New York City Ballet: Agon, The Lady with the Little Dog, Cortege Hongrois

Wendy Whelan and Albert Evans in Agon, choreographed by George Balanchine.
Photo by John Ross, from Ballet.co.uk.

Wed, Jan 20 & Tues, Feb 9 - This program was one of only a few mixed rep performances during New York City Ballet's 2010 winter season. Full-evening story ballets dominate the rep this season, so it was nice to see the company in repertory mode for a smattering of performances.

Agon was the most exciting piece for me. Set to a modern, atonal score by Stravinsky but arranged structurally in the manner of formal academic dance, the ballet manages to look both contemporary and sharply classical all at once. The title is a Greek word for competition, and the various dances - named after French court dances (ie sarabande, bransle, etc.) - are arranged presentationally in an escalating showcase, with the pas de deux as the culminating event. The choreography is fascinating: it's classical ballet but stretched, twisted and rearranged into something that looks refreshingly modern even now, more than fifty years after the ballet's premiere.

The two performances of Agon that I saw were fantastic. There was urgency and tension, the dancing crisp and decisive. Wendy Whelan was particularly thrilling in the pas de deux (she danced it with Albert Evans on Jan 20 and Sebastien Marcovic on Feb 9). Her performance appeared effortless: it was clear that she was the one who held the power in the relationship with her partner, and she was flirtatious, mysterious and powerful. She alternated between breathtaking slow stretches and well-timed angular leaps, timing everything with intelligence and control. She has mastered this role after so many years doing it, and the performance she is giving right now is nothing short of amazing.

I also love the Bransle Gay, which is the solo female role in the second pas de trois. At the Feb 9 performance, Ellen Bar debuted in this role, and I thought she did a particularly good job here. She captured the quiet allure of the role while not letting the fast technical challenges get a hold of her. Teresa Reichlin was reliably good in this part on Jan 20 and Amar Ramasar and Adrian Danchig-Warig stood out in the Bransle Simple (the other part of this pas de trois) at the February performance.

I sat at the very top of the 4th ring at my second performance of the run, and I found the aerial view completely revelatory. The quickly shifting patterns and groupings around the stage really added to the tension in the piece, and Balanchine's genius in this choreography emerged even more.

Alexey Miroshnichenko's new ballet The Lady with the Little Dog, second on the program, was a total bore for me. It's one of two brand new ballets this season, and framing it with two Balanchine ballets on this program did not help it look any better. The ballet's scenario is based on a short story by Anton Chekhov about a man and a woman - the titular lady with the little dog - both unhappy in their respective marriages who meet and have an adulterous affair. Miroshnichenko takes the themes of the story and ends up makes fairly generic dances about them. Things amount to a collection of movements and moody interludes that don't look like they belong to any particular character, and it becomes a long blur, especially since the movements lack any real originality. Nor do the steps and episodes come together in a logical flow. The props were handled awkwardly, and the costumes for the principal characters kept coming and on and off without any more explanation than "oh it happens in the story." And it all feels really really long.

The redeeming factors were Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette's performances in the main roles; they were both interesting to watch in their many moments. But even so the ballet dragged on and on, a feeling exacerbated by the many times when it looked like the ballet was about to end, only for it to go on for another new passage. The biggest audience reaction came at the beginning of the ballet, when Hyltin's real dog accompanied her across the stage - the audience erupted in giggles. Overall, there was just nothing interesting being said about the story or the situation of the characters, it was just a really long ballet.

Cortege Hongrois completed the evening. It's a delightful puff of a ballet, filled with sparkly tutus and jangling metal on the costumes. This ballet, too, can feel overlong at points, but at least there is real choreography to watch the whole time. Balanchine choreographed Cortege using music and variations from the third act of the full-evening Raymonda, originally choreographed by Petipa with music by Glazunov. The choreography references the classic Petipa at points, but the steps are mostly Balanchine's own, especially in the music from the Grand Pas Classique. Traditionally, the Grand Pas is Raymonda's big wedding pas de deux, but here it is given to ten corps de ballet couples who perform a supported adagio in mirror-image unison. Later, the principal couple - a classical ballerina and her cavalier - dance a pas de deux to music brought in from Act 2 of Raymonda, and later another principal couple in flat shoes lead a contingent of dancers in Hungarian-flavored character dances.

I really enjoyed the cast at the Feb 9 performance, where Sara Mearns and Stephen Hanna debuted in the principal roles. There was an easy musicality to Mearns' dancing that was a joy to watch, and she was particularly gorgeous in the 'clapping' variation, set to Glazunov's beautiful Act 3 piano variation. Hanna - back at NYCB as a guest principal after a year away performing in Billy Elliot on Broadway - was an attentive partner, but even better solo dancer. His variations were athletic but brightly musical; his jumps and turns brought the music to life, while his athleticism also made it fun to watch. At the Jan 20 performance, Maria Kowroski and Jonathan Stafford were wonderfully regal in their own right. With her gorgeously arched feet and long extensions, Kowroski is a natural glamour girl. But perhaps because of her long legs, the performance was less fluid and free flowing as Mearns'. It was still nice, but the role didn't fit her quite as easily. It did, however, make me look forward to seeing Kowroski's performances in Diamonds and Swan Lake later this season.

I should also note: the character dancing in Cortege Hongrois was the some of the most exciting character dancing I've seen in awhile. Rebecca Krohn and Sean Suozzi lit up the stage as the leading dancers in the Kowroski/Stafford cast. (Savannah Lowery and Craig Hall danced in the Mearns/Hanna cast.) A fun way to end the evening.

Inset photos by Paul Kolnik: (1) Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette in The Lady with the Little Dog, choreographed by Alexey Miroshnichenko. (2) Maria Kowroski and Jonathan Stafford in Cortege Hongrois, choreographed by George Balanchine.