REVIEWS: NYCB Spring 2007, Weeks 2-3

[bart]

The design team tried to find some modernist aesthetic which had one foot in fidelity to the times and the other into some 19/20th century art genre I can't quite name... not quite impressionism... but it was sort of crude looking and made no sense. I much prefer the way the ABT does their scenery/sets.

Kirkby's work has been categorized "expressionism." Maybe "abstract expressionism" would be better. The color palate is dark, with occasional exceptions that remind one of the garish hues of the R&J costumes. The brush strokes are intentionally broad and course. He does a kind of sculpture, too. There seem to be memories of Kokoschka, Beckman, Soutine, and even certain works by Pollack.

Here's a link to his website: Per Kirkby.

Additional images can be found Here

One wonders what he would make of Fille Mal Gardee, Napoli, Jewels or Nutcracker, should Peter Martins ever get around to reimagining (or re-imaging) those.

[richard53dog]

Well, Mr. Macaulay of the Times was not pleased. He really ripped Per Kirkeby for backdrop, costumes and set. But he was kind to the young dancers.

He was also pretty rough on Martins for not providing an effective platform for his dancers.

[Helene]

Both Barnes and Macaulay note that Rosaline is not a character in the ballet. Given how concise ballet mime can be, you don't even need a physical character to show that Romeo is heart broken over someone: just a little sulking and focus on a downstage right building, a gesture to the building's window and to his heart when his friends come to distract him. At some point in the scene, they just need to point to Romeo, point to window, make dancing gesture, point to Capulet's place, maybe mime a mask over the eyes, give the "come with us" gesture, and throw his cape at him. It would establish in about 10 seconds total that Romeo was heartsick over someone in the building, and that he could find her where they were going if he'd follow them.

[Klavier]

I wanted to like this. I really did. And in parts I did. As most everyone has said, Sterling Hyltin and Rob Fairchild are an entirely appealing pair of young lovers. But Romeo and Juliet is more than a couple of cute kids who fall in love and then die. It's a Shakespearean tragedy, and like other Shakespearean tragedies it depicts human beings caught in a web of their own devising, where their virtues are inseparable from their faults, and where they make tragic choices that eventually lead to their own destruction as well as the destruction of others around them.

In truth, I don't know the MacMillan version very well. I have seen it only once, at ABT with David Hallberg and Paloma Herrera (though I just ordered both Ferri/Corella and Ferri/Eagling on DVD). But I know both the Shakespeare play and the Prokofiev score quite well, and I don't think Martins quite measures up to either. Part of the problem is Martins's decision to play the ballet in two acts. This is not just academic: a good intermission point is not just a convenient break for the audience to pee, buy a drink, and shmooze; it should ideally be a point where the action comes to a head, a kind of culmination requiring a respite before the drama continues. As the Times reviewer pointed out, Prokofiev's original 3-act version satisfies these needs by ending its first two acts at the balcony scene and the double murder. Martins, apparently desperate to do the ballet in two acts, places his break before the wedding scene, a relatively low point of dramatic tension. This means a lot of ground has to be covered after the intermission, and Martins further wastes valuable time in Part II by bringing on a quintet of SAB students in a divertissement that does nothing to advance the plot. Shakespeare, on the other hand, though this is an early tragedy in which there are some dramatic flaws, speeds quickly enough to the essence of the tragic action by placing the double murder exactly midway through his play -- thus an ideal intermission point for modern productions, and the creators of West Side Story understood this precisely when they placed the rumble for the Jets and Sharks at the end of their first act.

Then there is the Youth Question. The idea of a very young Romeo and Juliet has its appeal, but at least in Shakespeare, Juliet's rapid transformation in particular from an obediently passive child to a glowingly passionate, strong-willed young woman is one of the most striking elements of the play. Even after Romeo's murder of Tybalt, there is no doubt where Juliet's sympathies ultimately lie (Nurse: "Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?" Juliet: "Shall I speak ill of him who is my husband?"), and unless one can believe in a Juliet who ultimately rejects her beloved nurse ("Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!"), one isn't seeing Shakespeare's Juliet. And I don't think Sterling Hyltin quite got there.

