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Reviews

Less is More—
The New York City Ballet's Winter 1998 Season

by Mary Cargill

The New York City Ballet is celebrating its 50th anniversary by dancing 100 ballets over the Winter and Spring seasons. This extraordinarily high number was marketed as a celebration of five decades of repertory, but seemed to break down as the frequently seen Balanchine and Robbins ballets (no revivals of long-unseen works), plus the most recent ten years of repertory. There were no early masters who had worked with the company—no Tudor or Ashton (the rumored revival of Ashton’s Illuminations didn’t materialize). The only novelty was Jacques d’Amboise’s’ Irish Fantasy, a pretty, if inconsequential exercise to Saint-Saëns, which, as danced by the very young Alexandra Ansanelli and the very exuberant Damian Woetzel, looked like a faded imitation of Scotch Symphony, with all the emotional richness washed away.

One “outside” choreographer was represented, August Bournonville, with various excerpts from his works the City Ballet calls Bournonville Divertissement. The Bournonville style, with its deceptive difficulty, its light and airy beats, and its elegant and unique épaulement, is not an easy one for City Ballet dancers. In addition, excerpting certain technical variations dilutes the spirit and underlying seriousness of these wonderful ballets. It was a bit like listening to the chorus of a song without hearing the rest—pretty, but basically meaningless.

The men had trouble with the accuracy and precision of the steps, and, though they were trying to convey the style, their arms and heads seemed stiff. It was a relief to see Nilas Martins’ Flower Festival of Genzano pas de deux; he was a little earthbound, but at least he knew how to coordinate his arms, legs, and head.

The precision needed for the pas de six from Napoli was simply not there; arms, legs, and heads were all at different angles and moving at different times. Some of the individual performances were enjoyable. Elizabeth Walker, though she had trouble with the balances, was genuinely sweet in the blowing kisses solo, not coy and saccharine. Jennie Somogyi was also very good in her skirt-snapping variation. And the very young Janie Taylor, in a brief appearance with a tambourine, almost stole the ballet with her beautiful line, light dancing, and pure joy. Unfortunately, many of the others appeared to approach their parts like Alexandra Ansanelli, who, in her solo, hoisted herself up on point and just stayed there. It was flashy, but utterly contrary to both Bournonville’s spirit (he prized modesty and good taste) and to his style, since he choreographed for lightly blocked shoes.

Ansanelli was featured in a number of roles, and she is developing a lyrical presence, though she does have a tendency to jerk from position to position. She also has a somewhat assertive stage personality, which is not always appropriate. She was a member of the two side couples supporting Miranda Weese and Damian Woetzel in Richard Tanner’s Variations on a Nursery Song. As the curtain opened, Samantha Allen, Sébastien Marcovici, and Edward Liang were all arrayed at the side of the stage looking at and drawing the audience’s attention to the lead couple. Ansanelli was staring at the audience, beaming. After a while, she decided to look back at the leads, adjusted her shoulders, and turned around, then turned back to the audience and smiled some more, until it was her turn to move. It may have been inexperience or lack of coaching, but it came across as old-fashioned scene stealing.

She was also the young bride in Jerome Robbins’ Les Noces. Originally choreographed for American Ballet Theatre in 1965, it was revived by the New York City Ballet last year. Robbins saw the Royal Ballet’s revival of Nijinska’s Les Noces after he had choreographed his version, and reportedly said if the had known her work, he would not have made his. I have to agree. Nijinska’s ballet is symbolic yet concrete, made up of solid 1920 Contructivist shapes (pyramids, circles, and squares) yet conveys the timeless patience and nobility of the Russian peasant community’s ceaseless struggle. Robbins’ peasants run around waving their arms and kicking their legs in inexplicable paroxysms of grief and anger—it’s a wedding after all, and while the mothers are certainly sad to see their children grow up and enter a life of unremitting toil, that is what they raised them to do. Robbins’ two mothers kick the floor in their hysteria and then decide to turn some somersaults. Seeing the ballet was a bit like watching a kindergarten during a Ritalin shortage.

