ABT – The Nutcracker @ BAM Opening Night

Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes must be the premiere partnership of our times.  Each is wonderful to watch when dancing with other people, but the two of them together is a Holy gift.  They are the best that ABT now has to put on the stage and are likely to be so for the rest of their careers.  Last night at ABT's opening night of Alexei Ratmansky's The Nutcracker at BAM, Haglund lost his composure during the Snow PdD to Tchaikovsky's beautiful In the Christmas Tree.   Somehow Part and Gomes managed to make that music more glorious than ever.  After all the busy activity in Acts I and II, they calmly walked on each time and simply transported us to a heavenly place that no one wanted to leave.  A stunning, unforgettable performance.

There were other good performances last night as well.  Gemma Bond and Craig Salstein as Columbine and Harlequin, and Nicole Graniero and Luis Ribagorda as the Canteen Keeper and Recruit were superb.  However, after seeing probably eight or more performances of this Nutcracker, no Recruit, not one, has managed that stationary pose in arabesque at the end.  If no one can do it, and it's a relatively unimportant moment anyway, why not change it to something that works? 

The Snowflakes were another highlight of Act I although not everyone sitting around Haglund understood why they were angry.  The inclusion of a few JKO students in this section and in Waltz of the Flowers reduced the professional appearance of the corps, particularly when the missing pros were dancers like Melanie Hamrick and Renata Pavam who many search for during performances.  Nervous shifting eyes, position adjustments, and lack of requisite polish in the the upper body were a bit of a disappointment, particularly when these students were standing near accomplished dancers like Nicole Graniero, Sarah Smith, Gemma Bond, and Leann Underwood. 

The Arabian Section with Sascha Radetsky, Nicola Curry, Isadora Loyola, Kelley Potter, and Sarah Smith was a hit.  Judging from the nearly unbelievable definition of Radetsky's torso, it's probably been a while since he ate a piece of bread – at least that's what Haglund was thinking last night on the train home while munching on his two Hershey Bars.

The Spanish section was danced by Maria Riccetto and Jared Matthews, Jennifer Whalen and Grant DeLong, and Luciana Paris and Blaine Hoven.  The women's costumes have too much fabric for the great number of steps in their choreography and it seems to hamper some of the partnering.  The couples were not as musically matched as they could have been.  The different degrees of experience were evident.

The Nutcracker's Sisters (Kristi Boone, Isabella Boylston, Yuriko Kajiya, Sarah Lane and Hee Seo) managed their ensemble work well.  The one distraction was Hee Seo's foot that had the pink tights turned up part way as they might be in rehearsal or class.  Kind of a sloppy mistake to make, and under stage lighting it was very noticeable.

Da Bees Da Bees Da Bees were hilarious as each one whirred around the Flowers buzzing, "I loves me some sugar petals, I purely do."  Okay, Appalachian Ditka dative aside, the black lips on Thomas Forster, Daniel Mantei, Luis Ribagorda, and Eric Tamm were to die for.

The kids were very good last night.  Mikaela Kelly as Clara, Theodore Elliman as The Nutcracker Boy, Kai Monroe as Fritz and Justin Souriau-Levine who nearly stole the show as the Little Mouse, rounded out the large cast of students from the JKO school. 

The Pump Bump Award, a Miu-Miu gold masterpiece, is bestowed upon Veronika and Marcelo for their dreamy performance.