Casting svelte young Gina Pazgoquin as the Nurse ("ancient damnation" indeed) was ludicrous; this part should have been played by one of the "adults," of whom only Jock Soto stood out as equal to his part. Poor Albert Evans was as misused here as he was when playing Rothbart in Martins's Swan Lake, and Nikolaj Hubbe couldn't do much with Martins's thankless interpretation of Friar Lawrence -- who in Shakespeare is a far more authoritative figure. As for the others, Joaquin deLuz and Daniel Ulbricht were most successful as Tybalt and Mercutio respectively. My feeling about Danny though is that for all his charm, good looks, comedic sense, and technical aplomb, he always does the same thing -- but is that his fault or just the roles he's typecast in? I would really like to know if there's any greater range to him. Would Romeo be out of the question? I never assumed Romeo had to be 6' tall.

At least his costume wasn't hopeless, but deLuz was forced to wear a positively ugly yellow thing with black piping that may have gone a long way to explain his character's characteristic anger. The color-coded Montagues and Capulets (green Montagues, red Capulets, or was it green Capulets, red Montagues) simply looked silly; surely a more imaginative, subtle way of differentiating the two clans could have been found. Still, any inadequacies in the costuming were outdone by the set. A unit set was a good idea, but why something so ugly as this grey stone fort? Has Kirkeby never seen any true Italian Renaissance architecture (not to mention true Italian Renaissance clothing)? But even the ugliness of the set couldn't compete with the hideous curtain that was brought down during intermission.

I don't want to keep finding fault, especially as Robbie, Sterling, Jock, and Danny did so much to carry the performance as best they could. And Karoui's work in the pit seemed to me exemplary. But as has been pointed out, these are just "elements" in a production that had a lot of holes in it.

[Buddy]

I just got back from the Mariinsky Festival where I saw Maria Kowroski, Damien Woetzel, and Philip Neal perform for the first time. They were very well received. I became an instant NYCB fan ! .

PS

At the Mariinsky Festival Maria Kowroski was given the stageside VIP box to 'brighten up the theater' and to watch Natalia Osipova (What a wonder she is ! ) dance Don Quixote. What a beautiful lady Maria Kowroski is ! I went running over to chiapuris, our living encylopedia of ballet performers, to find out who she is.

She was one of about four ballerinas to be given a huge bouquet of flowers by Makhar Vasiev, Kirov director, at the gala party.

She danced beautifully. It was fascinating for me to see the current difference in style between her and the Kirov supporting dancers. The Kirov probably more flowing and lyrical. Maria Kowroski more articulated and 'punctuated'. Both wonderful.

Back to topic.

How did it go tonight, drb ? Hoping for good news.

[added by Buddy eons later--I believe that it was actually the Forsythe evening that Maria Kowroski attended]

[drb]

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Seth + Kathryn

Early on as my binocs caught a closeup of Kathryn Morgan a memory popped up of a photo of the young Fonteyn. Not related to anything about the performance. Ms. Morgan is of course very beautiful, and in a particularly expressive way.

At the Ball, when it came time to dance with Paris (Christian Tworzyanski) Katie danced in a very by-the-numbers way. Now she could have got more applause being expressive, but I think she had an emotional arc in mind. A shy child, showing she could dance grown up steps. Then her girlfriends came by and she danced with them, clearly playmates playing one last time. Then came Romeo (Seth Orza), and she danced to him. After convincing Mommy (Darci) and Daddy (Jock) to let her hang around when they wanted her to go with them, to became tu. And to the Balcony.

The Balcony PdD, began well enough, with Seth dancing Big, something good to see with a NYCB man. As passions were starting to build something went very wrong with the choreography. Soaring passion must not take time out for intellectual puzzle solving. You don't pause in the middle of love-making to play a game of chess (at least not when you are young). It started prettily enough with Seth setting Katie on the floor in a neat sort of asymmetric way. But then she was left just sitting there holding the pose as he moved asymmetrically to get in position for that asymmetrical upside down kiss. The dancers solved the puzzle precisely. But passion's momentum lost. And there was still a piece to the puzzle yet to complete: regaining symmetry by dancing a bit side-by-side. The PdD is a masterpiece of sorts in the MacMillan version, sort of kin to the White Swan PdD's position in Swan Lake. If a rechoreographer of Swan Lake changed that PdD it would not be Swan Lake any more. If some choreographer ever finds a really better PdD, she should make it the centerpiece to some whole new ballet. It is a shame that MacMillan's couldn't be used in this R+J.

But the dancing was soaring and splendid.