There was one premiere, a new ballet by Peter Martins. It was a pas de trois for Damian Woetzel, Alexandra Ansanelli, and Miranda Weese called, after the music, Walton Cello Concerto. It was not a particularly ambitious piece, nor was the music, with its lack of rhythm and abrupt changes of mood, particularly danceable. Woetzel, in an unflattering costume (a blue body suit with a deep U-shaped neckline) got to suffer a great deal trying to choose between the turquoise Weese and the orange Ansanelli.

But besides these disappointments, the Winter season was a monumental undertaking, made more difficult by the distressing number of injuries; there were very few performances without last minute cast changes. One has to wonder whether the difficult rehearsal and performance schedules demanded by the large number of ballets contributed to the absences.

The season opened with a week-long mini-festival devoted to Balanchine’s black and white ballets, which is a shorthand way of saying it included some of the greatest ballets ever choreographed, including Agon, The Four Temperaments, Concerto Barocco, Apollo, and Symphony in C. Seeing all these packed into one week was exhilarating. The clarity, variety, invention, and richness of the choreography contrasted with the simplicity of the settings was almost blinding.

With all the injuries Apollo was somewhat undercast (Nilas Martins and Yvonne Bouree were the leads), but I was struck by the Polyhymnia of Jennie Somogyi and the Calliope of Pascale van Kipnis. They were young and fresh and scampered through their difficult, off-balance variations. Van Kipnis, still in the corps, has a light yet elegant presence (I remember enjoying her as the girl in green in Dances at a Gathering a few years ago) but I understand, has had some injuries.

Somogyi, recently promoted to soloist, also danced (at very short notice) the first movement in Symphony in C. She gave a beautifully filled-out performance, with fast and elegant feet and a serene and detailed upper body. She has worked with Maria Tallchief on this role, and this may have contributed to the grandeur with which she danced.

Another new soloist, Maria Kowroski, danced the second movement in Symphony in C, and, though she couldn’t quite get around the fast footwork of the finale, was beautiful in the soulful, Odette-like solo. I was especially taken by the moment before the deep arabesque when she pulled her head back, as if fighting her fate, and then swept down with her head held high and her line intact. It was good to see a dancer propelled by the music and not her muscles, and not sacrificing atmosphere, beauty, and grace to force that head down to her knee.

Beauty and grace seem to have disappeared from the pas de deux in Agon, at least as danced by Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto. Her hot, quirky, and muscular attack does not, to my mind, work as well as the more elegant approach taken by the dancers of the Pacific Northwest or San Francisco Ballets. The idea of a classical shape (the origin of Agon, after all, was French court dances) being stretched and twisted does not come through if there is not classical shape to begin with. Whelan was all stomach muscles and whiplash; she was vulgar without being sensuous. The audience loved it, but I could only avert my eyes and think longingly of the cool, refined photographs of Diana Adams.

Or think of Sébastien Marcovici’s debut in the Sarabande. His elegant approach showed off Balanchine’s twisting and reshaping of the classical form, but never destroyed it. It was like watching a beautifully formed crystal being shattered into a spray of lights and then magically coming back together.

Damian Woetzel danced Melancholic in The Four Temperaments, and while he did not invest enough weight in his upper body to convey the dramatic contrast between the push and pull of the role, it was good to see him in something other than his usual greased lightening parts. Albert Evans, who danced Phlegmatic, is another dancer usually cast for speed. To my mind, he was not quite lackadaisical enough for Phlegmatic, but his dancing was witty, smooth, and controlled. Early in his career, he had a looseness verging on eccentricity, but he has developed a regal bearing and a strikingly intense authority, which, as yet, has not been shown off in more dramatic roles.

Unfortunately, many of the other elegant male dancers were among the missing; Philip Neal was out all season and Peter Boal and Nikolaj Hübbe appeared only briefly. Their absence was especially regrettable in the revival of Liebeslieder Walzer.

This hour-long ballet for four couples dancing to Brahms’ waltzes is one of the most delicate of Balanchine’s creations. Without formal mime or overt story-telling the ballet is (or should be) packed with drama and drenched with emotion. Using ballroom dances in the first half and balletic variations in the second, the dancers should bring characters from an unfamiliar world to life. These are upper middle-class nineteenth-century ladies and gentlemen in the privileged and decorous old-fashioned sense, but each person should have a distinctive inner life. The men (Damian Woetzel, Jock Soto, Nilas Martins, and Charles Askegard) were a bit on the clunky side; with the exception of Askegard, they all seemed to be wearing gloves for the first time.

