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I voted for "not good". I don't hate the block programming, but it certainly makes life difficult when you're stuck with ballets that you loathe (Dybbuk being a favorite example for me, too, but also Martins' Jeux de Cartes and Nilas in Orpheus) in order to see those that you either love (Apollo, Agon, Raymonda Variations & Stravinsky Violin) or new ones that you want to see (Wheeldon's Nightingale & Rose). I would have tried to get tickets for another Nightingale program, but the thought of sitting through Jeux de Cartes a second time made it seem like too much effort. I do like the idea of one "wild card" program each week just to mix things up and juxtapose some different ballets where you might see some new relationships. I also feel that the "one note" programs come off badly -- all Bach or all Greek/Stravinsky/Balanchine or all Robbins are just too much. Balanchine masterworks are easy to program because he created masterpieces in so many styles. Robbins masterworks are harder to program because he became quite repetitious and the lesser works are too obviously knock-offs of the better works (Tschaikovsky Piano Pieces vs. Dances at a Gathering for example). On the plus side, the corps often seemed better rehearsed in some of the big works. And the orchestra usually sounded good, too. For me, the best programs were those in the "For Lincoln" week of Balanchine "black & white" works. They were mixed and matched all week in interesting programs and there were enough ballets that there wasn't excessive repetition.

Yesterday afternoon’s performance of ‘Jewels’ was excellent. To begin with, the music, conducted by Clotilde Otranto was wonderful – the Faure, Stravinsky and Tschaikovsky all filled with depth, breadth and nuance. In ‘Emeralds’ I could have wished for more mystery and less flash from some of the cast. Rachel Rutherford elegantly partnered by Jared Angle had the right perfume for their two pas de deux, but I found her ‘hands’ solo a little too overt. Jenifer Ringer and Jon Stafford in the ‘walking’ pas de deux seemed too jerky -- there should be a pulse, but not a spasm (as Kowroski’s program notes suggest “very smooth . . . as if you’re walking on air”). The pas de trois seemed too brittle, especially the women, Alina Dronova and Ana Sophia Scheller. The corps of newbies and apprentices seemed to have been properly coached in the style of the piece. Overall, this was a lovely performance and I only wish that Violette Verdy were available to coax a little more allure and depth out of the leads. As everyone has reported above, Ashley Bouder, Benjamin Millipied and Tess Reichlin were individually and collectively superb in ‘Rubies’. Ashley and Ben gave a playfully sexy interpretation, while Tess was just plain sexy. And the corps, especially the four men, contributed to an outstanding rendition. I do have one quibble, which reflects on Figurante’s concern about the dilution of Balanchine’s choreography. Ashley supported in profile by Ben swings her leg back and then up toward her head. In my mind, I have the image of Patricia McBride doing this move with a bent leg so that her knee comes close to touching her forehead. Ashley (and the POB ballerina on my ‘Jewels’ DVD) does this move with a straight leg which for me looks more refined and less quirky. Finally, Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard lead ‘Diamonds’ with all the sweep and grandeur that the work requires. I find the ‘Diamonds’ set cheesy and distracting, but the dancing by the leads, the demis and the corps was wonderful. Among the demis I particularly noticed Gwyneth Muller and Amanda Hankes, both dancing with special panache. The stage seemed especially crowded in the finale. Are the current crop of dancers bigger than the original cast? Or are they just dancing bigger? It was a splendid way to end the spring season. Lincoln would have been proud of what he and Balanchine created.

