ABT Onegin & Don Quixote

Drama or comedy? We’ll take both, thank you.

The fact that American Ballet Theatre can now pull off a rip-roaring successful run of John Cranko’s Onegin without a Ferri or Vishneva or Gomes or Bolle and even inspire audiences to audibly rally behind the heroine Tatiana as she shreds Onegin’s love letter is one of the most hopeful signs yet that ABT may flourish again. During intermissions at the final Onegin performance, one heard murmurings of at-leech-ne and khor-o-sho, khor-o-sho — clear evidence that the local Pushkin authorities respected ABT’s Western interpretation of their revered classic.

From A to Z (Aran to Zhurbin) and everyone in between, the company’s dancers forcefully pushed the drama of Onegin and Tatiana to its striking conclusion — one that forced the audience to reckon with its own emotions right along with the heroine. 

Aran Bell and Devon Teuscher made promising role debuts as Onegin and Tatiana. Bell’s portrayal of Onegin nicely emphasized all of the character’s cuffs-shooting elitist traits. When this Onegin fell from his aristocratic grace while begging Tatiana to leave her loving husband for him, it was a hard fall indeed. Teuscher’s late-career start on Tatiana affirmed that we should have seen her in this role a decade ago. Her expression can go from giggly to gravely serious in an instant, believably so. How wonderful it would be to see her interpretation of Marguerite in Lady of the Camellias or Empress Elisabeth in Mayerling.

Thomas Forster and Chloe Misseldine reprised their roles with added depth and dimension. Forster was the snobbish Onegin who we recognized as trouble from the beginning. He carried the arrogance of a Trump, Jr., acknowledging no one while confident that everyone in the room was watching him. Misseldine’s sheer abandon in her happiest of dreams pas de deux made her abandon in the emotional fury of the final pas de deux devastating.

But the performance that wrung us out like a wet sponge with not a drip left was the performance of the debuting Jarod Curley opposite Christine Shevchenko. When Shevchenko debuted in this production in 2024, she danced as though hoping to be Tatiana — accurate but little else. This time the character’s blood was her own. It was a career-defining performance so perfectly played and danced that one could sense the pulse of Pushkin’s iambic tetrameter. Curley masterfully detailed his Onegin from his introduction as arrogantly assured party guest to his groveling at Tatiana’s feet. When his friend Lensky face-slapped him and threw down the glove to issue the challenge to a duel, we saw the utter shock in Onegin’s expression upon realizing that Lensky had taken serious offense to his flirting with Olga. His humiliation told us that this would not be a customary duel between friends that would end in deloping. The ballet’s final scene where Tatiana shredded Onegin’s love letter and shoved it back into his hands was delicious karma that drew some cheering from the audience. What goes around comes around. Onegin threw the shredded paper behind him, arrogantly refusing to accept Tatiana’s rejection, and begged at her feet to no avail. Truly a powerful performance from start to finish.

All of the Lenskys performed their Act II soliloquies proficiently. Calvin Royal III made good use of his long limbs in extended arabesque lines and adagio movements although Lensky’s torment was less visible; Jake Roxander conveyed the “how did I ever get to this point” lament in his adagio. But it was Takumi Miyake’s Lensky dancing with such urgency and distress and 8-revolution pirouettes that stole Act II. So convincing, we thought it possible that he might sacrifice his honor by backing  out of the duel. 

Lea Fleytoux, Zimmi Coker, and Catherine Hurlin created memorable Olgas, each well matched with her Lensky. The match-up of the tiniest, most engaging pair of Fleytoux and Miyake with the giant Thomas Forster magnified the social cruelty of Onegin’s flirtation with Olga.

The only suboptimal casting for this Onegin run was the role of Prince Gremin which is a difficult character role to deliver effectively. Only Roman Zhurbin was able to convey that Tatiana had chosen him for his deep love that did not include the excitement and passion that she believed Onegin would have provided. In previous years of Onegin performances, Zhurbin, Gennadi Saveliev, and Victor Barbee all portrayed Prince Gremin’s contrasts with Onegin clearly. Joseph Markey and Jarod Curley were a little too hot to make the contrast believable.

All in all, this was a most satisfying run of Onegin with deeply dramatic, excellently danced, theatrically fulfilling performances. 

