A tip of the scale in ABT's double bill

(The closing tableau of Etudes. Photo: me)

Different casting at the Saturday matinee (Aug 9) shifted the balance in American Ballet Theatre's double bill of Etudes and Rabbit & Rogue at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Where Etudes chugged along rather limply at Wednesday's opening, it was great fun on Saturday, but Rabbit & Rogue lost considerable wattage with its second cast.

Irina Dvorovenko brought a grand ballerina flair to the proceedings of Etudes, while her cavaliers Maxim Beloserkovsky and David Hallberg further contributed a satisfying sheen of nobility and virtuosity. It made a huge different that the principal roles in Etudes were being performed by dancers that took hold of the stage with personality in addition to technique. Their dancing showed the difference between what principal dancers bring to roles, as opposed to the just as technically accomplished, but not as theatrically accomplished, soloists on Wednesday (Michele Wiles is a newer principal, while Jared Matthews is a soloist and Corey Stearns a member of the corps de ballet). With this strong cast, each section had more spunk and variance: the corps showed the foundations of the ballet technique, then the principals elevated the technique to complete theater in their solos and variations. This performance showed at least part of the reason why Etudes has lasted since its creation in 1948.

Rabbit & Rogue was much less fun with its second cast, which seemed less fluid and sure of itself than Wednesday's originators. Though I still liked the ballet overall, this performance looked put-on and unnatural, the segments not flowing together as evenly as they did on first viewing. The cast didn't fit as well into their roles and many of their gestures and character inflections seemed like second thoughts rather than organic ones (though it should be noted in comparison that Tharp created the roles and characters with the first cast on Wednesday, so some second-cast awkwardness might be expected here).

There seemed to bit of casting drama backstage: before the performance, an announcement indicated that, due to injury, Sascha Radetsky would not be performing in the role of Rogue. In his place was a rather unusual arrangement: Mikhail Ilyin would perform in the first four segments, and Herman Cornejo would finish in the final segment. The contrast between the two dancers was not complementary for Ilyin. Where he looked subdued and self conscious, Cornejo was spitfire and energetic. Marcelo Gomes danced Rabbit powerfully, though he did not fully inhabit the role nearly the way Ethan Stiefel did in the first cast. It's hard to follow the first cast, especially with a first cast as stunning as Ethan Stiefel and Herman Cornejo.

I was, though, very charmed by Sarah Lane as one of the Quartet girls. She stood out in a very good way, with easy technique and natural stage presence. After seeing her debut as Aurora last year and her comfort here in modern works, she is definitely a dancer to watch.

Second photo: Marcelo Gomes in Rabbit & Rogue, photo by Rosalie O'Connor.