Last evening’s performance was slightly delayed when a very senior balletomane who had been brought to the theater by her son suddenly fell into an unwakeable sleep prompting concern for a medical emergency. It took a half hour for EMS to arrive to assist her after which her son thanked the audience for its patience and reported that his mom would be okay. The audience erupted into cheers and applause. We wish her well and hope to see her back in the theater again. It’s the best kind of son who will escort his elderly mom to the ballet, no doubt about it.
But Mom was the lucky one. Soon the rest of us started hearing voices.
Ratmansky’s experimental Voices created to the mashing of piano with recorded voices of six accomplished women is torturing us again. Whatever the women say is unintelligible and intentionally obscured by the piano. Solo women dancers take the stage to perform complex combinations of steps requiring great strength and coordination but with little meaning and no musicality. It is just stripped down to the bare steps. Each woman is then ushered off by a group of men. One of the men then performs a line or manége of a classical ballet trick, e.g. double saute basque, coupe jeté entournant, whatever. Of course, the audience automatically applauds the men’s tricks but really doesn’t have much to say about what the women do. OK, we get it. The choreography was, as already suggested, agonizingly arbitrary. Maybe we should say brutalizingly arbitrary. The dancers looked fine and were clearly challenged by the movement. The pianist, Stephen Gosling, seemed happily challenged by the notes he had to play overtop the women’s voices. If management has confidence in this kind of stuff, why not put it last on the program and see if anyone stays. Okay. Next.
In Memory of… was created by Robbins to Alban Berg’s violin concerto which he composed in response to the death of a good friend’s daughter. Here, Unity Phelan was the daughter who lived within a caring community. She had a love — Adrian Danchig-Waring — who it seemed would be her forever love. Then she died, courtesy of Chun Wai Chan’s dark and dangerous death figure. Then she came back after life with her hair down, of course, and ascended to wherever. The movement throughout was all quite pretty and watchable as most anything that Robbins created is. But the darkness and sadness coming on the heels of the schizo-choreography of Voices made for a long, depressing evening that even the excessive Temu jewelry on the Diamonds costumes couldn’t brighten up.
We realized last night that those new costumes look quite different depending on where one is seated. They are abhorrent from the rings because the lighting detonates the crystals with blinding force. From the orchestra, the costumes look like they have electric blinking mechanisms on them. It all is just so overdone, and it makes us worry terribly what NYCB might do to the Emeralds and Rubies costumes for the upcoming anniversary. Please, someone have the good sense to tone it all down.
Mira Nadon and Peter Walker put on quite the show despite the distracting costumes. The composite length of their limbs is a sight to behold. But more than that, they are convincing as a regal pair, and we would find them convincing as Romeo & Juliet as well. At this point, they’ve had enough coaching on Diamonds; the ballet should be entrusted to them to create their own vibes and nuances. This should become their take on the choreography, not someone else’s stamped mannerisms. Also, I hope that we still have an occasion to see Nadon in both Emeralds and Rubies. It would be a shame if we lost her unique interpretations of those roles to Diamonds.
Walker has gotten stronger with each performance although his turns a la second went a little wonky before he pulled in for a super-clean multiple pirouette. The manége of coupe jete was pretty confident. He finished it as though he had enough gas in the tank to go around again. Nadon’s lovely arching back on the developpe devant was more pronounced than perhaps anyone’s we’ve ever seen, and quite lovely in all respects.
The demi-couples and corps de ballet were assured. Kloe Walker took an early spill but brushed it off and danced splendidly to the end. Within the corps we noticed Shane Williams’ exquisite arabesque lines on both the left and right. We were happy to see Samuel Melnikov, Spartak Hoxha and Cainan Weber dancing so strongly. While we enjoyed Ruby Lister’s actual movement, her facial expression was one of awkwardly knowing she should smile but not wanting to. The result was a fixed pressed-lip effort. We’re continuing to notice the glamour that infuses Grace Scheffel’s performances and the maturity that is coming into Sarah Harmon’s stage presence.
We’re moving on past this awkward program. There wasn’t enough interest in it to warrant opening the third ring — not even with Diamonds’ new tacky sparkles blinking away. Again, if whoever programed this thinks this was a good selection, try putting Diamonds first on the bill and see how many people stay for the rest of it.
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