The Paris Opera Ballet opened its 12-day visit to Lincoln Center on Wednesday evening with the glorious French Masters of the 20th Century, a program consisting of works by Serge Lifar, Roland Petit, and Maurice Bejart. On the basis of this program alone, Haglund hopes that the company's return visit is already in the planning stages. It seems that a mid-July season is no obstacle to ticket sales so long as there is quality programing. Many in New York never go on vacation.
The evening began with the company's 431st performance of Serge Lifar's Suite en Blanc, an academically oriented piece that displays the French style with its cool and collected temperament and precise, restrained classicism. Lifar used music from Lalo's Namouna for the choreography.
Everyone knows how the French can curl their legs around their ears – they practically invented that – but here they showed us how modesty and restraint are two of the most beautiful aspects of the art form. A ballerina's simple stance on pointe in fifth position, with not a wobble from head to toe and both heels showing as perfectly matched opposites, became a beautiful still image. Another ballerina balanced low arabesques while lines of men behind her performed grand jumps. Sometimes the classic formation of the arms overhead in fifth position framed not just the dancer's face but also the face of her partner. The choreography included some fussy wrists and hands – all performed with elegance and naturalness. The final solo, La Flûte, danced by Dorothée Gilbert was breathtaking in its beauty. The adage by Aurélie Dupont and Benjamin Pech was lovely in its simplicity. Ms. Dupont could have easily performed an extreme penche so that her tutu inverted into an umbrella form, but instead, offered a restrained arabesque leg that served the overall image respectfully and with classical beauty.
Maybe it was the location of Haglund's $29 seat, but it appeared that the tops of the ankles of some of the men in white tights and shoes could have been more stretched.
The middle piece on the program was Haglund's favorite: Roland Petit's L'Arlésienne danced by Isabelle Ciaravola and Jérémie Bélingard. In the ballet to Bizet's score, we never see the title character, the girl from Arles, who Bélingard's character, Frederi, intended to marry until he learned that she had been someone else's mistress. He mentally unraveled while the community sought to match him up with his former sweetheart, Ciaravola's Vivette, and eventually he took a suicidal dive through an opened window.
The corps de ballet had as important a character role to play in L'Arlésienne as the Wilis have in Giselle. They formed the community which observed and sometimes pressured the principal characters into their actions. The choreography for the community was brilliant as it displayed all that a community could be: nurturing, protective, consoling, conniving, and above all persistent.
Ms. Ciaravola had the audience's admiration at the first point of her delicately curved feet. She used those pointes to skillfully etch out Vivette's innocence and love for Frederi – eschappes that nearly bent the pointes in half, little walks on pointe in which she flexed her feet, lovely backward soutenu turns, little prancing steps. Meanwhile, poor Frederi's firm fixation on the girl from Arles was loosening his grasp on reality. His final solo of madness and hallucination was a mad manege of turns and jumps that showed the character suffering and deteriorating before our eyes. And then, out he went.
Back in the early 1980s, Haglund sat in the center of the front row as a shirtless Jorge Donn leaped and writhed all over the red tabletop in a performance of Maurice Bejart's Bolero by the Ballet of the 20th Century. It was pretty damned thrilling to be close enough to catch Donn's sweat and make eye contact. Sitting in a $29 seat last night didn't allow for quite the same thrill. However, Nicolas Le Riche's 18 minute long solo managed to unsettle all the right nerves with its crescendo and climax. The members of the New York City Opera Orchestra, in the pit all night, were beyond wonderful in Bolero and seemed quite happy to be back where they belong.
This visit by the Paris Opera Ballet could turn out to be the ballet highlight of 2012. It is truly a wonderful sight to see a company of such uniform style and classical tradition from the corps through the principals. Stylistically, one doesn't see the expansive, flexible backs that might be common in other companies and the port de bras isn't one that breathes to the extent of the Mariinsky's – at least not in last night's programing selections. But the overall end product is one of captivating beauty that deserves our respect and admiration. Love, love, love the Paris Opera Ballet.
The Pump Bump Award, with unraveling red ruffle, is bestowed upon Nicolas Le Riche for his melting-hot performance in Bolero.
12 responses to “Paris Opera Ballet – Oui, whew, oui!”
I had never seen this company as a whole before. WOW! I cannot wait to read your articulations on Giselle, probably the most beautiful Giselle I have ever seen. Ports de bras become meaningful gestures; all the elements of the production and the company combined as one.
I would love to see all these programs. I remmber Jorge Donn in Bolero!
I had never seen this company as a whole before. WOW! I cannot wait to read your articulations on Giselle, probably the most beautiful Giselle I have ever seen. Ports de bras become meaningful gestures; all the elements of the production and the company combined as one.