This was scene #4 of 11. Another problem to solve if you only want one intermission. The choice, to divide by two and round. So stop at 5 or 6. OK, use 5 since you could use the downtime for the characters to run to 6, the church. Unfortunately, totally wrong for the music, and for emotions of the audience, which both say stop after 4. Math rules. The chance to send the audience to intermission on a high, lost.

The church was a very non-religious place, i.e., not at all Catholic (assuming this is in Italy, not Denmark). Although Mr. Hubbe was a handsome priest, he wasn't a Priest. The non-religious aura was somewhat crushing to the way the story played out. Eventually stuff of the play happens, yes Jock slaps Katie, but he feels his error, with some of the intensity that Robert Schumann probably felt when he slapped his daughter (ref. Davidsbundlertanze). Kathryn holds absolutely true to character throughout.

The wake up scene. Lovers awake. Juliet first. She sees the void that is their future. He wakes. I think Martins does some of his best work here. They dance with great mutual tenderness. Together, they dance memories of their love. R + J are not possible in their world. A glint of happiness. They hop back under the covers, covering themselves from that world. I really think that what they did then was simply hold each other, protected children, just for a moment, away from the world together. The nurse came in, he left, she yielded to her parents. She went to the priest. OK, but then she had second thoughts about the potion. It was her only Hope, but in this version's religious context, their wasn't Faith to push her over the line to dare the potion. Instead, confused, a quick hopeless helpless desperate gulp. Ms. Morgan, of course made it all believable.

The long period that they lay dead in the tomb was very effective, away from the world together.

This being the first cast I saw, I cannot make comparisons. But, as in all her other dancing that I've seen, Katie doesn't act. She is real. She truly is wonderful. The stamina of a ballerina in her prime. Pure beauty.

Beauty. Not a word for Mr. Kirkeby's work. The drop, as in his prior Danish Lake, follows his color-coding painting aesthetic. Juliet's side in warm colors, Romeo's in cool colors. Tybalt's (another excellent technical challenge for T. Angle) Yellow shrieks all across the bottom, mapping his story-driving support for all the wrong things. You wonder why Peter has worked with him on his last two ballets. Why would he drop the collaboration with the three Limbourg brothers (well, a channeled version of them), who gave him the exceptionally beautiful Beauty?

A good thing about this ballet. New stars are born for all the new faces in the full audience. We anguished when we found our favorites not cast. We would have enjoyed them for we would see the total dancer of our experience, a full moving arc of technique and artistry, a movie of our experience of that dancer. The newbe sees a snapshot. Sees our old favorite just as she is now. The compensation of depth for technique, artistry for freshness, is not available for newbe. These young leads give the next generation their own artists to watch grow, to come back to see. NYCB's young dancers are doing their jobs well, being and attracting the future. Some people will come back to see them in Balanchine. Balanchine gives me Faith. There is Hope after R+J.

[Buddy]

Hi, drb

Thank you for your epic and extremely fine review. I'm very glad that you liked so much of what you saw.

I am looking forward to your version of Romeo and Juliet someday !

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'. I really like the idea, but I am already ducking from the feedback I might get from this remark.

[carbro]

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'.

Huh? That sort of un-Romeo-and-Juliets Romeo and Juliet, doesn't it?

[Farrell Fan]

An email from a friend of mine, a NYCB subscriber, says of last night's performance: "The lady who sits next to me either snored or applauded the whole time." That's consistent with most of the reviews, I think.

[Buddy]

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'.

Huh? That sort of un-Romeo-and-Juliets Romeo and Juliet, doesn't it?

I guess this is giddy day for me. Nothing new.

carbro, think big ! (smile "clickable smily")

[Klavier]

What on earth do any of these children have to do with the story of Romeo and Juliet? (I see in my comments from last night I thought this episode occurred in Act Two; if it's Act One, no real difference.) I'm sure the presence of children is very nice in itself, but unless they somehow illuminate the action of the ballet, even if indirectly, you might as well put Bill Clinton on stage.

[Klavier]

An email from a friend of mine, a NYCB subscriber, says of last night's performance: "The lady who sits next to me either snored or applauded the whole time." That's consistent with most of the reviews, I think.

As long as she didn't do both at once. . . .

[Paul Parish]

Well, drb et al., it just shows to go you. [FF, I laughed out loud.]

BUT-- this is one of those cases where the myth is sure-fire and the dancers can always over-ride the choreography. They did with Misha's Swan Lake, they'll do it with R+J.

