Manhattnik

Minkus, Drigo. Six of one, six of another.

Oddly enough, Michael, Belosterkovsky was the first of the two signed by ABT. I think they really weren't all that interested in Dvorovenko, and she had to fight her way in, and get fight for every role and promotion.

Like a cat with her tail, whatever a good Kitri does with her fan speaks volumes about what's going on in her mind during the course of ABT's amiable warhorse of a Don Quixote. She can use it to: point; obscure her face, from anger or modesty or to hide a smooch with her sweetheart, Basilio; smack said sweetheart on the head or shoulder when his attention (and embraces) wander, and, of course, fan herself -- either her face or her heaving embonpoint (or what passes for such with most ballerinas). If your evening's Kitri happens to be ABT's Ukrainian firebrand, Irina Dvorovenko, she can also snap open her fan while holding it high over her head for each of four or five lightning-fast double fouette turns out of the thirty or so she tosses blithely off during the ballet's third-act grand pas de deux, posing this question for the reviewer after the salvos of cheers and applause these gestures unleash: Is she fanning, or is she whipping her audience into a frenzy? While entertaining to contemplate, this question was a bit moot last May 18, when Dvorovenko danced Kitri opposite the Basilio of her husband, Maxim Belotserkovsky. Dvorovenko had the audience at the Met eating out of her hand from her first entrance in the first act (oh, yes, Kitri can also smack the stage quite passionately with her fan in her first-act solos). By the time of the third-act pas, they were totally in her thrall, as was I, and her most telling bit of business with that fan came at the beginning of her solo in the pas, where she started her series of deliberate and solid echappes on pointe by hiding her face behind her fan, then reaching up with her free hand to delicately pluck one edge of the fan, pulling it closed as if she were opening a curtain, to reveal her beaming (and, by then, totally triumphant) continence. Yes, it was monumentally corny, yet it was only by virtue of the stellar performance she'd turned in until that moment that she could get away with such unabashed showmanship, and here, too, the audience roared its approval. So did I, for that matter. It's very easy to bash Don Quixote. Riccardo Drigo's repetitive score peaks at second or third rate, and is often far worse than that. As with Coppelia (which at least has a heavenly score by Leo Delibes), it's all too easy to conclude that none of the characters are sympathetic, or even terribly interesting. The obligatory second-act dream/vision/hallucination scene is far from Petipa's best (if the rest of the ballet world ever suffers from a shortage of balonnes, this scene is the culprit -- they're all here!). And, whenever you think it's safe to open your eyes again (this is not a ballet of which Balanchine, or anyone, would have said that if you don't like what' you're seeing, close your eyes and listen to the music), here come those damn bullfighters again, or, worse, the Flower Girls. Is there a more thankless role in classical ballet? They might as well be carrying signs that say, "Nothing important is happening right now. Kitri's changing into her wedding dress, so we'll noodle around with another oompah variation or two. Feel free to zone out until she gets back." This is not to say anything against Shelkanova and Konobeyeva, ABT's brace of blonde Russian soloists, who shouldered their flowery burden quite professionally. But while I've seen both turn in fine performances in certain roles, there's often a kind of blurry competence to their dancing which fairly screams "eternal soloist" to me (unlike Dvorovenko's, which screams "I am going to be a principal dancer, dammit"). It would take some stellar acting and dancing to bring these roles to life, and ballet doesn't want stellar Flower Girls -- it wants a stellar Kitri. Without her, and without an equally stellar Basilio, ABT's Don Quixote is a vehicle with nobody at the wheel on a leisurely trip to nowhere. While great ensemble work can carry a Swan Lake or Giselle, there's not enough here for ABT's corps to sink its teeth or toeshoes into. The ballet really rises and falls on the strength of its leads, not just Kitri and Basilio, but also Kitri's father, Lorenzo, and Gamache, her foppish suitor, as well as the Don and Sancho Panza. John Gardner (Lorenzo) and Carlos Molina (Gamache) handled the endless slapstick well, with appropriately theatrical mugging and timing. Brian Reeder's Don looked suitable noble and dazed, and Flaviio Salazar made Sancho Panza appear quite convincingly foolish and food-obsessed. Of the other secondary roles, Yan Chen is quite relentlessly adorable as Amor, but this is one role that gets more wearing with repeated viewings. Gillian Murphy's Dryad Queen was appropriately regal, and Murphy's strength and clarity are always make her enjoyable to watch, but her impassive mien made me think someone should have told her that not every second-act Queen has to be Myrtha. Well, she'll doubtless live and learn. Marcelo Gomes seemed a bit more flash than substance as the matador, Espada, while Carmen Corella's Mercedes was perhaps too substantial, and not in a theatrical manner. I'm loath to leave this review without returning to the leads, Dvorovenko and Belotserkovsky. While I've been raving at some length about her dancing, he's no slouch, either. With his short torso and long, long legs, he's got about the best line of any man with ABT, and complements Dvorovenko perfectly. I admired his beautifully placed multiple pirouettes (he seldom goes in for flashy embellishments to his turns like, say, Corella, but they're clean and swift and seemingly endless) and explosive elevation. I saw what looked to be some evidence of nerves in a certain fixed and glassy quality to his stage smile, and his extreme care to point every foot oh-so-perfectly. I also occasionally noticed this with Dvorovenko, but given that they're soloists dancing principal roles, a certain amount of nerves is understandable, and nothing timely and well-deserved promotions wouldn't cure. It's also nice to see a married couple working together so happily onstage -- their mime and acting in the first-act pas d'action where Kitri alternates between flirting with and ignoring Basilio was a delight, replete with smoldering jealous glances, swooning and fan-obscured kisses and the insuoiscant tossing of the occasional fan and guitar. With their perfect comic timing, they looked as if they'd been dancing together for years (as they have been), yet the ebb and flow of attention, passion, anger and, finally, love, seemed as fresh as if we were watching it unfold before our eyes for the first time. [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited June 16, 2000).]

