94 replies to this topic

[canbelto]

Actually I think Rubies is one of the most cast-variable ballets of Balanchine. With the right cast, it can really be very fun, hip, and sexy, but with the wrong cast, it can also look forced, cliched, and almost a parody of "jazz Balanchine." I didn't see Hyltin, but I saw the Rubies cast this year with Megan Fairchild and Joaquin de Luz, and Fairchild has the steps but not really the Rubies personality. The whole section fell very flat. I've also seen it with Bouder where she was dynamite onstage.

[Jayne]

justafan, on 15 June 2011 - 02:17 PM, said:

Unlike the earlier poster, Rubies is my favorite act of Jewels...Emeralds has always been my least favorite act and so too on Saturday. I know people say you have to appreciate the perfume of the first act but I've never gotten it

ah, a reviewer after my own heart!  I adore Rubies and Emeralds, but Emeralds has always left me flat, even with the best of the best performing.  

IMHO, this is *not* a ballet to sit close to the stage.  You miss so much of the patterns made by the corps and the shapes on stage.  There are other ballets where I do enjoy sitting very close, but Jewels - or any part of it in a mixed program - is best viewed from a distance of at least 20 rows back, or preferably from the balcony (or in the back of a steeply sloping orchestra section).

For me, Rubies and Diamonds get better and better every time I see them performed.  Just my two cents.

[Quiggin]

I think it's true about "Rubies" being the most variable in effectiveness. When I saw it with Gonzalo Garcia here in San Francisco, close-up in and on a smaller stage than State Theater's, I saw it in terms of the layering of dancers, with Garcia barrelling down the middle alley and acting as a strong counterpoint to the other dancers, somewhat as he did in "Apollo." Last year or so Maria Kochetkova and Taras Domitro danced it (against Sofiane Sylve) precisely in tandem, two happy red shadows of each other. And in the short video clip of Miami Ballet a few years back, it looked as though the corps were dancing with as much importance and snappy finish as the soloists (which they didn't in SF) – at least in the part where the girl is caught and turned about between four cardinal points.

But "Rubies" is a red box of a ballet – like the room in "Petrouska" – while "Emeralds" is so big and Shakespearean and about so many things – the porousity of love and coupledom, solitariness, the quiet play of pan and nymphs in a field, and some sort of troublesome reconciliation with the major gods ...

[Krystin]

I agree that your opinion of Rubies can be completely dependent on who is dancing.  This season I first saw Rubies danced by Fairchild/Deluz/Lowery, and I was underwhelmed by Fairchild and Lowery's performances.  I left the evening thinking that Emeralds was by far my favorite of the three acts.  It is worth noting that on that evening Emeralds was danced by Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns, whom I thought were fantastic.  Peck's musicality is pure joy to watch, and Mearns has the ability to draw your eye and refuses to give it up.  

However, the next night I saw Bouder/Garcia/Reichlen in Rubies and I was blown away.  Bouder dances with such precision and attack-- the music could be playing in fast forward and she would still keep up.  And Reichlen has such a solid technique that she was free to play with the steps and really push her boundaries.  And the many extensions in the Tall Girl role of Rubies seems tailor made to show of Reichlen's assets.

[Eileen]

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