The arc you find in Katie's performance was already there in Ulanova's and Bessmertnova's (by the book dancing with Tybalt, etc.), and it's there in hte music. THe kids may eventually figure out how to make the puzzle you mention work; it's usually that they have to figure out the breathing.

Helgi Tomasson's RnJ for SFB is not answerable choreography either, but two ballerinas -- Julie Diana and Sarah van Patten -- have made it into tremendously moving theater by listening to the music and telling the story.

[bart]

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'.

Huh? That sort of un-Romeo-and-Juliets Romeo and Juliet, doesn't it?

R and J flee Verona, change their name to Stahlbaum, and become -- later in life -- the parents in "The Nut".

There ARE consequences to playing around with the classics. Especially classics that are extremely well known.

[Mel Johnson]

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'. I really like the idea, but I am already ducking from the feedback I might get from this remark.

And why not? Charles Dickens did it in Nicholas Nickleby in an astonishing redaction ostensibly by the redoutable actor-manager Vincent Crummels for his family acting company. Juliet lives. Romeo lives. Paris lives. Tybalt lives. Mercutio lives. Old Capulet and Old Montague come on to shake hands and everything is peachy-keen!

[Buddy]

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'. I really like the idea, but I am already ducking from the feedback I might get from this remark.

And why not? Charles Dickens did it in Nicholas Nickleby in an astonishing redaction ostensibly by the redoutable actor-manager Vincent Crummels for his family acting company. Juliet lives. Romeo lives. Paris lives. Tybalt lives. Mercutio lives. Old Capulet and Old Montague come on to shake hands and everything is peachy-keen!

I'm not sure if you are serious, but thanks anyway. I see it as being very do-able. It could be extremely beautiful. If I had any talent I would try it myself.

[Klavier]

Marc Morris by the way is planning a version of Romeo and Juliet with a 'Happy Ending'. I really like the idea, but I am already ducking from the feedback I might get from this remark.

And why not? Charles Dickens did it in Nicholas Nickleby in an astonishing redaction ostensibly by the redoutable actor-manager Vincent Crummels for his family acting company. Juliet lives. Romeo lives. Paris lives. Tybalt lives. Mercutio lives. Old Capulet and Old Montague come on to shake hands and everything is peachy-keen!

In a similar vein, in 1687 one Nahum Tate (also librettist of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas) rewrote the ending of King Lear so that Cordelia survives and marries Edgar.

[Mel Johnson]

To continue , one of my English Lit profs was Dr. Tate Irvine, who was, yes, descended from the duncely Tate, and did everything in his power to atone for his ancestor's violence to human thought. (N. Tate once wrote a poem in heroic couplets about syphilis. His dad's name was Faithfull Teate; gotta love that name!)

[Farrell Fan]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but isn't it possible that Mark Morris's happy ending involves the miraculous rebirth of Mercutio and his subsequent marriage to Romeo?

[Mel Johnson]

Hey, it's Mark Morris! Why not? Remember, Paul Taylor had one of his characters elope with a sofa!

[drb]

Yes, a hooker for the old guy! Nice to see a tradition of Mr. B extended to Mr. K for his 100th. Actually Mr. B's term wasn't used by Mr. Martins as he and 12 other ballet masters toasted Lincoln, but I'm sure I heard Mr. B say it anyway. And we certainly enjoyed our intermission Vodka, as the audience was given the chance to drink a toast as well.

Friday, May 4, 1907 + 100

Fairchild + Hyltin II

or IV if you count the two dress rehearsals.

How remarkably different the ballet looked tonight from subs orchestra seats under the ominous ball. Last night I'd seen it from up and way right.

How remarkably different the interpretations of the Juliets. Tonight Ms. Hyltin was an extrovert, a willful Juliet, accustomed to having her own way. At the ball, from dance to dance she revealed more and more of her outgoing and self-confident self, where the night before Ms. Morgan let us see her voyage of self-discovery. Sterling has already succeeded in a large role, two Auroras this winter. There was something very mother-daughter with Darci, of course, as she is the young dancer who most recalls Ms. Kistler. Also, her Mariinsky legs and pre-Guillem Mariinsky line made for anticipation of the Balcony scene. She did not disappoint. The choreography for this looked more natural from straight on, certain formalisms seen from above were less distracting. Perhaps being alone on the floor a bit was not as distressing for her, for she was certainly less in the thrall of Fate, or rather was more ready for romance, it was less overpowering to this little extrovert. Her Juliet even in the awakening scene seemed more self-assured, after all, things had always turned out her way, hadn't they? And movement under the covers suggested something other than being sheltered from the real world.