Welcome back, Estelle, and thanks for the great review, as usual. I must confess I can't for the life of me picture French dancers doing Western Symphony, although I'm sure I'd enjoy it on one level or another.

If the Kirov's other tours are like their visit to the Met last year, I can certainly understand the complaints. Remember, they started off with a dress rehearsal and four of those long, killer Sleeping Beauties in, what, three days? The corps and soloists danced admirably, for the most part, but many were clearly exhausted by the last few performances, and I don't think it was simply because they had been up all night enjoying the pleasures of NYC. I get the feeling that one aspect of these tours is to earn much-needed foreign cash, and I can understand if some of the Kirov dancers might feel like they're sweat-shop workers with toeshoes.

Don't you mean "if one was the second coming of Red Smith?" Sorry, couldn't resist.

Doubtless true, Alexandra. But the most noticeable grins, Malakhov's, came when he was partnering. Perhaps they'll start dropping to the knee after helping their ballerinas through a particularly difficult promenade?

It was enough to put the fear of God into me, learning that ABT's opening night gala at the Met would start at, gulp, six-thirty. I had visions of endless speeches and reminiscences and not getting out until a wearying ten or eleven or twelve. Fortunately, the program wasn't quite that long, and was actually pretty successful, as these things go. Interspersed with the expected pas de deux were a few more-representative glimpses at ABT's repertory, with excerpts from their new Swan Lake, Theme and Variations and Twyla Tharp's new Variations on a Theme by Haydn (which I didn't stay for, having had a long day baking in the sun). After some slightly self-congratulatory comments by the head of ABT's board of directors, and some strained chumminess between Caroline Kennedy and Tipper Gore, the night got underway with Julie Kent and Angel Corella dancing the White Swan pas de deux, backed by ABT's corps in their beautiful new swan-costumes by Zack Brown. I have been rather harsh on Kent in the past, but this performance was almost enough to make me eat my words. She's got all the equipment to be a gorgeous Odette -- her body fairly screams "legato," and her beautiful line has always been complemented by a sense of weightiness and strength. While Giselle is a weightless and massless apparition (in the second act, anyway), Odette is a work of architecture -- her strength rises into her from the stage, radiating upwards and outwards in this duet's many developpes and extensions. Odette's particular sadness is that, imprisoned as she is, her every flight must come back to earth, even when worshipfully and tenderly supported by Siegfried. Kent understand this perfectly, and perhaps intuitively, as it often seems she's much more comfortable expressing her charcters kinesthetically rather than dramatically, and her Odette was properly grand, monumental and doomed. I'm looking forward to seeing her dance the entire role. Next were Amanda McKerrow and Vladimir Malakhov in Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. They both did a more-than-credible job, with McKerrow showing she can be strong, fleet and musical when she's not turning in one of her too-familiar low-energy performances. She was partnered ably by Malakhov, by far the finest stylist in ABT, yet I was disturbed by exaggerated smile and mugging he affected throughout the adagio. His dancing was, as usual, beautiful and refined, with utterly silent landing and effortlessly perfect placement, but, topped off as it was with this overwrought Cheshire-cat grin, the effect, at least for the adagio, was a bit unnerving. While he danced his first solo much as Balanchine choreographed (his big sisonnes with the developpe a la seconde en l'air were a joy to see), in the coda he substituted what I took to be steps of his own invention, and I don't think Balanchine would've approved (or anyone from the Balanchine Trust who may have been in the audience). McKerrow gave good weight to her solos, weathering some horrible flubs by the trumpet player which were enhanced by absurdly slow tempi during her tricky enchainement of travelling pirouettes and pique turns. At least she managed to recover her composure in time to exit with some lightning-fast pique turns. My main quibble with her dancing is that it is not cool, in the middle of those backwards-travelling arabesques voyagees, to turn one's head from facing the corner to smiling at the audience, as if to say, "Look, isn't this neat?" Otherwise, McKerrow looked quite at home, and I have to wonder what direction her career might have taken if she'd danced more Balanchine. I suppose it's almost unfair to pair any ballerina with Angel Corella (White Swan doesn't count), especially in the pas de deux from Le Corsaire. I was more impressed with Susan Jaffe than usual -- she was quite grand in the adagio, and even sparkled in her solo (I never thought I'd be using "sparkle" and "Susan Jaffe" in the same sentence), although she ran out of steam in the coda, bailing on the fouettes early on and substituting pique and chaine turns. Corella was ... Corella. It's not just that he's brilliant, but his joy in being onstage is quite infectuous, as are his charisma and charm. It was hard not to be delighted by his prodigious elevation and turns, particularly the ice-skater ones with his working foot travelling slowly down from retire to fifth, while he turns faster and faster and then slows to a finish in sou-sous. After some charming commentary by Donald Saddler, and moving reminiscences by Alicial Alonso, Julie Kent and Julio Bocca led the finale from Theme and Variations. I hadn't seen Thoeni Aldrige's costumes before, but they were quite stunning, as was the dancing. That final polonaise is one of my favorite moments in all of ballet, and ABT's dancers did it justice -- it was a hard choice to see NYCB's Sleeping Beauty last night instead of Kent's entire Theme (with Corella), but one must make cruel decisions sometimes. After the intermission, there were still more fireworks as Paloma Herrera and Jose Manuel Carreno saddled up Vaganova's old warhorse, the Diana and Acteon pas de deux, and rode it for all it was worth (your mileage may vary). This was the first time I'd seen Herrera's vaunted technique at the level I'd expected from her, with effortless balances in arabesque after after letting fly with a mimed bow and arrow (she gets to do this no more than a dozen or two times), equally effortless turning and beautiful feet and line. It would be lovely if she'd cultivate a more imaginative use of music (she's very properly four-square and on the beat when she hasn't fallen behind it) and some facial expressions other than smiling sweetly or staring blankly. For his part, Carreno partnered Herrera with sensitivity and gusto -- the two look good together. His solos were not without their quota of fireworks, and it wasn't difficult to sense a bit of competition between him and Corella. Carreno is a weightier dancer than Corella, and his his tours de forces, if not as stunning, were grander. Carreno also treated us to his version of the ever-slowing-pirouette (after multiple changes of the working leg while turning). Some deride this as a cliche, but I say if you can do it, go for it. A viewer more familiar than I with this work told me the two took some liberties with the choreography of the coda, but perhaps it was just Nureyev's staging. Nina Ananiashvili's rendering of The Dying Swan was listed as having choreography "after Michel Fokine," and the documentary on Isabel Fokine's efforts at staging her grandfather's works which was recently shown here on Ovation shows just how far after, or behind, Fokine such renditions as Ananiashvili's really are. In its own way, this short solo has become as much a vehicle for technical bravura as the other showy works on the program. Perhaps Pavlova garnered cheers and applause from her audiences for her rippling swan-wing arms or her ability to bourree while facing the audience with her head upside-down in a deep backbend, as did Ananiashvili, but I doubt it. Taken on its own merits, Ananiashvili's version showed off many of the qualities I've come to admire in her dancing -- strength, suppleness and a kind of yearning, sad musicality that informs her every step -- but I'd have preferred it if she'd kept her virtuosity in the shadow of her artistry. Alessandra Ferri and Julio Bocca were delights in the bedroom pas de deux from MacMillan's Manon, and it showed me that in the right hands, MacMillan's pas de deux can be quite exhilirating (as long as there are no dancing prostitutes lurking in the wings). I hope I'll be able to see these two dance Romeo and Juliet this season. I must confess I was bad and left before Twyla Tharp's Variations on a Theme by Haydn. Not that I disliked the work when I saw it in Washington, but it was just so beautiful out. [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited May 11, 2000).]

