Jose Manuel Carreño went out on a high note last night – specifically, the "high C" of class, charisima, charm, and consummate Cuban classicism. For his farewell performance, he chose perhaps the most difficult classical role for any aging dancer – one that is unforgiving to a technique that may have lost its sparkle or to a back that has over the years hoisted hundreds of thousands of pounds of ballerina.
Seemingly defying his 43 years, Carreño delivered a superb performance of Siegfried in Swan Lake, employing his dazzling signature pirouettes – so perfect in their revolutions which slowed to a complete stop just in time for Carreño to unfold the position into a generous fourth position with arms outstretched to the audience. Our fascination with his ability to do this has not faded at all in sixteen years. While there may be a brand new generation of dancers who are expert turners, they don't deliver their pirouettes like gifts to the audience the way Carreño has done all these years. He has always done them for us, not for himself.
This past year it seems that Carreño has concentrated on conditioning himself for this final performance. Last night, his circles of coupe jetes were of fine form and great speed. His grand jetes in the Black Swan variation had the height and form of an earlier decade. The strength and grace of his partnering were heroic.
As the evening's performance evolved, so did the realization that this was not so much a farewell as a transition or even an initiation into a higher-valued class within the ballet world. Nine or so years ago when Susan Jaffe danced her own farewell and very emotional performance in Giselle, Carreño was her Albrecht. Jaffe, who had been Carreño's Odette for many years, last night took on the role of his protective Queen Mother who was intent on guiding him to maturity. God bless Jaffe for summoning her inner-Lucia grandness last night, because it made all the difference in the world in this performance as did Victor Barber's fully-weighted Wolfgang. Haglund so clearly remembers seeing his first Swan Lake in which Cynthia Gregory danced Odette/Odile, but the undisputed star was Lucia Chase as the Queen Mother. When she descended the steps in Act I and eyed all the princesses from head to toe, you just knew it was all for real and that she owned the place. And so last night, Jaffe helped to usher Carreño into his next chapter which hopefully and almost certainly will include development of our next generation of ballet legends. At the conclusion of last night, there were legends on the stage congratulating him, most notably Julio Bocca and Alessandra Ferri. All of the indelible memories flooding the Met at that moment were nearly overwhelming.
What a treat it was to see Joaquin De Luz return to perform the role of Benno and how grateful we are that when he exited ABT, he only went a few feet over to the next theater where they seem to have a greater appreciation for talented dancers who are not tall. De Luz is a much missed and very charismatic dancer and looked handsome in the Pas de Trois with Sarah Lane and Yuriko Kajiya.
David Hallberg's von Rothbart was superbly danced from a technical standpoint, and overall was a good performance, but the theatricality didn't approach Gomes' incomparable von Rothbart nor did it surpass Radetsky's fine characterization on Wednesday evening. But it is always a delight to see Hallberg have the opportunity to escape his princely duties, and the crowd went double-bananas over his wickedness.
Odette and Odile were danced by Julie Kent and Gillian Murphy, respectively. Julie's individual dancing didn't hold up well last night although her PdDs with Carreño still managed to be mesmerizing for their beauty in line and musicality. But how sad it was in Julie's variation to see her not execute the brush of the foot to the side that precedes the quick ronde de jambe developpe. And to have seen this type of compromise sift into Paloma's variation earlier this week was very disappointing. While lesser ballerinas in second class companies may substitute a much easier coupe fondu developpe for the traditional and very difficult brush of the foot into a battement in second position, it is a symptom of malaise at ABT for the ballerinas to compromise with this less challenging movement. This isn't the first time that we have seen watered-down compromised technique trickle down through the ballerina ranks at ABT. Of late, it's been happening in Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps it's time for Julie to consider Odette/Odile as one of those roles that she should now pass on to others along with her Nikiya, Medora, and Juliet which are no longer firmly within her technical skill.
Haglund is not a fan of Gillian's Odile. Last night the spinning of her fouettes was more about a dancer executing tricks than her character executing trickery within the scope of the ballet's story. The careless, unclassical positioning of the arms and the lack of shape of the working foot made the whole sequence workmanlike – carpenter work, not cabinetmaker craftsmanship. And while the sequence at the beginning of her variation (triple pirouette, double turn en attitude) was slightly unstable, it still worked within the scope of the character of Odile who is by nature a reckless exaggeration. Haglund hopes that some day soon, Gillian will decide that it is time to take her artistry to a new level by addressing the lack of expressivity in her feet that is exacerbated by her choice of shoe. Maybe that courage will rise from beneath the less harsh spotlight at The Royal New Zealand Ballet in the coming months.
The Swan corps was once again beautiful and harmonious. It was again wonderful to see such a physically and ethnically diverse collection of artists breathe as one. In Haglund's view, it is always more beautiful than watching other famous companies who discriminate in unacceptable ways in order to achieve a homogenized effect in the corps de ballet. The Cygnettes (Bond, Butler, Copeland, Riccetto) achieved such unison that it made the crowd roar its appreciation. The two Big Swans (Simone Messmer and Melanie Hamrick) weren't simply excellent for their symmetry but also for the power in their jumps and the matching upward trajectory of the front leg. It was an awesome job by these two ladies.
It was another big evening of ballet at the Met. Sad, sweet, uplifting, sad again. Haglund's last visual of Carreño's Siegfried was his ascent off the edge of the cliff. For some reason, the descent never made it into
the picture or memory. This Golden First Position Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Jose Manuel Carreño with thanks for the memories.