was Thomas Forster, unprepossessing in the role, though not even Marcelo Gomes could have saved the day.

Gala programs frequently harbor a piece for a star in a guise other than the one he’s accustomed us to. The slot was filled this time by the acrobatic virtuoso Daniil Simkin proposing himself as a French low-life who hangs out in seedy cafés. Ben Van Cauwenbergh’s Les Bourgeois, set to a Jacques Brel song of that name, had Simkin clowning around, to be sure, but only in between executing never-before-seen feats.

Probably the most famous duet in classical ballet, the Act II pas de deux from Swan Lake (here, “after Ivanov”; music: Tchaikovsky) was danced by Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky. The two are poorly mated for double work in the traditional vein because (1) she overwhelms him physically and (2) their stage temperaments clash. She’s a Russian diva type; he’s essentially a Romantic dancer whose ideal Odette might be Alina Cojocaru.

Polonaise D’Enfants (music: Glazunov), choreographed by Raymond Lukens, a member of ABT’s education and training team, presented a selection of students ranging from grade schoolers through ABT’s junior troupe. The two littlest boys were irresistible; a medium-sized boy displayed a virtuoso’s ambitions; the young female teens were outranked by their School of American Ballet counterparts. The members of the junior company, who have not necessarily come up through the ABT school, have already jumped, unscathed, through flaming hoops.

Marcelo Gomes and Diana Vishneva in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet

Photo: Rosalie O’Connor

In the Balcony pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet (music: Prokofiev), Diana Vishneva created a motivation for her every move. I loved the way she walked out onto her balcony and raised her arms to the sheltering night sky and her initially running away from her newly beloved like a moth terrified of being trapped. Her Romeo, Marcelo Gomes, was nowhere near as febrile as she but so adept as a partner that he seemed an organic part of her own dancing.

It was marvelous to see Herman Cornejo in fine fettle once again after a long recovery from injury and last season’s comeback performances. His partner, in the Act III pas de deux and coda from Don Quixote (after Petipa and Gorsky; music: Minkus), Xiomara Reyes, has nothing like his artistry, but she’s a spiffy technician. Fouettés—of which we saw far too many in the course of the evening, each set with its quirky variations—are child’s play to her.

Angel Corella and Alina Cojocaru in MacMillan’s Manon

Photo: Rosalie O’Connor

In the Act I pas de deux of MacMillan’s Manon (music: Massenet), Alina Cojocaru, sympathetically partnered by Angel Corella, coupled the theme of sexual urgency with that of irresistible youthful sweetness. The dismal fate of these lovers was foreseen only by viewers familiar—as many balletomanes are—with the long, tangled tale.

Gillian Murphy and Vadim Muntagirov made an odd couple in the Act III pas de deux and coda of Swan Lake (after Petipa; music: Tchaikovsky), she playing an Odile only America could have bred (athletic, straightforward evil), while he was an Old World Siegfried (all elegant balletic manners, no rough urgency). He’s Russian born, trained in Perm and at the Royal Ballet. They might learn a lot from each other.

Ironically, in the Act I pas de deux from John Cranko’s Onegin (music: Tchaikovsky), Roberto Bolle, who hasn’t yet learned how to act, looked far too young and unsophisticated for the role, while Julie Kent, a veteran ballerina, was utterly convincing as an inexperienced young girl suddenly hurtling from virginal innocence to reckless passion. Cultivating acting as part of her skill set has lengthened Kent’s career by a decade.

Natalia Osipova in Flames of Paris (after Vainonen)

Photo: Rosalie O’Connor

Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev brought the gala performance to a rip-roaring close dancing the Flames of Paris pas de deux (after Vainonen; music: Asafiev)—a party-piece for super-adventurous virtuosi. She astonished with her ability to levitate. He was a wild man, eager to risk life and limb—he did even fall once—in order to be swifter, higher, more physically inventive than any danseur or stunt man in the movies. Fortunately he brought some mocking wit to the undertaking, which diminished its vulgarity.