(Bows at the end of Los Angeles Ballet's first performance, with artistic directors Colleen Neary and Thordal Christensen.)
Los Angeles Ballet
Concerto Barocco (Chor.: Balanchine/Music: Bach)
Agon (Balanchine/Stravinsky)
Divertissements from Napoli (Bournonville/Helsted, Paulli)
UCLA Freud Playhouse
Thursday, March 15, 2007, 7:30pm
The new Los Angeles Ballet gave its first repertory performance tonight at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, after it's initial premiere with The Nutcracker in December. (I'm not going to count Nutcracker as a real premiere for this company - everyone does Nutcracker...) It's a matter of curiosity when someone tries to start a ballet company in Los Angeles. Despite major presenters who regularly bring in the huge international companies (ABT, Kirov, etc), no local ballet company exists on any significant scale. There have been tries, historically, but none have lasted very long (this LA Times article) - and LA Ballet is aiming big, with some pretty meaty choices for its first repertory program out. Balanchine's Concerto Barocco and Agon are not exactly easy, entry-level ballets - nor are Bournonville's Napoli divertistments. So the interest level in LA Ballet's first performaces is high.
Thursday's performance was a pretty good, very promising first performance. The choreography chosen went a long way towards making the company look good, and the dancers were very well coached. They don't have the ease and abandon that the more established companies do (understandable - they're new and small), but it was just great to see all that excellent choreography up on stage.
Concerto Barocco is a small ballet for 11 dancers (all but one of them female), set to Bach's Double Violin Concerto. Balanchine's choreography is thrilling in its simplicity and musicality: steps and patterns unfold with the music in continually inventive ways. There are interesting stage images that elegantly roll into the next one effortlessly as the music builds and finds variations on the established themes. Agon couldn't be more different musically and visually. Set to an atonal Stravinsky score, 12 dancers are dressed in black and white leotards. The music is very contemporary and so is the dancing: its jagged, sometimes agressive and sometimes seductive. It's not an easy ballet to pull off because the music isn't immediately accessible, but the choreography plainly reveals the music for the audience to see and experience. Napoli was choreographed in the mid 19th century by August Bournonville, and the divertissements are a straightforward essay of Bournonville's style - a style that has come to define the Danish school of dancing. It looks very Romantic (skirts and ribbons) in comparison to the stark neoclassicism of the Balanchine before it. And the choreography is light on its feet, filled with jumps and quick turns.
The program chosen by Neary and Christensen was a tribute to their own time as dancers: Neary danced soloist parts with Balanchine's New York City Ballet (you can spy her leading the Choleric section of The Four Temperaments on the Choreography by Balanchine DVD), and Christensen danced with and briefly directed the Royal Danish Ballet. And Neary and Christensen have also been staging these ballets for other ballet companies in the US and abroad. Neary's staging of Agon in particular showed a crisp attention to detail.
Special kudos should go to dancer Corina Gill, who danced huge roles in ALL THREE of the ballets this evening: the main role with the adagio pas de deux in Concerto Barocco, the pas de deux in Agon and a delightful variation in Napoli. She's tiny in stature but danced very big - and she stood out in a very good way. Her dancing was musical and confident: authoritative poses were strong punctuation marks on exquisitely phrased steps in between. She's very talented and evidently really understands the music and the mood required for all the roles she danced. Evidence: seeing her subtly seductive Agon pas de deux, then twenty minutes, a light airy elegance with a natural, unforced smile in Napoli - with the requisite change to Bournonville style to match.
The corps de ballet managed pretty well in these ballets. The female corps looked nervous and tentative in Barocco, but when they entered in Agon, the stage sizzled - it was quite the entrance. They were well coached in the Bournonville style for Napoli, though it was mainly the soloists in the variations who gave more an idea of the Bournonville essence. Petit but full of energy, Masahiro Suehara impressed with his jumps and quick feet in the first male variation. Some of the other male soloists were trying to hard and ultimately ended up looking sloppy, and the women were competent in their exactness. But it was Corina Gill in a brief variation half way through that showed the kind of Bournonvillean elegance and bearing that makes the full Napoli so delightful.
UCLA's Freud Playhouse was a wonderful venue to see ballet in, even if the stage was slightly cramped for some moments of the ballets (not much room for jumping in Napoli, and a few feet to navigate over in Barocco). But it was a great venue for the audience. I was in the last row of the theatre, Row M, and I had a fantastic, intimate view of the stage. In fact, watching the ballets I kept noticing how big everyone looked: I'm so used to seeing ballet dancers far away and itty bitty in the huge halls!
I'm very much looking forward to the company's performances of Serenade, Apollo and Rubies - all really great Balanchine ballets - in June. I suppose this is what regional ballet in America is all about, especially with the Balanchine repertoire. Even though the company doesn't have all the polish and glamour of ABT or New York City Ballet, there was a certain energy and intimacy to the performance. The dancers looked like they prized the opportunity to dance these ballets (a feeling NYCB has long since left behind), and the intimacy of the theatre brought me closer to the dancing. An enjoyable evening all around.
Performances continue tomorrow at UCLA (March 16), then move to the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center for the weekend (March 17 & 18), then to the Alex Theatre in Glendale on March 31. More info here.
Curtain call photos:
(1) Concerto Barocco: Corina Gill, Oleg Gorboulev, Melissa Barak (2) Agon: full company (3) Agon, L-R: Macco Dousias, Lauren Toole, Andrew Brader (second pas de trois); Corina Gill, Oleg Gorboulev (pas de deux); Kelly Ann Sloan, Sergey Kheylik, Erin Rivera-Brennand (first pas de trois) (4) Napoli, full company
