It is possible that over the past year or so some readers may not have been paying much attention to Haglund’s calm cooings about Isabella LaFreniere. Well, calm no more. First, apologies to anyone in the second ring today who was offended by Haglund’s breathy utterings of jesus god as Ms. LaFreniere, while debuting in the first principal role of her NYCB career, may have also laid future claim to all of the Kyra Nichols territory in the NYCB repertory. My word! What an astonishing debut today! She’s got all of that Kyra-stuff going for her — starting with good taste and grace, followed by more good taste and clarity, followed by elegance that fully informed her nearly perfect Dewdrop wizardry, a beautiful smile that radiated warmth into all five rings of the theater, out the front doors, across the plaza and into Geffen Hall, and poise, poise, unpretentious poise. Her arabesque line, in all its beauty and academic purity, wasn’t the only arabesque of the day that taunted the audience to pull out cameras.
Our Sugarplum Fairy, Sara Adams, astonished us with what she could accomplish when given the spotlight in a ballerina role. (Unfortunately, we missed her debut last year.) Fluid grace, confidence, and even sangfroid in those two treacherous step-over turns that evolved into penche arabesques were the order of the day. She had them made before stepping into the piques. Sara has the loveliest, soft-arching feet that today were stuck onto the ends of one awesome mother-of-them-all arabesque after another. The shape of that trick arabesque in the Act II PdD that was pulled horizontally across the stage was something to behold, and then it was repeated during the final supported promenade during which she switched supporting arms several times. Her allegro was crispy with just the right amount of snap, crackle and pop. All in all, a performance by a dancer worthy of the title ballerina.
Sara’s Cavalier, Harrison Coll, debuted in his role this afternoon – a milestone in a still young career that began in the smallest Nutcracker roles as an SAB student 13 or 14 years ago. Only 22, he already has acquired enough institutional knowledge about Balanchine’s Nutcracker through dancing so many roles that he could set most of the ballet on another company. A few nerves were evident on the walk-in, but as soon as the two dancers made it through those step-over turns into the penche arabesques, both were confident and it was smooth sailing through to the end. Coll’s charisma and generosity as a performer served him well today, and we hope to see him in more principal roles in the winter and spring seasons. There isn’t a lot for the Cavalier to dance. He comes on in the final five minutes, escorts the Sugarplum Fairy through one difficult combination after another, and then has a couple of short variations. Coll’s feet and legs created distinct, clean shapes and he covered space nicely. But as in the matinee the day before where Aaron Sanz debuted as the Cavalier, the turns a la seconde and the manege of coupes jetes had an I-only-do-this-once-a-year quality to them. True, there aren’t many ballets in the NYCB rep that call for these types of tricks, but if a dancer wants to be able to do them well for one role, the prep work goes on all year long. Ulbricht knows that. De Luz knows that.
Aaron Sanz showed such promise as a danseur noble in his Cavalier debut on Friday afternoon: beautiful lines from the tips of his fingers through to his toes, attentive partnering, beautiful musical accents, and a joy to watch every minute on the stage (except during the a la seconde turns and coupes jetes). His Sugarplum Fairy, Ashley Hod, had enough length in the legs and arms for three people. It was thrilling to watch her command her limbs in her variations with such precision and just the right touch of delicacy. Only on the second of the two treacherous step-over turns into penche arabesque did we nearly lose her. But Aaron saved the moment and neither dancer seemed unnerved by it.
In this performance, Ana Sophia Scheller was the most classically gorgeous of all of NYCB’s Dewdrops. It is all too easy for her. She is so close to her own plumb line all the time that virtually nothing goes wrong. We cannot wait for her Sleeping Beauty again this winter and also hope to see her in Swan Lake although she would fare much better in a full length version than in Balanchine’s one-act which is on the next schedule. A match-up with Zachary Catazaro’s Siegfried would be a double debut not to be missed.
We would like to point out that the new little Von Enck sibling, Emma, is quite the firecracker and whips those feet and legs around so fast that it makes you think that someone spliced out a few frames from the Snowflake reel. Also today, Ask la Cour gave us one of the most interesting, full characterizations of Dr. Stahlbaum that we can remember seeing at NYCB. In his hands, it seemed like a true principal role.
Although both Friday and Saturday matinees were very enjoyable, the Saturday Act II was held to a very high standard without a principal or soloist in sight. The corps de ballet essentially ran the show and made it one of the highlights of the season. We had been looking forward to Isabella LaFreniere’s Dewdrop debut and ended up being gobsmacked by its beauty. We bestow the Christmas Eve H.H. Pump Bump Award, from Christian Louboutin, upon her. Santa, please bring us much more of this gorgeous dancer.