We can all be thankful for Kyra Nichols farewell performance on Friday evening. She left us with the grace, style and artistry that endeared her to us over her 34 year career with the company. She has been seen on that stage in so many different works for so long that there is an inevitable rending of its tightly woven fabric when she departs. It was obvious last night that she was beloved by everyone on both sides of the footlights and in her lovely nuanced performances of three Balanchine classics it was equally obvious why we care so deeply about her departure. Kyra’s dancing displayed all of the honesty, the integrity, the technical authority, the musical acuity, the sheer joy, the sly humor, the tenderness, the spontaneity we have so admired throughout her career. And the company rose to the occasion magnificently. In “Serenade” surrounded by a sisterhood of outstanding corps women (Megan LeCrone, Rachel Piskin, Alina Dronova, Glenn Keenan, Ashley Laracey, Likolani Brown and Gwyneth Muller especially caught my eye) with Ashley Bouder and Sara Mearns contributing indelible performances and with Philip Neal and Ask la Cour providing elegant support, Kyra was the radiant central element of this richly patterned, endlessly appealing work. Her technical resources were integrated into a performance that was lyrical, nuanced and secure. ‘Robert Schumann’s “Davidsbundlertanze”’ shows us a community of 8 dancers and a pianist exploring both fraught and tender moments (presumably in the lives of Robert and Clara Schumann). Dancing the most mature couple, Kyra and Charles Askegard seem to be looking back toward their youth and foreword toward their doom. Kyra’s maternal gestures reaching out to calm Askegard’s increasingly agitated state were heart stopping. Maria Kowroski partnered by Neal caught the exuberance and abandon of her role, while Jenifer Ringer with Jared Angle, and even Nilas Martins with Jennie Somogyi seemed to be inspired by both the choreography and the occasion. Cameron Grant contributed a more coherent reading of the score than earlier in the season, but I would still wish for more nuanced, supple playing. In the “Der Rosenkavalier” section excerpted from “Vienna Waltzes” Kyra’s opening solo was perfection. Carried along by those exquisite arms and hands in long white gloves, this was really dancing about the joy of movement to gorgeous music in a magnificent setting with a handsome, though sometimes phantom, partner -- Neal. When the ballroom fills with swirling waltzers and Kyra’s joyous movement is magnified, expanded and refracted. The audience reaction was tumultuous and the curtain calls went on and on. Flowers were presented to Kyra by Askegard, Perry Silvey, Neal, Damian Woetzel, Nilas Martins, Peter Martins, and finally by her two sons, Joe & Cameron. All of the company joined in the applause and flowers and confetti rained from the rafters. Kyra was gracious, awestruck, ah shucks, doting mother, loving wife, grateful partner. An unforgettable farewell to an incomparable ballerina.

I agree with you completely about Walters playing for 'Dances at a Gathering' which seemed barely adequate. Also, I agree that Schumann's piano pieces can be hard to interpret. My real point here is that by placing the pianist on the stage with the dancers. Balanchine has emphasized the importance of the music in the ensemble effort of 'Davidsbundlertanze' and I felt that Cameron Grant's contribution, along with the dancing of Nilas Martins, Philip Neal and Charles Askegard didn't measure up in the performance we attended. I think that there is very little commentary on this board about the quality of the music at NYCB. This season, the music IMO has been all over the map. I thought that the orchestra under Maestro Karoui at the opening night 'R+J' was the outstanding element of the production. The same score under Maestro Briskin sounded tired and anemic. IMO it was a major mistake to put the piano on stage (in the 'Dances at a Gathering' corner) for 'Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto #2' which made the soloist and orchestra sound out of synch from where we sat. IMO the guest conductor Paul Hoskins was inadequate in both performances we attended where he conducted -- 'Raymonda Variations' came to a near standstill and 'Stravinsky Violin' seemed to be salvaged by Mr. Delmoni's solo violin passages. IMO Maestro Kaplow often makes fine contributions in the classical and romantic repertory pieces, but usually falls short in more contemporary works. For a company that has traditionally put such a high emphasis on the relationship of the dance to the music, we need to be aware of both in reacting to the performances we see or we will some day find ourselves losing this unique tradition.

How so? this suite of 18 pieces is not very tightly organized to begin with, the only overt coherence being the repetition of #2 in #17. Otherwise they present a loosely structured succession of moods representing what Schumann saw as the two sides of his nature - impulsive Florestan and dreamy Eusebius. IMO this is a suite of related pieces which Schumann put together for a reason. Things like the impulsive and dreamy arise from the same individual -- the composer. Unlike Robbins' with "Dances at a Gathering", Balanchine started out with a suite pre-established by the composer as somehow related and it's up to the performer to interpret the 'suite' in a way that helps the listerner find those relationships. In this case, the choreographer has found many relationships for the viewer/listener and overlaid a dance structure on the music, but at this particular performance IMO the pianist didn't aid in the overall process by emphasizing the 'suite' rather than the individual pieces.

