New York City Ballet: Four "Voices"

Sun, Jan 18 - This was a dispiritingly dull afternoon of ballet. Titled Four Voices, the program aimed to represent the four very different voices of the four choreographers on the program, but what it instead seemed to show was the ways choreographers can make ballet really boring, either by making exceedingly pointless ballets or by dancing them without life. Only one work- Alexei Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH - was of any interest, but even then its programmatic surroundings rendered it a blur.

The afternoon annoyed me: is ballet only a "pretty" art form, meant to be admired like expensive plastic dolls, or can it be exciting, transcendent? I know I have experienced the latter, but this afternoon was decidedly not it.

At the beginning of the program, there was Lynne Taylor Corbett's Chiaroscuro, a short piece set to Corelli's Concerto Grosso "La Follia." Program notes tell us that the piece references the term chiaroscuro in visual art, meaning the play of light and shadow. According to the program notes, on stage we see a central male character revisits the relationships and friendships that he has had in his life. The ballet is certainly lit in a contrasting dark and light style, and the strip of scenery hanging above the stage evokes the Renaissance light/shadow visual referenced in the title. But the choreography itself is slight and very literal and unimaginative with respect to the music. Janie Taylor and Sebastian Marcovici gave a very good performances in central roles, but as a whole the proceedings were airless. (I don't remember feeling this away about Chiaroscuro when I saw it on television several years ago, when it was broadcast as part of City Ballet's Diamond Project celebration. Perhaps then, with the camera cutting close on individual dancers - and with Jock Soto in the main role - the ballet's blank stage spaces and emptiness were not so apparent.)

The next work on the program, Peter Martins' Papillons, was cute and pretty to the point of cloying and insipid. Danced with four dancers to a set of Chopin piano waltzes, the piece resembles one of Jerome Robbins' piano ballets with its airy white dresses and its empty stage, but without any of Robbins' inventiveness or human emotion. Papillons is an entirely pointless ballet - anyone arguing that ballet as an artform has become creatively irrelevant and outmoded would need only this ballet for proof. Papillons might more appropriately be a ballet school recital piece, but why is a fully professional company doing such a bland piece? Ballet can be so much more than this, and certainly New York City Ballet's repertory is first proof of that. So why this piece was chosen to represent a "voice" on the Four Voices program is truly odd. Darci Kistler and Megan Fairchild danced the female roles, partnered by Jared Angle and Tyler Angle.

(Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH. Photo: Paul Kolnik)

Concerto DSCH is Alexei Ratmansky's most recent work for New York City Ballet, after a string of recent successes for the company. Set to Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 (hence the DSCH of the title), it is a springy, colorful piece. Though I didn't find the entire ballet satisfying, there were some wonderful moments, particularly in the duets for Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied. At the end of the lush second movement and pas de deux, the group (it wouldn't be proper to call this group the more formal sounding corps de ballet) converges onto the stage, the girls take Whelan by the arms and the boys take Millepied, and lead them off opposite sides of the stage - but both keep pulling behind to look and flirt with each other. Unlike in Papillons, where the steps are there just to be there, Ratmansky's choreography for Concerto DSCH is arranged deliberately arranged, ebbing and flowing to match a preconceived throughline that Ratmansky has found in the piece. The work was given great performances by its cast, especially with the Whelan and Millepied in the main roles, and Joaquin De Luz, Ana Sophia Scheller and Gonzalo Garcia spectacularly fun and virtuosic in secondary roles.

Balanchine's 1966 ballet Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet closed the program, and with the sweeping ensembles in the opening movement, I instantly saw Balanchine's choreographic superiority over the previous three "voices" on the program. And I wouldn't even say that this is one of Balanchine's great ballets - it gets somewhat repetitive in the middle, then the last movement takes an odd shift in tone. And, with the last movement danced like it was at this performance, things devolved into a cluttered mess. But at least there was the framework of a better ballet in there. The sweeping flow of the first movement, led by Abi Stafford and Philip Neal, showed Balanchine's usual sense of invention and his ability to move groups of dancers in interesting patterns around the stage. The second movement was given over with authority by Jennifer Ringer and Jared Angle, though the third movement was alarmingly weak with Yvonne Borree in the lead (Borree's arms were visibly shaking during her partnering, and Andrew Veyette partnered as bravely as he could). Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard charged through the gypsy dances in the Fourth Movement; this has never been my favorite Balanchine choreography, since it just looks messy and overcomplicated, and it looked even worse at this performance with the corps de ballet rushing through its paces.

This was not a particularly great afternoon at New York City Ballet. Disappointing dancing, disappointing ballets. Though I might give Concerto DSCH another shot when it is presented again during the spring season, this second disappointing performance in my first regular repertory season with the company didn't leave me too hopeful about its current state.

All photos by Paul Kolnik: (1) Sebastien Marcovici, lifted center, in Lynne Taylor Corbett's Chiaroscuro. (2) Darci Kistler and Tyler Angle in Peter Martins' Papillons. (3) Alexei Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH, as captioned above. (4) Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard in the fourth movement of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, choreographed by George Balanchine.