After all this heavy drama, we needed a welcome break with some uplifting nonsense in the form of Don Quixote. ABT’s standard production, newly refreshed this year by Artistic Director Susan Jaffe and Regisseur Susan Jones (also a stager in the 1995 production), now gives many more opportunities for corps dancers to be featured. We were also treated to a slew of principal debuts including six on one night. 

When Christine Shevchenko’s infected blister prevented her from appearing in the first of two scheduled performances opposite Michael de la Nuez, a debuting Basilio, it opened up unusual opportunities. Artistic Director Susan Jaffe’s best option was to jimmy the cast with different principal pairs for each act. Devon Teuscher and Andrew Robare got to test-run their Act I before debuting the next night. De la Nuez and Jake Roxander got to test run their Act II and Act III, respectively, before debuting later in the week. And Sunmi Park and Lea Fleytoux got the surprise gifts of unscheduled, modified debuts as Kitri — Park in Act II and Fleytoux in Act III.  Would this work in a dramatic ballet? No. But in a comedy like Don Quixote that depends on the tricks of the trade, it was a marvelous solution that gave us fresh, eager-to-impress dancers for each act who didn’t have to expend any energy in two other acts. 

The Don Quixote week-and-a-half run opened with Catherine Hurlin & Isaac Hernandez as Kitri and Basilio with mixed results. Hurlin was a fearless Kitri who pretty much had to carry the show for her partner whose loose, sometimes sloppy, dancing lacked impact. His Basilio was too poor to even cut his own hair. The next night, Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo gave a very respectable performance. While Cornejo’s performance may have seemed amazing for any 43-year-old dancer, unfortunately it did not compare favorably to his performances burned into our memory beginning 18 years ago. Time marches on, and it is now time . . .

Wednesday’s performance by Chloe Misseldine and Aran Bell wasn’t quite gelled. It was very well danced, but the two were still working out their characters’ comedic relationship. We see Misseldine as having the potential for an Ananiashvili-type Kitri while Bell should revel in the opportunity to make a clean break from his hot, princely self and create a fast-moving but slow-thinking Basillo whose Kitri is really running the show.

After having to withdraw from her first scheduled Don Quixote performance, Christine Shevchenko roared back on Saturday with appropriate Fourth of July fireworks. Now paired with the debuting Michael de la Nuez, she gave a sizzling technical performance with great comedic timing. De la Nuez’s partnering was darn good throughout the performance, and Shevchenko visibly appreciated his expert launch of her into a triple attitude turn during the final moments of the wedding pas de deux. De la Nuez danced well but executed his variations conservatively. A couple of his big, complex pirouettes downstage went a little cattywampus but he clearly possesses the skills and charisma to be a major force at ABT’s principal level. Large guys with great speed are always coveted in the ballet world. He’s entitled to display more confidence and should not look so surprised when the audience applauds him. He deserves to be out in front.

Friday’s Basilio debut of Jake Roxander opposite Skylar Brandt was one of those off-the-charts performances that burned hot not just from the scorching dancing but from the pre-fueled anticipation that balletomanes had after a surge of successful public complaints when Roxander’s name didn’t initially appear in the Basilio castings. There was an uproar, to put it mildly. On Friday night, he proved that his name should have been the first one printed in the casting, not the last. It was a phenomenal display of gutsy, ambitious, focused, confident, pizzazz-filled pyrotechnical virtuosity that sent the audience crazy. It made Jaffe’s and Jones’ new production look like a new Lamborghini.

AD Jaffe is showing some savvy planning these days. The six-debut Don Quixote performance along with the multiple opportunities for corps members to be featured were warmly welcomed. On Friday, she loaded up the audience with what might have been every screaming summer intensive kid within three states, planted the parents of the debuting Basilio in the audience, produced a top-of-the-line performance, and then sent it all over the top with an on-stage promotion of Roxander to principal dancer. 

Sneaking in from a back wing with a microphone during bows, Jaffe approached Roxander from behind, wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him out of line toward the downstage edge. His face showed shock but his partner Skylar Brandt was already jumping up and down behind because she knew exactly what was happening. It’s been a while since we’ve heard an audience roar as it did on Friday night. Everyone was very happy to participate in Roxander’s promotion.

