New York City Ballet 2022-2023 season

[nysusan]

Mearns was magnificent in Swan Lake last night. There were no signs of rust, or confidence problems. Just legs of steel, that endless arabesque and that epaulment! The way she uses her back, shoulders, neck and head is very reminiscent of V Part and the old time Vaganova school, yet completely her own. I seem to recall a cool, abstract Odette in the Balanchine version but Mearns was very emotional and tragic.

 

I am not crazy about Pictures at an Exhibition. Don't hate it but don't love it either. Still it was fun to watch all of those beautiful dancers. Phelan and Nadon were standouts and O MacKinnon looked right at home mixed in with all of those outstanding principal women.

[cobweb]

I was very surprised when I tried to get tickets to last night's performance, and found it was sold out - all the Swan Lake performances are completely sold!! Good for them. I went with standing room, which is about a quarter mile away from the stage, but the price is right ($25). I'm sure I've seen Pictures at an Exhibition before, but had little memory of it, and like @nysusan above, I didn't love it. Too much running around, without much distinction between the variations. So it seemed to me. I don't love this Swan Lake either, and I think the audience should be warned this isn't really Swan Lake -- just a cut-up version of the second and fourth acts. But, it's a sellout and the audience was very enthusiastic, so who am I to say? Given how well Swan Lake sells, this seems like an excellent opportunity to introduce audiences to the company and present other works they may like on the other half of the program. I'm not sure Pictures at an Exhibition was great for that. For something similar but way better, how about Dances at a Gathering? As for the dancing, Sara looked great, although it's interesting @nysusan loved her epaulement, because on the contrary, I kept thinking about the Studio 5 presentation of Nina Ananiashvili coaching Sara on her epaulement, and wishing Sara could take that more to heart. Emma von Enck looked terrific in the Valse Bluette. She has her own distinct individuality, and I especially love the marvelous expressiveness in her upper body. Glad I saw this program, but I won't be seeing it again. 

[vipa]

6 hours ago, cobweb said:

. I don't love this Swan Lake either, and I think the audience should be warned this isn't really Swan Lake -- just a cut-up version of the second and fourth acts. 

Interesting you should stay that @cobweb. My husband wen to the dentist, and she mentioned she had tickets to Swan Lake which she bought when she saw the ad. She is an occasional ballet goer, maybe a couple of times a year. She had no idea it wan't the traditional Swan Lake. My husband explained what she'd be seeing. She admitted she didn't read the ad carefully, just saw the title Swan Lake and called the box office for tickets to her chosen date. My long winded way of saying the ad could be misleading, but I'm glad the audience reception was good when you went. Also glad that Emma VE continues to impress. 

[pirouette]

I was at this afternoon's performance of Copland Dance Episodes. It was my first time seeing this ballet, and I have mixed feelings. The beginning and end were captivating and there were some explosive, playful, and fun moments throughout but overall it really lulled in the middle for me. I had some trouble staying focused and not letting my mind drift. I do think it warrants a second viewing; I'm curious to see how I appreciate it the second time around. The highlight for me was Mira Nadon, who had some lovely moments with Taylor Stanley. It was evident that all the dancers really enjoyed dancing this piece. 

The people next to me were also unfortunately very distracting  They were a whole family and I cannot imagine why anyone would bring three small children under 10 to see a 76 minute contemporary ballet piece with no set, no story, minimal costumes, and no intermission. The little boy next to me was asleep within the first fifteen minutes and snored the whole way through. His sister next to him kept whispering to her mom. Curious what made them choose this program to bring the kids to. 

[abatt]

I was there tonight, and it was apparent that a large portion of the audience was not regular ballet goers.  

I was  very impressed with certain new cast members of Pictures at an Exhibition, most especially Nadon and Alexa Maxwell.  The whole cast was very good.  This was a ballet where I could savor the brilliance of Tyler Angle without being distracted by his weight and his baldness.  And the projection at the very end of the ballet has been changed to a Ukranian flag.