Kyra Nichols was the only veteran from the monumental 1984 revival, repeating the doomed Verdy role; it is one of her greatest triumphs. Without any hint of melodrama or gratuitous emoting, Nichols uses her weight and size to pull away from the earth while suggesting some implacable force pulling her down. Van Kipnis, in a remarkable debut, danced one performance of this part, and with her lighter frame, stressed the more ethereal aspects of the role. She did not a yet give the role the monumental feeling of tragedy that Nichols, with her long experience does, but it was a consistent and beautifully developed portrait.

Miranda Weese, with Damian Woetzel, danced the Jillana role (which I associate with Stephanie Saland and Ib Andersen). That couple seemed to embody a mismatched love, he kneeling pleadingly at her feet while she looked away, as if trying to find something greater than her enclosed, comfortable world. She was fond of him (at one point she gently and almost sorrowfully touched his bowed head) but was fundamentally not happy. Some of this complexity came through in the current performance, but Woetzel does not have Andersen’s ability to hold a stage while standing still (very few people do), and Weese’s performance was not consistent. Her glances occasionally seemed more flirtatious than melancholy, and she does not as yet, in this role, have the ability to act through her dancing. Her solos were ravishingly beautiful, but tended to be performed with a generic “I’m a pretty ballerina” smile.

Maria Kowroski, with a very supportive Charles Askegard, danced the more giddy role, and her eagerness was infectious. In the more sedate first act, she tended to overwork her extraordinarily fluid extensions, so instead of a lustrous arc of her satin skirt, the audience was given an indelicate view of her frilly drawers, as if a local cancan girl had burst onto the scene. And a waltz and a cancan do not mix. Wendy Whelan with Nilas Martins were the more mature couple, whose arm movements echo each other, as if finishing each other’s thoughts. She danced, especially in the first act, with a refinement and graciousness, but her innate attack made it seem at times as if she were interrupting her partner.
Isabel Guérin, from the Paris Opera Ballet, is a real ballerina, and made a welcome if brief return as a guest early in the season. She repeated her performance in Stravinsky Violin Concerto. I have only seen the original cast on tape, and Guérin is nothing like the small, fragile Kay Mazzo. Nor does Nilas Martins tower over Guérin the way Peter Martins did over Mazzo, so the performance lost some of the atmosphere the tape conveys. But Guérin shaped the role beautifully, turning it into a more mature, melancholy portrait of a woman, perhaps remembering a past love. She was delightful as the tipsy Cockney in Balanchine’s Union Jack, managing, as she did two years ago in The Concert, to look both sophisticated and ridiculous.

Jenifer Ringer also made a welcome return (I hope not for as brief a visit as Guérin’s), and lit up Apricot in Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering. She brought youth, high spirits, and beautifully rounded dancing, bringing it alive as no one has since she last danced it. Her partner, Benjamin Millepied, danced with the same infectious joy, but was just a bit too short to make the complicated lifts look effortless.

Ringer made her debut as the lead character dancer in Balanchine’s Cortége Hongrois, his reworking of some of the dances from Petipa’s Raymonda. Ringer is not a spitfire, and emphasized the whipped cream of that enchanting music. After all, Glazunov’s czardas is a long way from the campfires of Hungary.

Jennie Somogyi also made her debut in the first movement of another Austro-Hungarian ballet, Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. I don’t know whether it was intentional, but she was much shorter than the corps, which had the effect of isolating her from the group, and making them seem somewhat menacing, as if they were trying to dominate her. Without extraneous acting, she suggested a protective air, leading and guiding her partner through the dangers of the corps. At the end, instead of the usual wristy flourish at the finale of the music, Somogyi let her arm drift upward, as if pointing to something further on. She has an ability to dance as if she is aware of what else is happening on stage, and the first movement, usually a bit decorative, created real excitement.