I'll second Leigh's comments and question. I thought Pavlenko was utterly committed to every role she danced, and was wonderful, whether Lilac, Moyna (or was it Zulma?) or one of the muses in Apollo.

I'd just like to point out that this was written for the Annapolis Capital, so I tried to put in a bit more explanation than I would if I'd been writing for Ballet Alert (I think most people here know what The Sleeping Beauty is about!), and tried to avoid those funny French words (I also think most BA readers would know that those "fluttery" jumps in Bluebird are brise volees. Right?). Being a Manhattan snob, I'm really not that familiar with the quality of most "regional" ballet companies (I'm ducking for cover as I use that dreaded word), let alone "civic" ones, which is what I'd considered BTA. I have, however, been quite impressed with what Stewart has been able to put together on what must be a shoestring budget. Zou and Cherevko are both fine dancers, and would look good gracing just about any company. BTA, soon to be BTM, seems ready to make the next move up the ballet-company ladder -- I hope it can manage this successfully without losing the small-town charm that has pervaded the performances I've seen.

Ballet Theatre of Annapolis, April 15 and 16, Maryland Hall. With the beautiful new production of the third act from The Sleeping Beauty that Ballet Theater of Annapolis presented last weekend at Maryland Hall, the company once again shows, as it did with its recent second act of Giselle, that it is possible for modest local companies to present pocket-sized versions of the classics that, in many ways, approach the quality of the grandest professional companies, and it's not always necessary for local residents to go to Washington or New York to see first-rate ballet. In fact, there were moments when it appeared that BTA might be ready to outgrow Maryland Hall's modest setting, and it's not inappropriate that the company will soon change its name to Ballet Theatre of Maryland. This act, also known as Aurora's Wedding when it's presented as an excerpt, shows us the wedding of Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund, after he's awakened her from her hundred-year sleep with a memorable kiss. In this act, various fairytale characters come to court to pay homage to the royal couple, who themselves conclude the act by performing one of the most challenging pas de deux in classical ballet. This act contains some of Tchaikovsky's grandest music, which BTA's artistic director Edward Stewart has wisely expanded upon by including the lovely and familiar Garland Waltz from the ballet's first act. As Aurora's Wedding is set in a royal court, the design is of paramount importance, and it was gratifying to see that BTA did not skimp and present us with the threadbare castles that sometimes mar bigger company's productions of the classics. Jane Wingard and Sid Curl sketched an effectively elegant court with their pillared backdrop, and Juliet Shore gorgeously dresssed BTA's dancers in the finest classical tradition - no rentals or hand-me-downs here! Ballets such as this are often called, sometimes condescendingly, "tutu and tiara" ballets, yet Miss Shore's stunning costumes (and Jennifer Hankins' tiaras) showed just how powerfully a properly made tutu can enhance a dancer's authority and stature, and help the women fortunate enough to wear one make the transition from ballet dancer to ballerina (the two terms are not synonymous, although they're often used that way). It was gratifying to see so many ballerinas, both American and foreign-born, last weekend. I was particularly struck by the shimmering Silver Fairy's tutu, although it seems unfair to single out a favorites - any of these creations would look just as much at home on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House or the Mariinsky as Maryland Hall's. It's unfortunate that murky lighting and occasional sound miscues marred an otherwise first-rate production. After introducing us to the appropriately regal Charlotte McNutt and Anton Wilson as Queen and King (they have the challenging task of sitting on their thrones and drinking wine for the rest of the ballet), Stewart brings out the Lilac Fairy, danced by the tall and leggy Leslie Bradley with the right combination of haughteur and authority, who introduces the various fairyland characters who return to dance later. The short divertissment for the four Fairy Princesses (Emerald, Gold, Silver and Diamond, as danced respectively by Anmarie B. Touloumis, Amber Lynn Zecker, Jennifer Dancesia and Natasha Kiryanova), fairly glittered. A few of these women chose to dance fairy variations from the ballet's Prologue, but all were very well-danced, each bringing personality and style to their solos: Touloumis' air of sultry langour, Zecker's brightness and attack (in the finger-pointing "Violente" fairy variation from the Prologue), Dancesia's softness and strength and Kiryanova's piquancy. One of the delights of BTA's short seasons