Having seen the final dress rehearsal and all three SAB Workshop performances, I'd like to recap my impressions. First, they were excellent, if a tad too long. At the last minute, Peter Martins decided to throw in the balcony scene from his new “Romeo+Juliet” which made the first section run an hour– a long sit for us older folks. The youngsters (ages 11 to 14) were delightful in Sean Lavery’s “Twinkliana” to Mozart’s variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” – 6 girls and 1 boy and two (mostly) different casts. The one holdover I detected, Isabella DeVivo, was delightful in the 6th variation in all performances and the pas de deux with Austin Bachman on Saturday afternoon and Monday evening. Perhaps Isabella has the most distinctive gargouillades both right and left required for this variation. The only thing that I found a little creepy about “Twinkle” was the pas de deux (they’re just too young). This was followed by Martins’ “Les Gentilhommes”, a work to Handel music for 9 boys. Although very well danced by both casts, it is quite long (and sometimes boring) with a spot about 2/3’s of the way through where he should have stopped (like Jerome Robbins, Martins doesn’t know how to edit). Then came the “Romeo+Juliet” with 16-year-old Callie Bachman as Juliet. She was supposedly Martins’ muse whom he created the role on, but she injured her knee in March and was forced out of the premier in early May. She seemed rather blank to me, wonderful line and technique, but not much sense of abandon to young love. Her partner, Russell Janzen, is a tall, handsome, ardent Romeo. I continue to find Peter Martins' choreography rather repetitive and predictable (although this scene is the best thing in the new production). At least at SAB we were spared the creepy and cheap looking set from the new production. BTW, Callie’s younger brother, Austin Bachman, 13, was the male lead in the first cast of “Twinkliana” and is exceptionally talented. Suki Shorer's staging of Balanchine’s “Four Temperaments” strikes me as definitive and faithful to Mr. B, and yet she left the students with the freedom to offer their own interpretive choices -- Cameron Dieck was the partner of Kristen Segin in Sanguinic at the matinee and then switched to Phlegmatic in the evening. The differences between his Phlegmatic and Richard Greenberg's in the afternoon were significant -- Cameron's more sensual and Richard's more architectural, but both were valid within the framework that Suki (and Mr. B.) provided for them. And while Cameron at the matinee and Russell Jansen in the evening were both wonderful partners in Sanguinic they didn't seem to be offering the same degree of support to their respective ballerinas, Kristen Segin and Sara Adams. Also, in the three couples stating the Theme there was quite a bit of switching around and substitution between matinee and evening which made those sections look different, but valid, at each performance. Matt Renko as Melancholic was the only constant between performances, and there his matinee performance seemed less mannered. I was distracted by his facial expressions in the evening where he seemed to be acting rather than letting the choreography create the "melancholy temperament". Not having Peter Boal to coach that section was probably a liability for Suki, since Peter was such an outstanding interpreter of that role. Raina Gilliland was exciting and emphatic as Choleric in the first cast (she’s the younger sister of NYCB’s Kaitlyn). In Balanchine’s “Gounod Symphony”, staged by Susie Pilarre, the corps of 12 girls and 6 boys was exceptional and the first cast leads, Sara Adams and Zach Clark, were pretty great. The second cast leads, Kristen Segin and Josh Thew, were not as good and looked pretty tired before it was over. It’s a beautiful work with some incredibly complex choreography for the corps – in the final movement, the corps is aligned in 5 parallel rows of 6 dancers each (boys at the ends with 4 girls in the middle). They go through a series of parallel Balanchine ‘daisy chains’ that are just astounding to watch. The corps had obviously been drilled for months and they were perfection – especially the second cast corps which was anchored by Cameron Dieck (the tallest man) and Francisco Estevez (the shortest) who helped keep the lines straight and the movements precise and musical. The Saturday matinee casts danced at Monday night’s gala performance, making them the 'preferred' cast, but with the possible exceptions of Zach Clark in 'Gounod' and Taina Gilliland as 'Choleric' in 4T's, we found both casts equally competent and interesting. It's a great dilemma for the stagers to have such talent in depth that they can confidently field alternate casts of such strength -- not just technical ability and stamina, but musicality, maturity and individuality. As to Mr. McCauley’s comment in the NY Times that this might not be remembered as a vintage year for SAB, I found this vintage to have a robust, distinctly masculine flair that will do just fine in the future.