Gordon was polished and quite excellent in Swan Lake.  Unity gave a typical Unity-type performance- blandly efficient.  Some of her arm positions were very sloppy.  Not the Swan Lake of my dreams, for sure.  

Was it my imagination or did Emma VE miss her entrance during the section when, I believe, the two big Swans are supposed to be on stage together.  

I had forgotten how utterly gorgeous the costumes are for the swans.  I also very much enjoy the choreography for the corps.  

The house was sold to the rafters.  The company advertised this program to the max, and it seemed to have worked. Or maybe SL just sells itself, whatever its iteration. 

 

[Drew]

9 hours ago, pirouette said:

 

The people next to me were also unfortunately very distracting  They were a whole family and I cannot imagine why anyone would bring three small children under 10 to see a 76 minute contemporary ballet piece with no set, no story, minimal costumes, and no intermission. The little boy next to me was asleep within the first fifteen minutes and snored the whole way through. His sister next to him kept whispering to her mom. Curious what made them choose this program to bring the kids to. 

Its being a matinee may have been the main reason.

6 hours ago, abatt said:

 

I was  very impressed with certain new cast members of Pictures at an Exhibition, most especially Nadon and Alexa Maxwell.  The whole cast was very good.  This was a ballet where I could savor the brilliance of Tyler Angle without being distracted by his weight and his baldness.  And the projection at the very end of the ballet has been changed to a Ukranian flag.

 

Ratmansky’s support for Ukraine has largely cast him—to my eyes—in a highly sympathetic and admirable light, but this seems problematic to me. Much of his career has been spent both lovingly and critically exploring Russian culture and history. Pictures at an Exhibition is an example. It can’t retrospectively be turned into a tribute to Ukraine. Not convincingly anyway. When Mussorgsky  celebrates an image of the great gate of Kiev, surely the reference is to Kievan Rus —heck according to Wikipedia the composer traced his roots to Kievan Rus—and like Kandinsky’s radicalism (though for different reasons) it has nothing to do with being a standard bearer for Ukrainian nationalism.  And the whole spirit of Kandinsky’s abstractions and Ratmansky’s own witty, choreographically ‘colorful,’ abstract adaptations of the source material is undermined with the literalism of a flag. If the argument is that the folk traditions recalled in the ballet have Ukrainian provenance, not just Russian, then add a note in the program discussing the issue. That would be a fine idea.  Ratmansky has created more recent work in which incorporating the Ukrainian flag might be appropriate and I would happily applaud if he carried a Ukrainian flag with him during a curtain call for any of his ballets, but the backdrop is no trivial part of this ballet and changing it at the end seems to me to change the ballet. Of course, it is his ballet and he can do with it what he will but, writing as an admirer of this ballet, I wish someone had talked him out of the idea.

(No, I do not support Putin. I think he is a war criminal.)

Edited May 21, 2023 by Drew

[abatt]

I understand Drew's point, but the switch to a projection of  the Ukranian flag in the backdrop occurred during the last few seconds of the ballet, so overall it did not diminish the ballet or the design elements of the ballet.  I don't think a program note would have been read by most of the audience.  This put the issue front and center before the audience for a fleeting moment that was much more effective.  

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by abatt

[canbelto]

I was very disappointed in Unity Phelan's Swan Lake. There's a certain hardness to her upper body. She is also not very skilled at the slow, controlled adagio.

[nysusan]

14 hours ago, abatt said:

Was it my imagination or did Emma VE miss her entrance during the section when, I believe, the two big Swans are supposed to be on stage together. 

 

I also noticed that. I don't recall whether they usually both come out at the beginning of that section but it looked really strange with just LeCrone, so I think they must.

 

Phelan has a beautiful instrument and there have been times she has used it to give some truly memorable performances. Saturday night was not one of them. Her Odette was a beautiful blank, both in terms of her characterization and her dancing. It seemed that she was just ticking off steps. Here were the arabesques, here the pirouettes but none of her movements were fully stretched or expressive and there really wasn't much in terms of phrasing. While never off the music she didn't display much musicality either.