is the chance it gives us to see how much these dancers have improved over time. Stewart's staging of the Garland Waltz, for twenty-four dancers, was a welcome interlude, and seemed not at all out of place in this wedding act. I particularly liked his use of children from BTA's school (never treating them as less than adults, here), but wished the Maryland Hall stage was just a bit bigger, so his compositions would have had more room to breathe. Amy Litwiller was both sensual and aloof as the White Cat in her flirtateous duet with the tomcattish Puss-in-Boots of Dmitry Malikov, who didn't let the occasional flurry of scratches from Miss Litwiller diminish his ardor, or his clear delight in his magnificent red boots. In the celebrated Bluebird pas de deux, Ninel Cherevko's delicate musicality and sweet phrasings were a delight, as was her clear strength and technical assurance. Jeffrey Watson performed admirably in a role for which he might not appear to have been naturally suited, drawing applause with his brilliant footwork in the profoundly difficult fluttering leaps in the duet's coda. It was hard not to feel a bit guilty at the pleasure I had in seeing Jennifer Hankins' sweet but befuddled Little Red Riding Hood in the grips of Andrey Shevaldin's frayed yet elegant Wolf, who repeatedly cornered Hankins with his huge leaps, and whose repeated rubbings of his doubtless-growling stomach left little doubt as to his intentions for the poor lost girl. No rescuing woodcutters here! Thankfully, Stewart omitted some of the ballet's drearier fairytale guests, such as Tom Thumb. In the Grand Pas de Deux between Aurora and Prince Florimund, Zhirui Zou easily surmounted the role's technical challenges to create a beautifully realized portrayal of Aurora that compares well to such past great Auroras as Margot Fonteyn. Zou gave full weight to the many charming images of growth and authority in Marius Petipa's choreography, and where too many dancers mistake a fixed, unchanging smile for royal grandeur, Zou's Aurora was a breathing and ever-changing picture of a powerful young woman reaching her (somewhat delayed) adulthood. It almost goes without saying she has thrilling carriage of her arms, and great strength and clarity to her technique. Dmitry Tuboltsev's Prince carried Zou through the adagio's intricacies, including the showy and somewhat scary fish dives, with aplomb, and danced his solos with his usual flash and virtuosity, and somewhat more than his usual poise. BTA's performance began with several of Stewart's own settings of fairy tales, as this was a children's program. This was not as terrifying for adults as a glimpse at the program might have indicated. Highlights were five of the company's best dancers doing a very classical divertissment dressed as pigs (and a hedgehog), a lovely romantic duet for Zou and Shevaldin, as a frog who's turned into a prince by her kiss, and Cherevko miming and dancing her way through Snow White with as much authority and poise as if she were performing the first act of Giselle. Christi Bleakly was a strong though harried Alice in Alice in Wonderland, which offered such delights as Tuboltsev's and Shevaldin's over-the-top mime as the Mad Hatter and March Hare, and, my personal favorite, three rather large and leggy chickens flapping their wings (or attempting to), to the Saint-Saens cello piece most commonly heard by dance-goers as the accompaniment to Fokine's The Dying Swan. If you'd like to see some pictures of Miss Shore's costumes, click on this link: http://members.xoom.com/manhattnik/costumes/index.html [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited April 18, 2000).] [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited April 18, 2000).]

Well, this "cross-pollenization" only goes so far. If nobody's making decent new ballets, what happens after awhile? I mean, Eskimos really can't get rich selling ice to each other. And, Alexandra, I don't recall you ever sounding so sanguine about the current state of the Danes. Didn't you used to bemoan the energy they were putting into non-Bournonville works?

Thanks, Andrei and Ilya, for these reviews. I was most struck by this bit: It seems that the main effort of the company is devoted to the exploration of Western choreographic styles. Even the choreography of Perrot and Petipa is transferred to a "balanchinean" linoleum---probably, in striving to find a "universal" manner of performing. I'm not exactly sure what the reviewer meant, given the problematic nature of the Balanchine works the Kirov brought to the Met, however.

Thanks, Alexandra, but I thought we were friends! Seriously, it's depressing how Stevenson can take good ideas and drive them into the ground. I DO hope to make it down for at least one Bolshoi performance, however. And, thanks for the kind words, kfw.

Yikes. It's been pointed out to me that I originally had Ethan Brown listed as the Man She Must Marry. I fixed that, but I think I'll keep the Johnson boo-boo in for humility's sake.

