ABT – La Bayadere – 5/23

The magnificent Marcelo Gomes as the warrior Solor could kill a 500 pound Bengal tiger with his bare hands, but he was helpless when caught between Gillian Murphy's demanding, clawing Gamzatti and Diana Vishneva’s purring and meowing Nikiya.  Sufferin’ Succotash, the only thing he could do was dance his feet off. And that he did.

ABT opened its week of La Bayaderes with a performance that shook the Richter scale. The heat-generated friction among the three principals finally fractured their world, but in the end when the smoke cleared, Solor and Nikiya were reunited on the steps to eternity.

At a career point when many men begin to think about technical preservation, Marcelo is still reaching for new technical peaks within his dancing. His was a masterful performance marked by beautifully shaped turns and jumps, explosive jetes, finishes to the knee with his head thrown nearly to the back foot, and grand theater. He had as much, possibly more, energy than we have ever seen in his 17 years with ABT. He just keeps getting better.

Gillian’s self-entitled Gamzatti was spoiling for a fight with Nikiya. “I only want my due,” she spit with glowering eyes – wait, or was that some other self-entitled ABT diva who recently said that? In love and in all of life, we don’t always get what we may think is our due, and it takes maturity to understand that. Gamzatti threw her jewels at Nikiya, “Take my jewels and give me what I want. Give me my due. Give me Solor.” But it was not to be. Not even when Gamzatti appealed with her repeated triple pirouettes, fouettes, and leggy battements could she win Solor, because it was not in the cosmic plan. Gamzatti eventually vanished in the massive earthquake, but her nasty spirit will probably resurface to live on in another form and create chaos in the new TV drama, Flesh and Bone.

Poor Nikiya. It’s possible that it might have been her last time to be inhabited by Diana Vishneva – one never knows. It’s been a few years since Haglund has seen Diana in a pancake tutu role, and there was some uncertainty about what the years of immersion in eclectic contemporary work might have done to Diana’s classicism. Like Marcelo, she looked rejuvenated. We’ll never know if the passage of time made Act II a struggle for Diana because she was classically composed throughout. An awkward closing on the first en dedans pirouette after her scarf arabesque turns was followed by pristine series to the left and right again. So many ballerinas have trouble with the double pirouette to arabesque combination that travels upstage with tour jetes, but Diana made them look simple and elegant. In Act I, her agony in the Temple solo was palpable. On the floor, did she reach for an extreme backbend as she might have in past years in order to impress us? No. But the whole picture left us devastated with her sorrow and love for Solor.

The chemistry between Vishneva and Gomes will always be one of the great ones. We feel their love and despair deeply and unlike when either dances with others.

Craig Salstein as the Bronze Idol managed the technical challenges but only occasionally found the staccato articulation that we know Natalia Makarova wants from this role. Almost exactly four years ago, Haglund pined, "Not until everyone who ever saw Angel Corella and Herman Cornejo in this role dies will audiences be able to happily accept anything less than their electrifying, super-punctuated performances.”

This is what we’re looking for:

 

Who at ABT will give us this?

The Corps de Ballet had its hits and misses last night. In the Kingdom of the Shades procession, shade #2 was frequently late in getting her arabesque into the air while shade #3 was early with too much battement. Shade #1, Gemma Bond, was perfect, which is why she was the leader, but not everyone was following. The final several minutes of the corps’ work was superb – thrilling and musical. Haglund always searches among the shades for Melanie Hamrick, a natural Nikiya. She was as beautiful as ever and was lovely among the group in the Pas d’Action. Yuriko Kajiya was also a pleasure to watch in this section. One never gets tired of her sparkling perfection and modesty.

The shade soloists (Sarah Lane, Devon Teuscher, and Misty Copeland) were fine individually, but they are all dancers of such different qualities and shapes that their ensemble effort wasn’t as pretty as, say, a group with Sarah, Gemma, and Yuriko might have been or Devon, Melanie, and Courtney Lavine or a trio of Misty, Luciana Paris and Christine Shevchenko.

The D’Jampe leaders were Stephanie Williams and Isadora Loyola. This is where we definitely missed the bold dancing of Kristi Boone and Luciana Paris. Kristi, who recently gave birth to a baby girl, has decided to retire and stay in North Carolina where her husband, Isaac Stappas is in school. Why we didn’t get Luciana on opening night is anyone’s guess.

Zhong-Jing Fang made Aya, Gamzatti’s servant, a role really worth noting. Every time she appeared on stage, the eye was drawn to her because you knew something important was about to happen.

Lastly, the orchestra was mostly wonderful in the rich John Lanchbery arrangement of Minkus’ music. Whoever the violin soloist was, she’s a keeper. Light on the bow, but oh so sweet – and accurate.

This special Tiger Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Marcelo Gomes for his great performance on opening night of La Bayadere.