I would love to see all these programs. I remmber Jorge Donn in Bolero!
Hi dc!
Jorge – another great one from Argentina!
Hi dc!
Jorge – another great one from Argentina!
Wow. Another ignorant review from Alastair Macaulay which looks like another case where he or his helpers have scoured the internet forums and blogs and instead of writing a review of the actual performance, they wrote a response to what others wrote about it in the previous 18 hours.
Going forward, when he wants to trash choreography that is as historically significant as Lifar’s Suite en Blanc, his editors need to make him explain why his opinion is 180 degrees from the more learned critics (e.g., Clement Crisp, Ismene Brown and others) who refer to it as “treasure” “brilliant” “heart-raising” and other such positive terms.
And there he goes again, pronouncing that this person is better than some dead person in the same role when A) it’s not true and it’s immaterial, 1) he’s judging one dancer’s live performance against a video on YouTube, and i) he offers no technical evaluation as to why one dancer was better than the dead person. And he tries to compare Lifar’s choreography to Christopher Wheeldon’s – for what asinine purpose? Why do his frickin’ editors let him get away with this garbage?
Wow. Another ignorant review from Alastair Macaulay which looks like another case where he or his helpers have scoured the internet forums and blogs and instead of writing a review of the actual performance, they wrote a response to what others wrote about it in the previous 18 hours.
Going forward, when he wants to trash choreography that is as historically significant as Lifar’s Suite en Blanc, his editors need to make him explain why his opinion is 180 degrees from the more learned critics (e.g., Clement Crisp, Ismene Brown and others) who refer to it as “treasure” “brilliant” “heart-raising” and other such positive terms.
And there he goes again, pronouncing that this person is better than some dead person in the same role when A) it’s not true and it’s immaterial, 1) he’s judging one dancer’s live performance against a video on YouTube, and i) he offers no technical evaluation as to why one dancer was better than the dead person. And he tries to compare Lifar’s choreography to Christopher Wheeldon’s – for what asinine purpose? Why do his frickin’ editors let him get away with this garbage?
A friend of mine saw this program in Chicago and she literally ran out of superlatives — she apologized for saying “Fabulous” so much!
I’ve watched the Jorge Donn Bolero on YouTube at least a dozen times in the last few weeks. He had….IT, didn’t he?
Looking forward to your review of Giselle.
Signed,
Ballet newbie HH
A friend of mine saw this program in Chicago and she literally ran out of superlatives — she apologized for saying “Fabulous” so much!
I’ve watched the Jorge Donn Bolero on YouTube at least a dozen times in the last few weeks. He had….IT, didn’t he?
Looking forward to your review of Giselle.
Signed,
Ballet newbie HH
I gotta tell ya Henry – Jorge Donn had IT in spades. Even the NYT’s Anna Kisselgoff couldn’t resist him in Bolero. By the way, Anna studied ballet for over 10 years whereas Macaulay has no experience at all. He’s morbidly ignorant about the art form.
I gotta tell ya Henry – Jorge Donn had IT in spades. Even the NYT’s Anna Kisselgoff couldn’t resist him in Bolero. By the way, Anna studied ballet for over 10 years whereas Macaulay has no experience at all. He’s morbidly ignorant about the art form.
The Macaulay situation reminds me of how I feel about the orchestra/opera critic for my local bird cage liner, the LA Times, Mark Swed.
Until the early 90’s the post was held by Martin Bernheimer. Now, MB could be a bit much at times and at the end of his tenure, it was clear he was bored here and wanted to move on. But damn! did he know every nook and cranny of the symphonic and opera rep AND he was the main ballet critic for a while too.
So, he left and Mark Swed comes in and….he’s the anti-Bernheimer. Obsessed with American minimalism, he acts as a cheerleader. If you read him, Gustavo Dudamel has never conducted so much as a bad bar of music since he’s been here (that’s SO not true), it’s all just so wonderful and beautiful!
Ah, critics!
The Macaulay situation reminds me of how I feel about the orchestra/opera critic for my local bird cage liner, the LA Times, Mark Swed.
Until the early 90’s the post was held by Martin Bernheimer. Now, MB could be a bit much at times and at the end of his tenure, it was clear he was bored here and wanted to move on. But damn! did he know every nook and cranny of the symphonic and opera rep AND he was the main ballet critic for a while too.
So, he left and Mark Swed comes in and….he’s the anti-Bernheimer. Obsessed with American minimalism, he acts as a cheerleader. If you read him, Gustavo Dudamel has never conducted so much as a bad bar of music since he’s been here (that’s SO not true), it’s all just so wonderful and beautiful!
Ah, critics!