 

Gordon, on the other hand, was great.

 

Maxwell was very good in Pictures but she danced the same role that Phelan did on Friday and this is one role where I thought Phelan was fabulous. The way she deployed those beautiful limbs and arms was quite compelling.

 

 

[volcanohunter]

11 hours ago, Drew said:

When Mussorgsky  celebrates an image of the great gate of Kiev, surely the reference is to Kievan Rus

Actually, it isn't. Mussorgsky was referring to a proposed design by Viktor Hartmann (Gartman), which was never built. Thankfully, because it was an ugly design, complete with double-headed eagle, which might have fit in stylistically on Red Square, but which would have stuck out like a sore thumb among Kyiv's buildings. Also, the design never struck me as appearing especially "Great" or grand.

(The ruins of Kyiv's Golden Gate that led into the upper city survived into modern times, and in 1982 a reconstruction of the original gate was built in order to protect its surviving walls from further erosion. Today it stands about halfway between the opera house and the St. Sophia Cathedral complex along the same street.)

As far as I can gather, the change in the projection was made when the ballet premiered in Munich in the spring of 2022, which was interesting, because subsequently it turned out that AD Igor Zelensky was secretly Putin’s son-in-law and soon after he resigned his position for "family reasons" and returned to Russia. His former wife is still on staff at the Bavarian State Ballet.

[Drew]

1 hour ago, volcanohunter said:

Actually, it isn't. Mussorgsky was referring to a proposed design by Viktor Hartmann (Gartman), which was never built. Thankfully, because it was an ugly design, complete with double-headed eagle, which might have fit in stylistically on Red Square, but which would have stuck out like a sore thumb among Kyiv's buildings. Also, the design never struck me as appearing especially "Great" or grand.

(The ruins of Kyiv's Golden Gate that led into the upper city survived into modern times, and in 1982 a reconstruction of the original gate was built in order to protect its surviving walls from further erosion. Today it stands about halfway between the opera house and the St. Sophia Cathedral complex along the same street.)

As far as I can gather, the change in the projection was made when the ballet premiered in Munich in the spring of 2022, which was interesting, because subsequently it turned out that AD Igor Zelensky was secretly Putin’s son-in-law and soon after he resigned his position for "family reasons" and returned to Russia. His former wife is still on staff at the Bavarian State Ballet.

Thank you for the clarifications—that adds a whole other layer of meaning! The ultimate allusions still seem to me there. Why build a new great gate if not partly in hopes of building the connection between Hartmann’s Russian imperial present and the Medieval past? Hartmann also is a figure associated with Slavic and specifically Russian cultural revival.

Presumably Ratmansky does not want anyone confusing his interest in this material with a Russia-centered version of Slavophile culture. Hence the appearance of the Ukrainian flag. It strikes an odd note to me, especially since I think Kandinsky is a very interesting mediating figure here. As some reading this probably remember, I am a huge Ratmansky fan (have been known to say a word in favor of The Tempest).  And of course he has the right to change his works. This change sounds discordant to me, though @abatt suggests the impact is minimal. And I hope to see the ballet again soon and I will see what I think then.

Ratmansky’s artistic and personal journey is what it is ... I have not forgotten Bright Stream: though not without irony, it is a delightful farce set in the era of a horrendous, Stalin-stoked famine in Ukraine. He would not make that ballet again today—at least I think not. I assume Marina Harss’s book will address some of these issues.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Drew
Trying to nuance

[MarzipanShepherdess]

On 5/20/2023 at 9:37 PM, pirouette said:

The people next to me were also unfortunately very distracting  They were a whole family and I cannot imagine why anyone would bring three small children under 10 to see a 76 minute contemporary ballet piece with no set, no story, minimal costumes, and no intermission. The little boy next to me was asleep within the first fifteen minutes and snored the whole way through. His sister next to him kept whispering to her mom. Curious what made them choose this program to bring the kids to. 

