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REVIEWS: ABT at City Center Week 3


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I went to watch today's matinee and spotted Erica Cornejo (and I think Carlos Molina) sitting a few rows ahead of me.

Glow-Stop was enjoyable but I have to question the lighting because it didn't focus on the dancer/s at all sometimes. I have always missed opportunities to see Sarah Lane dance and when I saw her today, there was a visible contrast in size when she stood next to another female dancer. Overall, I didn't really understand the effect that Elo was striving for but the dancers themselves were superb. On a side note, when I was watching Sascha Radetsky, I tried to imagine him as a principal dancer but somehow he just didn't seem like one to me compared to David Hallberg next to him. His movements just seemed too stiff and heavy for me.

Meadow was spectacular. The difficult pdd went off without a hitch and Gillian Murphy seemed so poised and controlled in her role, as did Marcelo Gomes. They had so much control over themselves and I didn't feel as if I had to worry about anyone making a mistake as I do most of the time. For some reason, I found myself thinking of Hawaii when the piece started with the corps dancing. I think I enjoyed Meadow more than Glow-Stop because it seemed more finished and poetic. I hope they bring this piece back in upcoming years! :)

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Before rushing off to the final City Center performance, here are a few thoughts on last night’s (Saturday) performance that included Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, Dark Elegies, and Fancy Free. If I were Mark Morris, I would have a contract clause that said my work cannot ever be performed on the same bill as Tudor and Robbins. Last night’s program simply underscored how limited Morris’s vocabulary is and his absence of depth. Granted, there are the occasional 4 counts of “I’m different.”, but different just doesn’t cut it, and Morris comes frightfully close to gimmickry and classroom combinations a lot more than he doesn’t. The dancers, led by Herrera, Corella, Murphy, Hallberg, Radetsky, of course, made every step gorgeous. Herrera could just do eschappes all night, and I would sit there entranced. Kristi Boone really held her own with the principal women - as she has this whole season.

In Dark Elegies, I was struck how convincing Roman Zhurbin was as a grieving father. Downstage on his knees, he looked up to his right at a man and then up to his left at a man and the pathos was overwhelming. I focused on his face the rest of the night. Adrienne Schulte gave a MASTERFUL performance in the difficult Part IV solo. Michele Wiles in the lead role was okay, but from time to time, her face lost the frozen-in-tragedy look. Which brings me to the issue of the makeup. I recall reading that Tudor insisted on no makeup, or makeup that looks like no makeup, and I recall how effective this was in the PBS program many years ago with VanHamel. Glamour now trumps reality in Dark Elegies.

Fancy Free (Gomes, Cornejo, Lopez, Abrera, Kent) was good all around - how could it not have been. Cornejo looked like a little Popeye, and Gomes was doing his best Donald O’Connor-by-George Hamilton. I finally got the mimed conversation between the two women when they were deciding who wants whom and the mime about the short one. It was all very, very funny and a super way to end the evening.

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Before rushing off to the final City Center performance, here are a few thoughts on last night’s (Saturday) performance that included Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, Dark Elegies, and Fancy Free. If I were Mark Morris, I would have a contract clause that said my work cannot ever be performed on the same bill as Tudor and Robbins. The dancers, led by Herrera, Corella, Murphy, Hallberg, Radetsky, of course, made every step gorgeous. Kristi Boone really held her own with the principal women - as she has this whole season.

In Dark Elegies, I was struck how convincing Roman Zhurbin was as a grieving father. Downstage on his knees, he looked up to his right at a man and then up to his left at a man and the pathos was overwhelming. I focused on his face the rest of the night. Adrienne Schulte gave a MASTERFUL performance in the difficult Part IV solo. Michele Wiles in the lead role was okay, but from time to time, her face lost the frozen-in-tragedy look. Glamour now trumps reality in Dark Elegies.

Fancy Free (Gomes, Cornejo, Lopez, Abrera, Kent) was good all around - how could it not have been. Cornejo looked like a little Popeye, and Gomes was doing his best Donald O’Connor-by-George Hamilton. I finally got the mimed conversation between the two women when they were deciding who wants whom and the mime about the short one. It was all very, very funny and a super way to end the evening.

I went to last night's program and really enjoyed myself. I thought Drink to Me was a light but very enjoyable piece. It DOES have some classroom aspects and like Michael earlier I got a sort of flashback to Etudes. But this is more delicate and I liked the Thomson pieces which are also a bit lightweight and a good match. I'm guessing the idea of the programming was to bookend Dark Elegies with much more upbeat pieces.

Dark Elegies impressed me although I think maybe it could have used a bit more rehearsal. But what a powerful piece, set to towering music. I thought Wiles was good but frankly I liked some of the soloists and corps members more.

Fancy Free. I haven't seen this in many years. I got absolutely burned out on it in my early ballet days.

It was fun to reencounter it after dodging it it so long. (I was going to try to catch it at NYCB earlier in the year but never made it)

This performance was a bit over the top, but I don't see this as much of a fault here. Marcelo Gomes mugged a tiny bit but oozed "sailor on leave" big-time. Lots of chemisty with Julie Kent in the pdd.