Ooops, about the jackets. I'm glad Aida enjoyed the review. [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited March 30, 2000).]

While it may seem by now that any performance of ABT's recent, brief season at Kennedy Center before Friday night's premiere of Kevin McKenzie's new Swan Lake (which sounds interesting enough to make me long for a revival of their old David Blair staging) is yesterday's news, or, in this case, a few days before yesterday, some dead horses can't be beaten quite enough, and so, to quote a famous temporary resident of Washington, "let me say this about that." I'd never been to Kennedy Center before, and I was struck by the beautiful Philip Johnson decor, from the outside looking a bit like the New York State Theater on steroids. I wasn't all that taken with the interior of the Opera House, which is relentlessly scarlet. I'm surprised they didn't make the ushers (mine sported a nametag proclaiming her to have the deliciously apt name of Aida) wear bright red as well, although perhaps ushers who blend in with their surroundings aren't a good idea. I spent too much mental energy trying to figure out what that pattern on the (red) curtain was supposed to be, if anything. I still think there's a picture hidden in there somewhere. I'd heard the Kennedy Center stage is quite small, and from where I sat, it looked to be smaller than the New York State Theater, let alone the Met. The twenty-four shades in the "Kingdom of the Shades" scene from La Bayadere looked uncomfortably cramped, although the stage dimensions were the least of their problems. Back when Makarova first staged this act on ABT in the seventies, the corps did a bang-up job of the opening procession of shades, each doing up to thirty-nine arabesque penchees (always on the same leg!). I won't say there was never a wobble back then, but that corps from a few generations ago had a cohesiveness that the 21st-century incarnation sorely lacks. Thursday night it was just a bunch of dancers going down a ramp. Of course, I think that ABT's Shades scene started going downhill when they "completed" their full-length production of La Bayadere, although I suppose it was inevitable. The Shades scene never seemed as special after that, nor did the addition of decor from the full-length production help matters. If there's ever a ballet that exemplifies dance as a form of living architecture, it's Shades. Those girls don't need a setting -- they build their own, right in front of our eyes. Unfortunately, Thursday night they were building on a foundation of clay, or perhaps Foggy Bottom swampland. Or maybe the Kennedy Center stage is really as terrible as it's sometimes made out to be. Whatever the reason, the corps had a bad case of the wobbles thoughout their opening scene. I can overlook one girl who's having a bad night, but when the angles of ever dancer's legs are all going off in slightly different directions for their ecarte developpes, and three or four (I didn't have the heart to count) girls are wobbling and hopping to hold those difficult flat-footed balances, well, it does not make for a magical night at the theater. I've read the current ABT women described as their best corps ever; they were certainly keeping it a secret Thursday night. Te be fair, they did look quite lovely in the sections where they were able to hold each other for support, or sit elegantly on the stage. If ABT couldn't manage to get twenty-four women to dance cohesively, you'd think they could've accomplished it with only three, but that was not to be. In their first dance together, Yan Chen, Ekaterina Shelkanova and Michelle Wiles approached every step like three girls shooting "odds or evens" to see which one would be "it" in a game of hide-and-seek, with each girl holding back a bit at the count of three to see if she could steal a glimpse at her rivals' fingers before committing herself. "You do the brisé first." "No, you." "No, I insist.""While you two are futzing around, I'll do the damn brisé, and beat you to the next step, too." "Bitch." I did notice moments when, to her great credit, Yan Chen, often the "leftmost" of the soloists, would almost desperately try to position herself onstage so as to even out the spacing between her, Shelkanova (in the center) and Wiles (who rather firmly established her ownership of the downstage right corner, and any other bit of real estate she happened to be inhabiting). This mostly went for naught, as Shelkanova drifted rather obliviously from left-center to right-center and back again. Chen couldn't fix the spacing by herself, but at least she was aware, and trying. This brief torture was replaced by another sort when Paloma Herrera and Jose Manuel Carreno took the stage. Herrera once again showed that gorgeous insteps do not make up for affectless manner and effectless phrasing. I sensed her reaching a bit, at the start of her adagio with Carreno, for a sense of tragedy and grandeur (Nikiya, one of ballet's more bubble-headed heroines [could this be why I like Julie Kent so much in the role?], gets much more interesting after she's dead [they always do, don't they?]), but soon reverted to the Herrera I've come to know so well in recent years -- her strong technique just isn't brilliant enough these days to make up for her distressing blandness. I'd say she should never be let onstage without a tambourine or fan in her hand, but soubrettes, at least, know how to sparkle. The tappy-tap-tap of her not-quite-broken-in toeshoes whenever she bourreed didn't help her in her quest for ethereality, either. Perhaps she could've redeemed herself by making that final diagonal enchainement of soutenu turns into something that defied and transcended death, but, like the rest of her performance, they were simply adequate. Carreno, for his part, partnered Herrera with strength, ardor and grace. His solos were, as usual, impressively strong and cat-like, although it was clear he had to restrain himself to keep within the confines of that smallish stage. One of the challenges of the Shades scene is to take us from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. That opening corps section, which can be achingly beautiful when given a proper performance, and the poignant first duet for Solor and Nikiya, are followed by those solos with their somewhat silly, applause-getting tricks (the travelling releves in arabesque, that "Look ma! No hands!" running-on-pointe bit -- soon to be echoed by the entire corps in the coda). It's the peculiar task of this act's cast that they must give full weight to each of these applause-getters while remaining respectable, ghostly shades. Minkus' charming but beer-gardeny score only adds to the difficulty. Then, suddenly, at the scene's end, after the romp of the coda, we're back at the world of pain and regret that Nikiya and Solor inhabited during their adagio, for