This fall I saw an evening performance of Mayerling at the Royal Ballet at which there were multiple kids under ten in the audience (for those unfamiliar, Mayerling is a lurid Kenneth Macmillan ballet whose main plot point is a murder-suicide by gunshot, which also has simulated sex and IV drug use on stage). There is a certain kind of parent who will just drag their kids along to anything!

[abatt]

Back in the day when City Ballet had all rings open and there were very cheap seats available, parents would regularly bring infants and toddlers to the show because buying a ticket was much cheaper than hiring a sitter for a few hours.  I've also seen this by ticket holders in the family circle. at ABT.  Less often at the opera.

Edited May 22, 2023 by abatt

[nysusan]

4 minutes ago, abatt said:

Back in the day when City Ballet had all rings open and there were very cheap seats available, parents would regularly bring infants and toddlers to the show because buying a ticket was much cheaper than hiring a sitter for a few hours.  I've also seen this by ticket holders in the family circle. 

Back in the day my Grandmother bought cheap 5th ring tickets and took me and sometimes my brothers and cousins. The minute any one of us started acting up she ushered us right out the door into the hallway till we calmed down. Then we would go back to our seats. I think the 5th ring may have been the only area where you can do that cause their were no ushers to stop re-entry (the ushers are always down on the 4th ring and you have to walk up a staircase to get to the 5th ring).

[BalanchineFan]

On 5/20/2023 at 1:11 PM, cobweb said:

I think the audience should be warned this isn't really Swan Lake -- just a cut-up version of the second and fourth acts.

Perhaps I am quibbling, but of course it’s “really” Swan Lake. It’s certainly not Agon. It’s just not a full-length. Who says you need four or five acts to tell the story? Does it turn into a different story just because it’s shorter? Or do you need Odile for your Swan Lake?

Is Ashton’s The Dream not really Midsummer?

Is Balanchine’s Midsummer not really Midsummer for wrapping up the plot before intermission? Does that make it less authentic?

Perhaps I’m in a mood. 

[mtthwbrehm]

3 hours ago, BalanchineFan said:

Perhaps I am quibbling, but of course it’s “really” Swan Lake. It’s certainly not Agon. It’s just not a full-length. Who says you need four or five acts to tell the story? Does it turn into a different story just because it’s shorter? Or do you need Odile for your Swan Lake?

Is Ashton’s The Dream not really Midsummer?

Is Balanchine’s Midsummer not really Midsummer for wrapping up the plot before intermission? Does that make it less authentic?

Perhaps I’m in a mood. 

Yes it is absolutely a different story because it's shorter. In fact there's not really a story at all. Balanchine's Nutcracker is always advertised as Balanchine's Nutcracker, but I have not seen this Swan Lake advertised with Balanchine's name prominently attached. It seems like the idea of a traditional Swan Lake is what motivates people to buy tickets. At Friday's show I passed by a couple who was arguing that there WOULD be another act, but had to be explained that this was not a traditional Swan Lake. 

You don't need a multiple act ballet to convey story, that is certain. However, when the work of art was designed to be seen in a multi-act staging, like Swan Lake, then in my opinion that difference should be made apparent to the casual buyer.

[Drew]

When Balanchine created his one act Swan Lake, showing only one act of Swan Lake -- the first lakeside scene-- was the norm in the United States. People went expecting to see that scene only and in the context of a mixed bill program. That's pretty much all that was on offer for many years after Balanchine's production premiered. (And, as I understand, the Petipa-Ivanov production originated in Ivanov choreographing a stand-alone Lake scene--what we now know as Act II or Act I, scene ii, and its success spurred the development of the multi-act ballet.)  Insofar as Balanchine re-choreographed some material and brought in elements of the final act, his was a different approach but it was still the expected one Lakeside Act.