Cornejo and Lopez gave fun performances too. So I felt this was the other bookend for Elegies, but considering that it closed the evening, it was much more high octane than Drink to Me. I had a fine time all in all.

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I saw Dark Elegies on Thursday, 11/2, centered between Symphonie Concertante and In the Upper Room. I love these Mahler songs, and to see them interpreted choreographically added rather than detracted. Tudor's sense of ritualized, folkloric grief gave an added dimension that I do not get on simply hearing the songs. Of the dancers, I had Melissa Thomas, Julie Kent/Isaac Stappas, Sascha Radetsky, Hee Seo, and Jesus Pastor, and I found Sascha particularly affecting in his portrayal of a bereaved father. The baritone, one Troy Cook, was new to me, and though his vocal quality was somewhat dry, he characterized the songs quite well.

This was my second Symphonie Concertante this season, my first being with Wiles/Part/Gomes, and this one with Irina D/Murphy/Maxim B. Though for some reason this is not a Mozart score I really love, I think the dancing worked better on the whole this night than my first, particularly in the slow movement where there was closer rapport among the principals than I had seen previously. But I also think Balanchine got hamstrung by the basic conceit of using one ballerina to represent the violin and the other the viola. Somehow the choreography feels to follow this in too lockstep a fashion to be really satisfying.

My upper room was populated by such luminaries as Kristi Boone, Wiles, Gomes, Herrera (replacing Sarah Lane), and Cornejo. Not a bad gathering at all, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. At the end some bouquets arrived thrown on stage, including one for little Patrick Ogle who got some ribbing from his bare-chested colleagues Gomes and Matthews as a consequence. From my seat in the center orchestra section the taped soundtrack was absolutely ear-splitting, but perhaps that would have been less bothersome upstairs; in any case I still have my hearing.

The program did not need a "theme" to work well as three contrasting dances with different musical and choreographic styles. Elegant classicism, emotional late Romanticism, and extrovert modernism made for a satisfying experience.

Having seen four ABT performances in three weeks, I saw almost their entire repertory this season except Meadow. Maybe I'll post a few thoughts on Clear, Rodeo, and Fancy Free, but as I saw them on week 2, they belong in another thread.

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I saw Dark Elegies on Thursday, 11/2, centered between Symphonie Concertante and In the Upper Room. I love these Mahler songs, and to see them interpreted choreographically added rather than detracted. Tudor's sense of ritualized, folkloric grief gave an added dimension that I do not get on simply hearing the songs.

So perfectly said, and what a tribute to Tudor.

I'm feeling a little bummed about the end of the City Center season. With the year long City Center renovation scheduled to begin next summer, I wonder where ABT will be next fall.

The final performance this afternoon was Clear, Meadow, and In the Upper Room. Clear had essentially the same cast as I saw before but for the substitution of Blaine Hoven for David Hallberg. Blaine gave a very sound, confident performance. Everyone did, especially Corella, who continues to amaze with turns that are hard to describe, like repeating pirouette combinations with a rotating spot wherein the whole sequence turns thereby creating turns with a turn.

Meadow with Abrera and Hallberg was a beauty. In the same vein as what Klavier said about Mahler and Tudor, I think I felt the countertenor’s voice pass through me physically more so as the result of the visual of these two glorious dancers. The “Incipit Vita Nova” by Gavin Bryars, used for the central PdD, is a stirring vocal full of spirituality and emotion. I Googled for more information on it and found that Bryars wrote the piece in 1989 to celebrate the birth of a friend’s child. Simultaneously, he was composing a requiem relating to another situation in his life.

In the Upper Room cast was Wiles, Boone, Gomes, Herrera, Saveliev, Cornejo. An all around good performance, and very spirited, but I think I prefer the other cast. These folks looked a bit too much like ballet dancers doing Tharp. True Tharpists have the tendency to look like dancing demons have taken over complete control of their bodies - like they couldn’t not dance even if they tried. Cornejo conveyed some of this, and by the way, picked up Kristi Boone like she was paper - a good sign. The other stompers could have been more weighted and into the ground, except of course when they were supposed to be elevated which everyone did wonderfully. Yes, the music was LOUD. You’d think they could adjust the sound to be even in the orchestra and the upper levels, but apparently not. Perhaps that will be one of the improvements made during the renovation.

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I saw three of the four "Symphonie Concertante" casts (I missed Wiles/Herrera). I felt that the Irina/Gillian combination with the perfect elegant cavalier of Maxim Beloserkovsky was the best all around. Here both women had techniques and styles that were evenly matched and did seem to be different instruments playing the same melodies. The could match and comment on each other's dancing. Wiles and Part had differences in scale, speed and style of movement. Kent and Herrera seemed to be going at their parts from different directions, however well each one was dancing at her current best level and in her own style. I think in the Spring, the casting should be reshuffled to keep Irina/Gillian but with Wiles/Herrera and Kent/Part. However, height may be the issue here since the women are constantly dancing together and even partnering each other. Julie, though long-limbed, is fairly petite compared to Part.

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