Humbled and Overwhelmed

Marcelo Gomes, photo @ Kent G. Becker I caught a second performance of La fille mal gardée and it was basically the greatest thing ever. I had seen a previous performance in the run and thought it was very cute and charming. But tonight's performance is one of those joyous experiences that reaffirms your whole love for the art form. From the very first steps the performance was just on . There was an energy onstage that transmitted across the footlights. By the end of the evening I was limp from happiness. This hasn't happened for me for a long time at ABT performances. I've often felt that they had great dancers, but the level of artistry and care in their performances was not high. At this performance of Fille , everything was on an elevated plane.

Mearns and Veyette in MSND, photo @ Andrea Mohin NYCB ended its spring season with its traditional run of A Midsummer's Night Dream . This is a timeless comedy that almost always sells out no matter who's cast. It's the spring Nutcracker . In recent years Peter Martins has mixed seasoned principals with debuting corps members, and so it was here. The May 26th performance had only three principal dancers in the cast: Anthony Huxley (Oberon), and the divertissement dancers (Abi Stafford and Adrian Danchig-Waring). There's no need to talk about Huxley -- he's the finest technical male dancer of the company, period. His scherzo was a master class of soft landings, deep plies, beautiful soaring jumps, clean lines, pointed toes. He could be more extroverted in his presentation but the beauty of his dancing speaks for itself. Nor is there much need to talk about Abi Stafford in the divertissement pas de deux. She gave the same efficient, uninteresting performance s...

Now iconic final pose of Concerto DSCH This week was all about Ratmansky. At ABT, the entire week was devoted to Ratmansky: a new work entitled Serenade After Plato's Symposium , revivals of his Shostakovich Trilogy , plus his Firebird (which, if Misty Copeland was cast, was sold out) and Seven Sonatas.  I must be a very bad balletomane because I didn't manage to catch any of these works. I did, however, manage to catch two NYCB performances that ranged from the classics ( Serenade ) to modern classics (Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH ) to the awful (Wheeldon's American Rhapsody ).

Murphy and Gomes in Sylvia, photo @ Andrea Mohin It's that time of spring dance season when ABT and NYCB go head-to-head almost every night and balletomanes often have to make agonizing (not a hyperbole) choices about what to see. This week I saw one performance of Sir Frederick Ashton's Sylvia at ABT (May 9), and three performances at the NYCB (May 10, 14th matinee and evening). Sylvia at its best is a perfect little concoction -- the combination of the beautiful Delibes score, Ashton's sensitive choreography, and a great bravura part for the title character (originally choreographed on Margot Fonteyn) give this ballet is continued appeal. Unfortunately, the performance I saw on Monday was sluggish, poorly attended (entire swaths of the orchestra, grand tier and dress circle were empty), and simply reinforces the feeling that right now ABT is going through an ebbing of talent and morale.

Wheeldon's American Rhapsody, photo @ Paul Kolnk I attended three performances of week 3 of Spring Season of the NYCB. It chugged along with the usual amount of welcome returns to the repertoire (the ever-lovely Vienna Waltzes that made its usual impact despite some apparent pre-performance chaos ), standout performances (Tiler Peck in Ballo della Regina , Sterling Hyltin and Joseph Gordon in Symphony in 3 Movements , Adrian Danchig-Waring and Amar Ramasar in Kammermusik No. 2 ), disheartening injuries (Ana Sophia Scheller seems to be out again just after returning from a long injury), corps de ballet members who have leaped above the pack (Unity Phelan, Indiana Woodward, Sara Adams), and I also unknowingly witnessed Sara Mearns' "farewell" to the Flower Festivals of Genzano . But the big "event" of the spring season was the world premiere of two ballets: Nicholas Blanc's Mothership and Christopher Wheeldon's American Rhapsody . I missed the ...