There was lots of good dancing during this run of Don Quixote that concludes on Tuesday. Thomas Forster and Calvin Royal III were superb Espadas whose gold-panted strutting was clearly intended to intimidate Basilio. Joseph Markey made a strong debut in the role. Zhong-Jing Fang fabulously stabbed her pointes through Mercedes’ solos. Virginia Lensi, Betsy McBride, and Olivia Tweedy debuted in the role with less effect. 

Without a doubt, another huge highlight of the Don Quixote week was Takumi Miyake in the Romani Couple’s dance opposite Aleisha Walker. There aren’t enough words to describe the electricity that he creates on the stage and in the audience when he dances. No one jumps as high. No one can match his revolutions in pirouettes. No one brings his energy so close to the audience as Miyake who we previously described as a cleaned & pressed young Corella. Like Roxander, he is merely 22 years old and clearly ready to blast through ABT’s repertory when Jaffe flips the ignition switch. She just has to find another petite ballerina like Skylar to dance with him. The obvious choices are Lea Fleytoux and Yoon Jung Seo.

Of the Dryad Queens (Sierra Armstrong, Elisabeth Beyer, Ingrid Thoms, Virginia Lensi, and Fangqi Li), Armstrong and Beyer made the strongest impressions. 

It’s been a while since ABT’s Don Quixote showed such broad strength in the demi-soloist Flower Girl roles. Every pair we saw had something to rave about. Fangqi Li and Sunmi Park opened the run with beautiful precision although their feet weren’t as nicely shaped as others in the run. Breanne Granlund and Yoon Jung Seo followed. Breanne took a spill but was seemingly unhurt. Seo was as always an eye-catcher — a beautiful dancer whose warmth radiates well out into the Met Opera House. Elisabeth Beyer and Madison Brown danced the roles at Wednesday’s matinee. My goodness, Beyer’s flying entrechat sixes whistle through the air faster than any we have ever seen, and they appear effortless. Sierra Armstrong and Ingrid Thoms were a very attractive tall pair of bridesmaids.

We have a couple of complaints about this new Don Quixote: 1) the length of the second intermission has been ridiculous, and 2) some of the conducting has been beyond annoying. At multiple performances, the conductor slowed the tempo to a crawl apparently trying to help the dancers along. One of these times was during the first act when there was mostly mime going on. Haglund wasn’t the only one who wanted to scream WTF? at the podium. Slowing down the tempo helped nothing and no one. When the tempo was slowed down, the orchestra also lost volume, the stage lost energy, and the audience lost both energy and interest. It defies understanding why screwing around with the tempo is permitted at all. These are professional dancers. They need to rise to the challenges of the music. When the tempo was slowed for poor Elisabeth Beyer’s Italian fouettés, it made them twice as hard. When the tempo was reduced for de la Nuez, it made the dancing twice as difficult. When the tempo was cut down for the various pas de deux, it made them plodding. Every time the tempo was slowed, the orchestra lost volume and the ballet lost its energy. At one performance, the conductor watched the curtain come down, proceeded to thank the musicians, and stepped off the podium COMPLETELY FORGETTING THAT THERE WAS A MUSICAL CODA COMING UP. The musicians had to remind him.

Last complaint about tempo: a double saut de basque at a leisurely tempo is no longer anything to write home about — nor is a double tour or double tour assemble when done at a leisurely tempo. They’re nothing. There is no challenge. When they’re slow, the audience just focuses on the landings that miss the scrupulous 5th positions and the take-offs that cheat by turning the hips a quarter of a turn. If the tempo is slow, we should be seeing a 3rd revolution like we seem to have seen on Friday night at one point. If a dancer asks for a slowed tempo, he or she better deliver something good to fill it up.

Well let’s see if we have anything else to talk about . . . Nope, it looks like we’re all done. Sorry for the slow tempo in getting these comments published and combining the two full length ballets into one review. We’ll try to pick it up.

The H.H. Pump Bump Award, a Givenchy stiletto with red flower, is bestowed upon Christine Shevchenko for her heartbreaking Tatiana and blazing Kitri. Wouldn’t it have been nice if ABT could have come up with a bouquet for her at either performance?