that brief apotheosis before the scene's final tableau. It's as if the giddy energy of the coda has somehow catapulted Solor and Nikiya to some more, yes, sublime layer of this dream-afterlife, where they're at least together until the curtain falls (or Solor's hookah hits wear off). On Thursday night this roller-coaster never got off the ground, and the soloists didn't get much past the trick stage. At least when they were dancing one at a time we weren't subjected to their appalling lack of togetherness. Perhaps I'm getting a bit of a tolerance for Yan Chen, but I'm finding her everpresent charm to be not quite as relentless as in former seasons. She's certainly strong, and carried off the travelling releves well enough, although she still needs to work on toning down her affectation of spontanaety. Apparently Shelkanova had taken a big fall in Shades on opening night, and perhaps it was her concern over slipping again that led to the most striking and unfortunate moments of her own solo. While I'd gotten used to the clatter of the girls' toeshoes (although not as loud as the Kirov's at the Met last summer), I was puzzled by a loud "scritch" noise, not unlike the dragging of fingernails across a blackboard, that seemed to be emanating from Shelkanova's feet when she'd do a beat. At first, I figured it couldn't be coming from her, since her feet were never touching the ground at the moments of the mystery noise. But then, from where? I finally figured it out: Shelkanova, doubtless chary of slipping again on that treacherous marly, must've approached the rosin box much as a Neopolitan peasant girl approaches a vat filled with freshly harvested grapes. That scritching noise just had to be from one rosin-encrusted toe shoe scraping, however briefly, against the other. One learns something new every day, and I'd never seen, or heard, the like before. Although the solving of this mystery distracted me from focussing much on the quality of Shelkanova's solo, there was plenty of time to contemplate every langorous and ever-so-strongly held arabesque and attitude in Michelle Wile's third solo, in what this old-timer will always think of as the "Jolinda-Menendez-Vaster-Than-Empires-And-More-Slow" variation. There was plenty of time to contemplate how much blonder (in appearence) she'd become since I'd last seen her, and to wonder if there'd be any blossoms left on the cherry trees by the time she got to the sprightly conclusion. Yes, the tempo was a bit on the slow side. Wiles came through with a strong and sharply defined performance, but wasn't quite canny enough to breathe life into this turgidly paced variation, at least until that perky running-on-tippytoe bit. I seem to have gone on more about the corps and soloist here than about the leads, but Shades is an ensemble effort, and glaringly highlights a company's defieciencies or strengths at each level. Carreno at least had a clear idea of what his Solor was about, and delivered. Most of the other dancers onstage looked like they could use either a lot more practice or a vacation. A long one. After ABT's Tudor-less fall season at City Center, it was lovely to see Tudor's Jardin aux Lilas again. I remember being greatly disappointed by ABT's revival of De Mille's Fall River Legend last fall, and despairing of ABT's ability to convincingly perform the dramatic one-act ballets which were once such a staple of its repertory. Perhaps because Tudor is quite different from deMille (an understatement!) or because Jardin has a much smaller cast than Legend, this Jardin was clear, and, for the most part, moving. Julie Kent has a gorgeous instrument of a body, innate musicality and a well-honed gift for adding just the right touch of plastique to her phrasing. This was all to the good in her Caroline, and served the Tudor choreography magnificently well. If only Kent's kinetic smarts were matched by her dramatic ones. I seldom got a sense from Kent of Caroline's inner turmoil and desperation, although she did handle the stunning "Excuse-me-while-I-have-a-strange-interlude" bit quite well. For me, Kent's most convincing moment came when she hovered downstage left, pretending not to be carefully watching The Man She Must Marry and choosing the right moment to slip away from him for her brief rendezvous with Her Love (Maxim Belotserkovsky, looking quite dashing indeed in his military jacket, epaulets and sash). Sandra Brown's An Episode from His Past wasn't a tower of regret, as with Martine van Hamel and other memorable interpreters of the role, but rather a petite, dark vortex of passion, pain and anger. Her performance was a surprise high point of the evening for me, especially the way she attacked a brief solo with deceptively difficult pointwork with what seemed to me to be just the right subsumation of technique to character. Of the men, as noted, Belotserkovsky was appropriately handsome, and he seems to grow in confidence and artistry each season. Having said that, I also felt that he didn't let me very far inside the character of this man. This is one of the great challenges and themes of this ballet -- the contrast between the proper and reserved external lives of these four people, and their passionate and doomed internal lives. The dancers have to show us both sides of their character, often simultaneously, and often while working through Tudor's tricky puzzle-box choreography. A great performance of Jardin leaves me heartbroken, not just for Caroline, but for all four characters and their ruined lives. Robert Hill's groom was a bit of a cipher -- I'd like to have gotten more of a sense of his own misgivings at this star-crossed marriage. While it wasn't quite everything I would've wanted, this was still a fine and poignant performance, and, I hope, a sign that Tudor's repertory will remain viable in this new century. Having gone on at some length about these two old chestnuts of the ABT repertory, I find myself a bit surprised that I don't have more to say about Twyla Tharp's new ballet, Variations on a Theme by Haydn, set to Brahm's orchestral work of much the same name. It was pretty, well-danced, less ambitious and ideosyncratic than her recent The Beethoven Seventh for City Ballet, and, in that its sights were clearly set lower (one does not set a ballet to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony without making a Statement), it was much more successful in attaining them. I find myself looking at these new works of Tharp's, and contrasting them to the Tharp I admired back in the Seventies, when she managed to shake up and enliven the entire dance world, and became, in her own way, as much of a superstar as the dancers with whom she worked. In some ways, she's made a 180-degree turn from the choreographer she was back then. There's nothing wrong with growth and change, and we're not the same audiences we were back