The norm now is different even at NYCB which has been regularly presenting a full length production. That latter fact is the reason I think it might make sense to signal in the title of this version that it's not the whole ballet. One may groan--after all it's obvious it can't be the full length ballet if it's one work on a mixed bill program. But since the company is rightly trying to pull in new audiences and not rely on old-timers or knowledgeable ballet fans I think some signal might be in order. Swan Lake (the Lake scene) or Balanchine's Swan Lake or some such. Honestly I doubt very many people are entirely confused but it could be worth addressing.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Drew

[rkoretzky]

Would they need permission from the Balanchine Trust to change the name? They changed Tzigane completely. 

[abatt]

Also, since the film Black Swan, I think most people who are casual ballet goers expect that there is going to be an act or  a portion of the ballet where the Black Swan dances to seduces the prince.  Not  so in the Balanchine version. 

[volcanohunter]

On 5/21/2023 at 5:03 PM, Drew said:

Why build a new great gate if not partly in hopes of building the connection between Hartmann’s Russian imperial present and the Medieval past? Hartmann also is a figure associated with Slavic and specifically Russian cultural revival.

Ironically, if Hartmann had actually succeeded in building his Russian Revival-style gate, it would have looked alien in its setting and made his argument appear tenuous. 

I will hazard a guess that when Ratmansky listens to that music he doesn't see Hartmann's nonexistent gate. He may see something more like Kyiv's Golden Gate, which he has probably passed hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and he may hear the city's Baroque bell towers. I am not remotely surprised that in late March 2022 he felt that he needed to adjust the ballet’s imagery to show what Kyiv is to him, because the stakes had changed. The city withstands frequent bombardment but hasn't fallen. The opera house where he began his career can no longer present seven shows a week, but it continues to present three weekend shows with early start times. These are sometimes interrupted by air-raid sirens, but once they stop, the show goes on. Somehow, this new reality had to be acknowledged. Not Kyiv as "Mother of all Rus cities," but Kyiv as capital of Ukraine. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbj2icIgt93/

On 5/21/2023 at 5:03 PM, Drew said:

I have not forgotten Bright Stream: though not without irony, it is a delightful farce set in the era of a horrendous, Stalin-stoked famine in Ukraine. He would not make that ballet again today—at least I think not. 

In his interview for the London Ballet Circle Ratmansky seemed to suggest that it's time for The Bright Stream to die. He also said he was done with Shostakovich, not in a cancelation sense, but because he had exhausted his exploration and had choreographed all the ballets he had wanted to make to Shostakovich's music.

[nanushka]

I'd love to hear any reviews of tonight's Fancy Free and Agon casts. I'm rather bummed that my tickets are for Saturday afternoon, not evening. I would love to see Mejia, Gordon, Veyette, Danchig-Waring and Gerrity, among others. But I'm still looking forward to the program — and very excited to be seeing Agon again, after too long.

[cobweb]

1 hour ago, nanushka said:

I'd love to hear any reviews of tonight's Fancy Free and Agon casts. I'm rather bummed that my tickets are for Saturday afternoon, not evening. I would love to see Mejia, Gordon, Veyette, Danchig-Waring and Gerrity, among others. But I'm still looking forward to the program — and very excited to be seeing Agon again, after too long.

Agree, interested to hear any reports from tonight! I have a ticket for the matinee on Saturday, and highly tempted to add in the evening too. I am looking forward to seeing Brandenburg, about which I know nothing, aside from the music. 

[bellawood]

Last night was my second go at this program. Brandenburg was spectacular, I connected with it much more this time. The first time, the first cast of this ballet (first movement) was Woodward/Huxley. This cast was von Enck/Mejia and it was a completely different ballet. Major youthquake time. Woodward/Huxley were elegant but a bit remote; the second cast was all verve, openess and playfulness. Emma von Enck is a special dancer. Roman just seems to grow as a dancer and partner with every ballet. I preferred Mira/Aaron Sanz in the second PDD from the first cast but Unity/ADW were very polished. The corps was very strong. 
 