June 8th: We were really dreading the worst, but the premier of Christopher Wheeldon’s new work “The Nightingale & the Rose” from a short story by Oscar Wilde with music by NYCB’s resident composer, Bright Sheng was especially beautiful. Wendy Whelan is superb in choreography that uses her unique talents – angularity, speed, suppleness. Wendy’s initial solo is a beautifully realized series of avian allusions involving hands, arms, legs, feet and head that clearly establish her as the bird of the title. The subsequent duet with Tyler Angle is wonderfully strange as Tyler captures and powerfully presents Wendy. Her encounter with the red rose bush – first dried and gnarled and then coming to vivid life as she sacrifices her life blood to make it bloom – is poignant and haunting. The bush is first played by two men (Craig Hall & Seth Orza) in dark purple costumes and darkened eye sockets who begin to manipulate Wendy in a series of complex lifts and stretches. Gradually the bush is transformed into 16 men whose costumes also begin to transform into mostly bright scarlet while they support and contort the increasingly inert Wendy among them. The creation of the red rose is a real Wheeldon ‘coup d’theatre’. Some of the rest of the story seems told with perfunctory choreography (the encounters of Tyler & Sara Mearns as his love interest, Wendy’s brief encounters with the white & yellow rose bushes) but the final moments when Tyler presents the rose to Sara, Sara rejects both the rose and Tyler, and Tyler crushes the rose and ignores the body of the nightingale who as given her life to create the rejected rose are poignant and breathtaking. I was concentrating so much on the stage that I can only say that the music was supportive and interesting, but not initially memorable. And the weeping Disney-esque moon seemed to be a false note in an otherwise abstract setting. The rest of that program was pretty weak – Martins’ “Jeux des Cartes” to Stravinsky is a mish-mash of hectic comings and goings danced by Hyltin, JAngle, Millipied, and Veyette with great commitment and panache, but little impact. It’s nice to see JAngle dancing with full impact again. He’s a wonderful partner and has a lovely, slightly self-effacing stage presence. Balanchine’s “Davidbundlertanz” requires a fully committed cast and an outstanding pianist to be totally successful. The cast seemed about 75% committed, Kyra Nichols, Nicolaj Hubbe, Jennie Ringer among the totally invested and Nilas Martins looking bored and uninvolved. Maria Kowroski was hoydenish in the Farrell role partnered by a subdued, but attentive Philip Neal. Cameron Grant didn’t pull this difficult series of short piano pieces together into a coherent whole, thereby losing the full impact of the dramatic and introspective choreography.

The three SAB students in the 'Les Gentilhommes' photo are left to right: Francisco Estevez, Matthew Renko, and Joseph Estevez.

I don't think he looked feminine at all. I thought Maria and he were great together. I agree with Roberto Dini, although I recognize that sz has the experience and ability to judge technical problems (that I wish I had!!). Sean Suozzi was replaced in last night's Stravinski Violin Concert -- but looked just fine in the lobby after the performance. Actually, there were quite a number of replacements in the male corps of SVC, but they looked very good. I mentioned (on the "Casting June 12 - 17" page) that Amar and Maria replaced Alfred and Wendy....and I couldn't take my eyes off of Amar. He was so "on the music" and energetic. His phrasing was fresh and interesting while being right on the money as well. He was tender yet authoritative in the pdd, and joyful in the last movement. I have been more and more impressed with him this season. He used to seem so "flabby," but I guess he's lost his baby fat! Actually, Suozzi was replaced in both “Stravinsky Violin” and “Dybbuk” last night. You probably didn’t miss him in “Dybbuk” because the whole thing is so forgettable – maybe you spent the 45 minutes looking more closely at the Kierstein exhibit in the lobby – a much better use of the time. From McBride and Tomasson through Ringer and Millipied, no amount of effort and commitment has been able to save this dud. And with the block programming there’s no way to avoid it if you want to see the two Balanchine masterpieces that “enclose” it. Amar was truly riveting in the “Stravinsky”, both in his solos and in the pas de deux with Maria K. In the final movement, the contrast between Amar’s committed and enthusiastic dancing and Nilas Martins’ indifferent performance was painful. Nilas is two-dimensional, his dancing lacks volume, it is colorless. His pas de deux with Yvonne Borree was an embarrassment – the bland leading the bland. And when he danced in front of those marvelous corps men (Hall and Peiffer among them) in the first movement, Nilas simply disappeared. Joaquin de Luz was extraordinary in “Raymonda Variations”. He lost the cockiness that makes him so wrong for many Balanchine works and his soft landings and precision in beats, turns and jumps were remarkable. Megan Fairchild has become more authoritative in the ballerina role and the variations were all well danced, with Mearns a stand out in the fifth variation.