then (I personally have more waistline and less hair), either. One thing I remember of the Tharp of yesteryear was that she eschewed such pedestrian concepts as symmetry and unison in her ensemble work. Yet there was a lot of symmetry in the Beethoven, and even more in the Brahms -- quite emphatic, split-down-the-middle symmetry. If eight dancers were on the left side of the stage, there'd be eight on the right perfectly mirroring their every move. Sometimes lead couples would similarly mirror each other, placed conspicuously downstage right and left, and occasionally a lucky one or two were allowed to occupy the sacred center ground. I remember when a hallmark of Tharp's work was a sort of organized chaos -- I don't think there was a single instance of such a conspicuously balanced design in such older works as Sue's Leg, or Deuce Coupes I and II, Push Comes to Shove, or even, from what I remember, Give and Take, her long-gone, delightful hommage to Balanchine's Stars and Stripes. If a beginning choreograpic student were to make such use of symmetry, I imagine her teacher might have a few words to say about the aesthetic perils of the over-employment of such a strong and unsubtle technique. Yet Tharp is no novice, and perhaps she was trying, in good post-modernist fashion, to make her emphatic use of symmetry into a statement about Symmetry, or perhaps she's decided, after thirty-some years, to explore it and get it out of her system. I don't think she could possibly have more to say on the subject after this piece. Years ago, Arlene Croce wrote a piece proclaiming that the dance style of the brave new decade (I think it was the eighties -- remember them?) would have as a hallmark the of super-dense, deeply articulated vocabulary that was then such a marked quality of Tharp's style. I'm sure I'd have a hard time convincing the current generation of dance-goers that there was a time that I'd want to see Tharp's work over and over because there was so much neat movement going on, packed so intensely together, that I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something. Her original Push Comes to Shove seemed, at the time, to be a brilliant wedding of her own dense style with classical ballet, which seemed quite langorous in comparison. Clearly Tharp's interests or abilities, or both, are not in this style of movement, at least not in the work I've seen -- the vestiges of it in the Beethoven and Brahms seem little more than tics, and I'd wonder, in both ballets, why these pretty dancers would suddenly seem to suffer a brief fit of kinetic Tourette's Syndrome. There was, thankfully, much less of this in the Brahms than the Beethoven, and perhaps she felt the need to toss in a few twitches to remind us that she is, after all, Twyla Tharp. What I did see was a lot of balletic movement that sometimes struck me as the kind of vocabulary a newcomer, or, in Tharp's case, an outsider, might make on a foray into the classical lexicon -- lots of dancers starting or ending phrases in deep elonge poses in fourth, or using as transitions chasses that began and ended in such a pose, lots of supported pirouettes for the women ending in first arabesque. Fairly basic building blocks, really, and I can perfectly understand why I recently read someone damn this work with the faint praise that it looked as if it could have been choreographed by Hans van Manen. However, Tharp is nothing if not a smart cookie, and I'd like to think that she knew exactly what she was doing every step of the way. Another thing I remember from the Tharp of years ago was almost always feeling as if every movement, from the first to last, was part of a grand, cohesive and powerful (though nonverbal and often non-linear) argument. Sometimes the points she'd make were almost social commentary (those wonderful hammy phony curtain calls in the original Push come to mind), sometimes musical or spatial. She avoided pedantry by usually abstracting her themes quite a bit from the immediate movement at hand. I often didn't quite understand everything she might be trying to say, but I knew she was, indeed, saying something more than just the sum of her dancers' movements. This is also the way I feel about Balanchine's work, and Tharp has repeatedly expressed her admiration for Balanchine over the years. If there was such an argument in the Brahms, I couldn't undestand or sense it. Now, having concluded these brief introductory comments, what can I say about what I actually saw onstage? It was pretty. Very pretty, and very sweet. The symmetry, which I found a bit disturbing in the Beethoven (at the time I wondered why she wasn't being more sophisticated), here became, after awhile, surreal and soothing, like watching changing cloud formations through some mirrored facets of a kaleidoscope. And if there was little about her specific steps for her dancers that stuck in my memory, I was struck by the the work's lilting and upbeat flow. As with the Beethoven at City Ballet, ABT's dancers clearly loved dancing this work. God knows if I were a dancer, I'd pick a new piece by Tharp over something by, say, John Meehan any day of the week. Tharp kept shuttling her five lead couples on and off the stage for brief turns with authority and alacrity, and, as with the Beethoven, I liked the sense of community she created -- she doesn't look at dancers as machines for producing steps, and has as much interest in her corps dancers and soloists, in their way, as her lead dancers. Again, no wonder dancers take to her works (well, her new works) with a vibrant enthusiasm. I was once again impressed with Sandra Brown, filling in with verve for an injured Susan Jaffe. Although Brown's not a newcomer, this evening was my first chance at seeing her dance leading roles, and she was, for me, the surprise hit of the evening. I plan on paying much more attention to her in the future. Brown's dash matched her partner's, Carreno, quite nicely. Julie Kent and Angel Corella were the bubbliest couple, although they should give us some sort of warning when they're both about to smile simultaneously, so we don sunglasses. I liked the abandon with which Marcelo Gomes tossed Paloma Herrera around (there was some nice, breathless girl-tossing in places), but Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Belotserkovsky were the the class of the performance for me. Dvorovenko seems to grow in poise and authority daily, and her mile-long legs are nicely complemented by Belotserkovsky's. According to my program, Ashley Tuttle was onstage as well (partnered by Herman Cornejo). So, although I found much troublesome Thursday, I found much to like as well, and I'm looking forward to seeing the Tharp again in New York. [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited March 30, 2000).] [This message has been edited by Manhattnik (edited March 30, 2000).]