There were other debuts in the Winter season, most notably Miranda Weese in Ballo Della Regina and the corps members Rachel Rutherford and Janie Taylor as the young girl in La Valse. Ballo Della Regina, set to Verdi’s seldom used ballet music from Don Carlo, which Balanchine choreographed for Merrill Ashley, is a technical tour de force. Weese did not quite match the clean, crisp, effortless footwork of Ashley at her peak. But besides technique, the ballet needs charm—not just a charming face but charming dancing. It is full of unexpected kicks and flicks and changes of direction, and Weese bubbled through the role. In Ashley’s absence, the ballet has been owned by Damian Woetzel, with his fluid, exciting jumps, but with Weese in the role, the ballet is now shared.

And what a beautiful ballet it is. With hints of an underwater grotto, the corps floats through a series of inventive poses and delicate arm movements. Four soloists emerge briefly in some beautifully shaped dances; Somogyi was especially enjoyable in her soaring, exultant solo. Ballo Della Regina is not a profound ballet, but it is full of charm and craft, and Weese was magnificent.

La Valse, with it high-romantic “Der Tod und das Mädchen” theme, is a much darker ballet than Ballo Della Regina and much more difficult to perform convincingly. The wide, deep stage of State Theatre is not the best place to see it, in my opinion; Pacific Northwest Ballet’s version at the more intimate City Center (where it was first seen) was a revelation to me. It was so much more claustrophobic and menacing. But its combination of 1950’s chic (all those ponytails and gloves) and the somber theme of lost youth can be very powerful wherever it is performed.

The eerie yet elegant tone must be set at the beginning with the three mysterious gloved ladies (bringing to mind the three fates), whose convoluted hand movements should echo each other exactly. Probably due to lack of rehearsal time, this sinister symmetry was not always present. In the second half, the corps tended to dance with joyful grins and high spirits, which were not really appropriate. They are inhabitants of the Ballroom of the Damned, after all, not dancers at a junior prom.

As the victims, Rachel Rutherford and Janie Taylor gave different, but I think equally valid, interpretations. Rutherford, with her exquisite beauty, could not really be convincing as a complete naïf, and she portrayed a young woman greedy for any experience, willing to try anything, more fascinated than repelled by the Death figure. As yet, Rutherford does not have all the reckless abandon needed—she put on those black gloves a bit carefully—but she gave an interesting portrait of youth semi-willingly seduced.

Janie Taylor, who joined the company this year, was innocence destroyed. Taylor is a small dancer, beautifully proportioned, with a fresh stage presence, who danced the young girl as if she were a helpless little fly caught in a thick black web. Her fragile and delicate air made her helplessness so very real, and she deserved the ovation she received.

The figure of Death was danced by Jock Soto, with Rutherford, and in another debut, Robert La Fosse, with Taylor. Again both gave different readings, and I think may have been even more effective had they switched victims. Soto, with his dark brilliantined hair and overpowering torso was the more purely evil, which would have reinforced Taylor’s fear. La Fosse, even with his hair darkened, did not have the unalloyed menace Soto projects, and was slier and more seductive, which made his fierce glee at his triumph very effective. His superficial charm would have attracted a girl as eager for experience as the one Rutherford portrayed.

Jewels, another Balanchine costume ballet, was also given. Its three acts, Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds, are a glorious salute to luxury but also, like so many Balanchine ballets, an examination of female beauty and mystery by way of Petipa.

Emeralds, set to selections by Faure, is the least flashy, and the least applauded, section, but it is one of the most beautiful of Balanchine’s explications of Petipa’s vision scenes. Two sylphlike creatures dance almost invisibly their knightly partners, then, like the vision of Aurora, seem to take a more concrete form, and finally fade sadly away, leaving the men alone, yearning for beauty, love, perfection, all expressed with a bend of the knee and sweep of the arm.

I saw two casts, Kathleen Tracey with Helene Alexopolous, and Rachel Rutherford with Maria Kowroski. Of the four, Tracey was the least effective. Her rather floppy arms did not compliment the French inflections built into the Verdy role, and she danced with a big grin, making no real distinction between the subtle variations of mood. Alexopolous, in the secondary lead, was much better, with a true sense of mystery.

I much preferred Rutherford in the Verdy role. She had a slight mishap in first solo of the performance I saw, but she danced as if she understood the difference between a vision and Western Symphony. Her air of gentle melancholy at the leave-taking cast a magical spell. Kowroski, too, with her elegant abandon, made this a lovely Emeralds.

