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[Jack Reed]

(from Washington, D.C.)  Saturday night it was last but not least, for Program 1.  Goh's performance of "Mozartiana" was her best, differentiating the sections within the variations, showing them with such gorgeous clarity and flow it came to me how glad I was to live now to see this masterwork revealed again.  And Ritter, in Gigue, brought to that much better flow-through without any loss of the "corners", the quirky details, and so the role became a connected whole, and you could see it entire.  It must still be said that Redick's role is too much for him (I think it challenged Ib Andersen in 1981), but he realized still more of it.  And nowhere does he spoil it.

Shannon Parsley's luminous and joyful dancing with the lively corps again lit up the brilliant choreography of "Tempo di Valse."  (Tuesday evening I had spoken to someone in this who described herself as "only a corps girl" but who said that Balanchine's corps parts not only gave her plenty to do, but unlike some other choreographers - she didn't name them - she never got tired of doing them.)

"Meditation" followed immediately again as it had Thursday, because, I heard, Fournier had hurt her foot, though fortunately not so badly as to deprive the "Apollo" pas de deux of her beautiful if small-scaled performance Friday night.  Goh's performance was rightly  impassioned again, but the surprise, Peter Boal apparently having returned to New York, was Runqiao Du's performance in Boal's place.  Remembering some effective details of Jacques d'Amboise's peformance years ago while watching Boal, I had noticed Boal - or somebody - had different ideas about conveying the man's emotional journey to final catharsis, and while these ideas worked also, I thought d'Amboise's way had been more direct and more effective.  When I watched Du I saw much of d'Amboise's performance, his way of walking when we first discover him and the different way - chest open, head up - at the end, as well as his crouching expressions of overwhelming grief where Goh joins him to comfort and restrain him (especially one moment downstage left).

In the final "Serenade," April Ball took over Magnicaballi's role (Dark Angel) beautifully if not quite with Magnicaballi's presence.

Edited by Jack Reed, 07 December 2003 - 02:15 PM.