Jan 27 Perf review (is somogyi ok?)

[Hal]

First a question for anyone in the know, what happened to Jennie Somogyi last night? She danced beautifully in Tschaikosky Piano Concerto No. 2 up until the very end. About a minute before the end she disappeared. Teresa Reichlen, who was dancing the second lead seemed to take over for her and was partnered in the finale by Askegard. Somogyi never came out for curtain calls and no announcement was made. I hope she is ok. But everyone left the theater wondering what went on. There did not seem to be any problems when she was on stage and her dancing was perfection. Or so it seemed to me. Just a beautiful performance up until almost the end.

A word is also do about Reichlen. She is a tall blond and was impressive. I hadn't noticed her in the corps before, but will keep my eyes out from here on in.

The program also consisted of Chopiniana and Prodigal Son. Chopinaina danced by SAB students just impressed the hell out of me. ALL of those kids just did a terrific job. Likolani Brown was amazing. Her poise and upper body control for someone so young was wonderful. She is going to be something. Tyler Angle also danced impressively as did Sara Mearns. We saw this last spring at the SAB Workshop and while I was impressed then by the level of accomplishment of the students, last nights performance seemed very professional - period. The pipe line looks pretty full.

We saw Darci Kistler and Peter Boal in Prodigal last Thursday as well as last night. Peter was just wonderful both nights. Darci seemed much more in control last night. I think her performance was far better. Not sure why, but she seemed more Siren like and sexy than on Thursday.

[Alexandra]

I've been told that Somogyi was injured last night, but how seriously or what kind of injury I don't know. She has been replaced in "Swan Lake" for Saturday evening and Sundaymatinee. I'll make a post on cast changes in a minute.

Thanks for the report, Hal!!

[E Johnson]

A few comments on this performance.

Chopiniana was very interesting to see. My only issue with it was, with the piano music, the students, the practice clothes, it all felt a little too recital-ish. But perhaps that was the desired effect. The students were by and large wonderful although Tyler Angle did not impress me. I found, and I do not know if this was just me or something about the choreography or the dancers, that I was noticing the use of the feet a great deal -- there seemed to be a lot of active feet and a lot of moving deliberately on and off pointe.

Prodigal -- Sometimes two veterans are just what you want to see. Boal was, as always, fantastic, but in a different way than the last time I saw him in this role. I saw Woetzel in this a week or so ago and I remember thinking, huh, I think I’m liking this better than Boal’s interpretation because it is very expressive. As compared to the prior Boal performance I had seen, it was not so precise or dancerly. But this time - Wow. Perhaps driven in part by Andrea Quinn's galloping tempi, Boal was not precise or careful, although his performance was wonderfully detailed. He was entirely present and expressive. One thing that stood out was the fact that the Prodigal had a relationship with everyone on stage that you could see and understand immediately. Kistler -- the spirit was willing but the flesh is just not there. Her characterization was good; I saw a convincingly rapacious and sexual Siren. But she can't quite do the dancing any more. There is a noticeable lack of flexibility in her upper and middle back, and, more damaging to the performance as a whole, she seemed really unsure in much of the pas de deux with Boal. His main thought for much of it seemed to be "I hope I don't drop her." Also, because of the fast tempo, the Prodigal’s last drag across the stage was not as affecting as it could be -- until he saw the gate and home. That last crawl over to the father gets me every time.

Tchaikovsky Suite was lovely. It is hard to believe Somogyi was injured because the thing that really struck me in her performance was, wow, she’s strong. She looked like she was pulling herself around in those turns with her strong arms and shoulders. Reichlen was also fun to watch. Among the demi-soloists I was impressed by Jonathan Stafford.