Edward Liang, recently promoted to soloist, had a clear, sharp approach, and certainly tried to convey the sense of searching at the beginning. For me, as yet, he did not quite convey the elegant, eternal longing, the combination of Siegfried and Desiré, this part needs. Christopher Wheeldon, as the more playful squire dancing with the two demis (Samantha Allen, who was a bit stiff in the arms, and Jennie Somogyi, who was just about perfect) caught the contrasting moods, and his final sweep of the arm from the floor to infinity was a beautiful sight.

Rubies, with its bright Stravinsky score and sharp, fast dancing, is a vibrant contrast to the gentle Emeralds. I was not able to see Maria Kowroski’s debut as the second lead, but did see Monique Meunier’s luscious, sensuous, extraordinary performance. Unlike the music, she is not a sharp, clear dancer. Her movements tend to flow together, culminating in a surprisingly large jump and deep arabesque. Her exit, with the extravagant, secure arabesque penchées had the audience gasping. In retrospect, she may have overdone the pelvic thrusts a bit too much to be in perfect taste, and held the deep arabesque a bit too long for the “it’s no big deal” attitude of the choreography, but while she was dancing I was completely caught up in the pure joy she brings to moving.

Miranda Weese and Damian Woeztel danced the lead couple. Weese has a different approach than the straightforward, cheeky air Patricia McBride gave the part. Weese danced with an air of detachment, rather like a fashion model. It came across as almost a takeoff of the Siren in The Prodigal Son, with the slightly Oriental arms and snaky positions. Weese has the effortless superiority and supreme assurance only a truly beautiful woman can have, but her witty and astringent timing seemed at the same time to be mocking this attitude. I don’t know whether this multilayered approach was intentional, but it was very funny and her dancing sizzled. Woetzel extended the fun, with a bravura performance. He seemed literally to be jumping for joy at the idea that such a beautiful creature would dance with him. If ever a jump said “Whoopee!” his did.
Like Weese, Kyra Nichols danced the ballerina role in Diamonds very differently from its creator, Suzanne Farrell. Farrell in the role was an extension of Odette, with a hint of tragedy in the falls into her partner’s arms. Nichols, with her solid center and grand presence does not convey melancholy. She made the pas de deux look as triumphant as the wedding dance in The Sleeping Beauty. The falls into her partner’s arms looked like an expression of supreme confidence and trust. Nichols does not have the seemingly effortless security she had ten years ago, but no one can fill out the role so generously. A second or so off a balance or a slightly less secure turn are a small price to pay for the chance to bask in such grandeur.

Charles Askegard was her partner. He has recently joined the company from American Ballet Theatre and has even more recently been promoted to principal. As one of the few tall men not injured, he seemed to be learning a new role every week, in addition to a new style. As yet, he has not developed a distinct personality, and seems, generously, to be most concerned with partnering. He made the breathtakingly difficult catch in Walpurgisnacht seem easy. But his solo in Diamonds was elegantly danced. He has a strong, secure, but not overtly flashy jump, and, once he gets his breath, should be able to fill out his roles. City Ballet was very lucky to have him this season.

Fortunately, the Diamonds pas de deux can stand on its own, because the frame around it—the corps—looked woefully under-rehearsed and out of sync. This is understandable, given the huge number of ballets given, but this was not an isolated example. The corps seemed to concentrate on steps rather than style, and tended to dance everything with the same youthful outlook. This worked well for the more lighthearted ballets like Walpurgisnacht or Ballo della Regina; the last section of Union Jack was intoxicating. But the more exalted ballets like Chaconne, which used to be an express train to Elysium, remained earthbound. The “put ‘em on, shove ‘em out” approach guaranteed by the huge number of ballets means that the differences between them will inevitably be smoothed out. Not only does the corps look bland, but the principals—only dancing a role two or three times—can hardly be expected consistently to explore nuances and develop interesting approaches. Certainly compared with other major companies (the homeless Royal Ballet or the financially strapped Russian companies) the City Ballet repertoire is flourishing, and critics needs to remember this. On the other hand, “other companies do it worse” may be true, but is not a stirring artistic policy. 100 ballets in x number of weeks may be a thrill for the marketing department, but the dancers, the ballets, and the audience deserve less.