Fancy Free was nicely danced. Andrew Veyette subbed for the bartender which was amusing. Peter Walker seemed miscast as the “sweet” sailor. 
 

Agon was good but not the absolute home run it was two weeks ago (that was a superlative performance). Isabella LaFreniere danced the “bransle” sections and was terrific. I am finding i am very impressed with her in b&w ballets (Episodes, Concerto Barocco). The demisoloist girls were not as strong as they could be, I thought. 
 

 

[MarzipanShepherdess]

Saw Tuesday night's Agon/Fancy Free/Brandenburg program.

Fancy Free: I've been watching Daniel Ulbricht in this ballet for the better part of twenty years at this point, and he's still such a joy in it. Last night he punctuated his bravura split jumps solo with this incredible off-kilter balance which he just HELD longer than you thought possible, it was really something. Peter Walker was debuting as the sailor who couples up with the girl in the purple dress. I think he's still shaping his characterization, but he's always a beautiful dancer. He is SO tall that his scene with the girl in the purple dress under the streetlight read as a bit more overpowering/ threatening to the girl than it usually does for me, which I didn't love. I liked Sebastian Villarini-Velez as the sailor who does the mambo, the one who doesn't get a girl, 

Agon: I loved Isabella LaFreniere in this, such authority and attack. Her pas de trois involves lots of her body being manipulated by her two male partners but you felt she was utterly in control and a total force. The debuts in this piece felt like works in progress to me: Jules Mabie seemed at times out of sync with the other three men, from the opening tableau on, and I agree with @bellawood that the demisoloists (Corrigan and MT MacKinnon) don't yet have quite the speed and sharpness one wanted. Of the four men, Russell stood out to me the most, especially how he was using his arms. Did Miriam Miller dance? I was seated just before the performance started and didn't hear all the casting change announcements.

Brandenburg: My first time seeing this and I enjoyed it. Emma and Roman were unquestionably the highlight for me. I really admired how Emma was both fleet and sparkling in the allegro sections and then had these lovely, luscious, slowly unfurling arabesques and arms at other points. She's got it all. She and Roman seemed to bring out the best in each other (it was also nice to see Tiler Peck in the audience cheering Roman on). The energy dropped for me when Unity and Adrian came on stage: I think they got the less interesting pas de deux choreography-wise (theirs felt a bit repetitive to me, lots of her being rotated in arabesque and then lifted, again and again), but they also made less of what they had to work with. I liked the corps choreography a lot, lots of playfulness that feels unexpected with the music and costumes (leapfrogging, big groups of corps dancers bobbing in and out of alignment) and interesting shapes. Dominika Afanasenkov stood out to me in a pas de quatre in the third section.

 

[nysusan]

Fancy Free is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but it's a masterpiece I first saw as a kid and have now seen probably 50 times or more. I don't need to see it ever again unless some company can field a cast equal to the great golden age ABT casts (for example Carreno/Stiefel/DeLuz, Gomes/Hallberg/Cornejo). I am seeing multiple performances of this program for Agon & Brandenburg and am going to try to skip the next FF. That said, Ulbricht was wonderful, absolutely wonderful and I loved Maxwell in the first cast. And what fun to see Veyette sub as the bartender!

 

That was indeed Miriam Miller in Agon and she was great. What a pleasure to see true 6 o'clock penchees - is she the only current NYCB ballerina who can do them now? Phelan's in the first cast were no more than 5:55. Miller had a couple of very tiny balance checks at the beginning of the pdd but after that she wielded those long legs like weapons. I loved the way she and Janzen maintained the tension and a cool yet intense connection. LaFreniere was also great but I agree that the overall cast was not as sharp as the first cast and the amazing Taylor Stanley.

 

I also loved von Enck & Mejia in Brandenburg. This was the second time I'd seen it and I liked it much more than the first time. I thought it was pretty good the first time but I didn't really understand what all the fuss was about. Maybe it was the cast or maybe this is just the kind of ballet that reveals more with each viewing, but this time it was great. Breezy, charming and lots of fun.