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Alexandra Tomalonis
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ABT's Sweet 'Dream' Program
Company Proves A Fine Partner For Ashton Ballets

Alexandra Tomalonis
Special to The Washington Post
June 3, 2002; Page C5

NEW YORK -- Charm is making a comeback in New York this spring. The two hits of American Ballet Theatre's current season celebrate beauty, love and innocence, and are so freshly danced it's hard to believe they were made for Britain's Royal Ballet by its great choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, 40 years ago. Both "The Dream" (Ashton's 1964 magical Victorian staging of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream") and "La Fille Mal Gardee" (his pastoral 1960 comedy that delighted Washington audiences during the Royal's visit last season) were beloved staples of the company's frequent New York visits in the 1960s and '70s. Ashton's works are seldom danced by his old company these days, so ABT's success is especially good news.

The success is, quite frankly, a bit surprising. Ashton's works are the quicksand of ballet. When well directed and well danced, they're sublimely beautiful, but they're so subtle and idiosyncratic that they can easily look awkward or even camp in coarse stagings. But ABT has avoided these pitfalls.

"Fille" received its company premiere Friday night at the Metropolitan Opera House. The story, if not the steps, dates from the eve of the French Revolution: A mother tries to marry off her daughter Lise to the son of a rich farmer; the girl has other ideas, and true love triumphs in the end. Ashton's version is a concoction of bravura choreography, clog dances, maypoles and dancing chickens, and has been a hit with audiences since its creation.

"Fille" was staged for ABT by Alexander Grant (who created the role of Alain, possibly the most unsuitable suitor in all of ballet), along with Christopher Carr and Grant Coyle, and if the ballet understandably seems a bit less English, it has all the humor and humanity of the original. Ashley Tuttle danced Lise with beautifully clear footwork, if not quite enough force. Ethan Stiefel was a sunny, heroic Colas, her poor but honest boyfriend, and it's hard to imagine that the role has ever been better danced.

Kirk Peterson, in drag, was delightful as Lise's mother, the Widow Simone. In Peterson's interpretation, the character is motivated by concern rather than greed, and, in a stroke of real genius, Peterson showed glimpses of the daughter's daintiness in the mother's dancing. One could imagine that, a few decades and many crocks of clotted cream ago, Simone had also been a frolicsome scamp more interested in dancing than churning butter.

Rather than dimwitted, Joaquin De Luz's Alain was simply too young to marry. This made him more comic, and his dancing -- typical ballet hero steps gone zany -- was witty and crisp. The corps danced its many balleticized folk dances with real zest.

"The Dream," set to the music Mendelssohn wrote for a staging of the play, is a different world -- a fairyland that looks like a 19th-century ballet, but isn't. The fairies only look pretty. Their queen is willful and a bit of a hoyden; the king has a temper and must not be crossed. Ashton interweaves their relationship with the story of two couples who are confused by Puck's magic to create a loving parody of Victorian courtesies and foibles.

"The Dream" received its company premiere a week ago, sharing the bill with Balanchine's "Symphony in C." The cast I saw (Amanda McKerrow with Maxim Belotserkovsky on Thursday evening) had some technical problems and the comedy fell a bit flat, yet the outline of the ballet was quite clear and there's all the promise that it will gel with a few more performances.

The staging is by Sir Anthony Dowell (also with Christopher Carr), who created the role of Oberon and has never been matched in it. Belotserkovsky was kingly enough, but lacked the speed needed for the scherzo, where Oberon is an otherworldly whirlwind, his temper bursting into series after series of lightning turns that catch mortals and fairies in its maelstrom. If McKerrow at this stage of her career doesn't quite have Titania's firefly feet, she does have her deceptive delicacy and strong will. Their dancing was best in the final pas de deux, one of the greatest love duets in ballet, with its subtext of finding a balance of power between two proud, beautiful creatures.

Carlos Lopez was a high-flying Puck, Flavio Salazar a very touching Bottom (the rustic whom Puck turns into an ass), especially in the scene where he relives the half-remembered night of enchantment with Titania. The corps caught the skittery, flighty dancing of the fairies perfectly, and the quartet of lovers were appropriately lovable and foolish.