I believe that after leaving ABT, Osato had quite a career in musicals and films.

Just this past season, I loved Robert LaFosse's bows when he was Von Rotbart in City Ballet's Swan Lake. For a Saturday matinee, he walked onstage slowly, slowly, slowly, glaring at the audience like the bad guy in some ancient melodrama. The audience, appropriately, booed and hissed, then burst into applause. It wasn't quite in the mood of the ballet, but I admired his sense of fun.

The last time I saw Liebeslieder I was sitting next to a couple of overdressed suburban women who seemed to think the performance was an ideal time to slurp their bottles spring water, crunch mints, and get caught up on each others' doubtless fascinating lives. They left at the pause, thinking it was an intermission, and either weren't allowed back in, or couldn't have been bothered. Either way, they were in the right place, as far as I was concerned. Of course, I somehow forgot to tell them that it was only a pause, when I saw them getting up....

There are what, eight rows in that theater altogether? Curtain calls also lend themselves to mishaps, like when the ballerina can't get that stupid rose out of the bouquet to give to her partner and tugs and tugs in an unladylike manner. Or there was that grande-ballerina-style sinking-to-one-knee curtsey that Twyla Tharp gave at the end of Beethoven's Seventh. It certainly didn't work with the rather mannish-looking suit she was wearing. Being an old man I'd thought I'd seen just about everything, but I was rather surprised a few seasons ago at NYCB to see Miranda Weese somehow manage to hurt herself during a curtain call. It was after Symphony in Three Movements. The curtain came up, and as she stepped to the front of the stage to take her bows with the other leading ladies, she somehow slipped or stumbled over her foot. She was grimacing in pain and noticably limping until the curtain came down, and was conspicuously absent from the bows in front of the curtain, even though she was dancing a lead and should've been there. I was kind of flabbergasted, having never seen a curtain-call injury before, but I was quite thankful when Weese returned onstage after the following intermission. So I guess it looked worse than it actually was.

I loved the daggers the Trocks would gaze at each other when it looked like one "ballerina" was hogging the applause.

Let's not forget the art of taking curtain calls in character. I remember when Alicia Alonso returned to ABT to dance Giselle in the mid-Seventies after being absent for a zillion years. I read Edwin Denby's review of her 1943 debut, where he commented on her taking her bows in the character of Giselle, and sure enough, she did it again at the curtain calls of the performance I saw, a mere 35 or so years after Denby wrote of her. I think in-character curtain calls can be charming, if not done to excess.

His sixes were really great in Act II. Well, I could. She's been mentioned a lot in this thread already....

Well, I'm a little loath to say this, but I've never had much use for things like "types" and "emploi." It feels too much like putting an artist into a box, and, worse, insisting on watching her with blinkers on. Great artists have a way of climbing out of those boxes, when given a chance, and the whole point of blinkers is that they keep you from seeing anything that's not right in front of you. So you miss a lot that way. I remember years ago, when I was just getting my feet wet going to the ABT and the Royal Ballet, back in the days when you had to wait online for hours for standing-room tickets, I remember volunteering to some very knowledgeable young woman that I thought that Suzanne Farrell was a pretty good dancer, even when compared to the Kirklands and Makarovas of the world. Her reply was that Farrell wasn't bad, but that she was just a soubrette. I have no doubts that this woman's blinkers consisted of more than just a predilection for categorizing and condescension, i.e., she also had her head up her butt, but I haven't had all that much use for that way of thinking since then. (I'm sure Farrell would've been killer with a tambourine, however. Did Balanchine ever give her one?) Perhaps I'm simply kidding myself, and that by thinking that Odette/Odile should be a gal with mile-long legs, or that Giselle should be a good jumper, I'm engaging in a kind of emploi, and I might as well accept the fact that others have taken that codification far further than I have in the back of my mind. I could certainly think of a number of dancers whom I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out than see in Swan Lake. Of course, I'd probably feel that way about them in much of anything. But with dancing, it's not, I think, as simple as opera, with its widely understood categories of voices. Notes are notes, you either hit them or you don't. You have a certain range, and I imagine it's a physical impossibility for a bass to sing a tenor role, or vice versa. It's why Sam Ramey sings Mefistofele, and Placido Domingo doesn't (Ramey also looks a lot better bare-chested -- I don't think I'd want to see Domingo without a shirt). It's easily quantifiable. Unless you approach casting decisions with a measuring stick and calipers (I'm sure it's been done), ballet isn't that by-the-numbers. You can't say (well, I couldn't say), "That's a classical arabesque penchée. That's a demi-charactere one." At least, such distinctions can't be determined by the angle of the arabesque, or anything easily, clearly and unequivicably reducable to numbers. I guess I'm wondering if we have more to gain by pushing artistic directors to have an understanding of how "emploi" works, than by simply wishing they'd get their casting right. If they don't know, after x number of years in the business, that X is a good Odile but not an Aurora, but that Y is the other way around, all the employ-ment in the world isn't going to help them make better casting decisions. And if they do know, do they need it? Perhaps emploi in this day and age is more helpful as an aide for us viewers to clarify our ways of thinking about roles?