So Mr. Martins clearly trusts his ballerinas to live the part as they wish. So far, both ballerinas I've seen have not let him down.

The male leads in this cast offered plenty of dazzle as well, all well-reported on BT.

From head-on the "abstact" ensemble pieces were often pleasing, to me more enjoyable than watching unsavory families overdressed and pompously walking around. Of all stories, who doesn't already know this one? With the play, of course, the words are beautiful. In the ballet the dancers are beautiful. One might compare Raymondas: Grigorovich's at the Bolshoi, one suite of dances following the other, with ABT's, very literal, full of story details. The world's big enough for both.

I also think the group of five children is artistically valid. After all, there must have been little kids all over Verona. If a company has a school, it has a family. And everbody seems to like them, including that 8-year old gymnast.

[Klavier]

I also think the group of five children is artistically valid. After all, there must have been little kids all over Verona.

Sure, and there also must have been horses, donkeys, and pigeons all over Verona too. By that reasoning, it would have been artistically valid to bring on stage a horse, a donkey, and/or a pigeon. Or maybe even a quintet of each.

The point I have been trying to make about those children is that their presence is not artistically valid because it is dramatically irrelevant. They are there solely because SAB has some talented children, and because Martins felt showing them off was more important than developing his story. And in a well-constructed drama all the details, including choice of characters, are present because they contribute to the dramatic action. A dramatic action is necessarily selective; it can't include everything, and everything it includes needs somehow to be dramatically relevant.

Could Martins have used those children in a meaningful way? Possibly. Here's one scenario: two or three Capulet children could have entered from one side of the stage (we can tell they're Capulets because they're all in green, or is it all in red); two or three Montague children enter from the other (we can tell, because they're all in red, or is it green). Maybe we also get Tybalt's little brother in a ghastly yellow outfit with black piping. All these kiddies have their own little duel, to Mercutio's boundless amusement. Romeo, however, having just found Juliet and proposed to marry her (in Shakespeare, remember, Friar Laurence agrees to marry the two not because he is convinced Romeo is in love but because he thinks the marriage will reunite their feuding families), is now in peacemaker mode. He convinces the fighting children to make up and the little episode ends happily.

At least in my scenario the episode helps to illuminate Romeo's character, and it thus has at least some tangential relevance to the action. If Peter Martins is reading BT, let us hope he recasts his children's episode along such lines.

But my proposal is artistically sloppy too, because Romeo's intention of being a peacemaker is used with far more dramatic power in the all-important upcoming scene where he refuses to engage Tybalt in a duel. It is only after Tybalt kills Mercutio that Romeo loses his head completely, slays Tybalt, and by doing so incurs his own exile and sacrifices the possibility of a happy future for himself with Juliet.

And thus my scenario for the children is also artistically invalid, because it is redundant.

No, I'm afraid Martins's use of children fails all possible tests of relevance. They should have stayed home and surfed the Net or played video games.

[Farrell Fan]

I also think the group of five children is artistically valid. After all, there must have been little kids all over Verona.

Sure, and there also must have been horses, donkeys, and pigeons all over Verona too. By that reasoning, it would have been artistically valid to bring on stage a horse, a donkey, and/or a pigeon. Or maybe even a quintet of each.

How about three whores?

[Mel Johnson]

The divertissements in Prokofiev's score are mostly associated with the wedding party that marches through the street and incidental dances at the Capulets' ball. The dance with the mandolins is for the entertainers for the wedding reception, if memory serves. Another divertissement is the Dance of the Maids with the Lilies (which for years was mistranslated as "from the Antilles"!), which happens as part of Juliet's wedding preparations. If you pay attention to the score in original order, the divertissements in the original R&J music are better-thought-out than most on the matter of integration.

[rg]

the 'happy ending' that's been mentioned here in connection with

what one hears will be part of the production to be choreographed next year by mark morris comes not from a whim of morris's, but from the score and scenario, which differ from what the world has come to know of prokofiev's ROMEO.

the recently discovered prokofiev ms. in morris's hand has other changes as well, so he'll be working w/ prokofiev's original scheme - pre-soviet censors - not some fanciful thinking or arbitrary 'concept.'