‘Emeralds,’ ‘Rubies’ and ‘Diamonds’ Reveal Facets of a Company’s Style

<First published online in the New York Times on December 10, 2007>

LONDON, Dec. 8. All leading stage performers seem to give off their own light; that’s why they’re called stars. But ballet dancers, catching it, refract it prismatically, like jewels. Hence the name of Balanchine’s triple bill, “Jewels,” new 40 years ago and sometimes billed as the world’s first plotless, or abstract, full-length ballet. Balanchine was notably wary of the star system, which emphasized who was dancing more than what was being danced, but he was perpetually fascinated by the connections among dancers, music and light.

It was unlike Balanchine to make much of anniversaries, but it is very like the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. So this troupe, Britain’s leading ballet company, has taken this anniversary as its cue to dance the entire “Jewels” for the first time. (It danced the “Rubies” segment alone in the late 1980s, on the whole poorly.) The production features new sets by Jean-Marc Puissant, a British designer who has collaborated with the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon on several occasions. I caught the final two performances of the run, on Wednesday and Friday.

Facets of Balanchine’s suggestions of jewels in this piece come from the way he taught ballet technique. The body is divided into two halves, he liked to say: not upper and lower, as in the traditional European way of accentuating ballet, but left and right. Turnout was not just something for the legs but for the whole body. And in turnout, radiating from the body’s center, lies the jewel-like core of Balanchine technique, capable of infinite permutations.

Though the Royal Ballet has been dancing Balanchine choreography since 1950, its conception of turnout is not Balanchinean, and it is startling to see how much this limits the jewel effect of parts of his choreography. Matters are definitely not helped by Mr. Puissant’s sets, which seem singularly uninterested in surrounding the dancers with the light that will help them shine. These are most intrusive in the design for the centerpiece, “Rubies,” for which a vast central chandelier and the wings are in Art Deco style.

Fortunately it would take more than these sets to wreck this choreography’s architecture (and the original Karinska costume designs are used). The Royal Ballet dances “Emeralds” and “Diamonds” with much more precise musical definition than does the Kirov (which danced “Jewels” at Covent Garden in 2001 and 2002).

Unlike the Kirov it includes the elegiac septet that Balanchine added to “Emeralds” to form its eloquent conclusion. Valery Ovsyanikov’s conducting, too deliberate at the conclusion of “Diamonds,” provided generally handsome accompaniment. The Royal’s main error is one of manner: Especially in “Rubies” and “Diamonds,” the dancers’ eyes and smiles tell us that they are acting roles, and there are moments when this emphasis becomes a wedge between the viewer and the choreography.

Or it does for those of us who have loved “Jewels” as performed by Balanchine companies like City Ballet and Miami City Ballet, both of which danced it well this year. The Royal “Jewels” is, however, a hit with Covent Garden audiences; fans who had attended every performance assured me that they now love it even more than as performed by the Kirov and could not wait to see it return. Performances were sold out, with long lines for returned tickets.

There are good reasons for this success. Almost all the “Emeralds” dancers - led by Tamara Rojo and Leanne Benjamin, or Roberta Marquez and Mara Galeazzi - perform it without any overlay of acting. And the great ballerina role of “Diamonds,” exceptionally well coached by Maria Calegari, is compellingly danced by two ballerinas, Alina Cojocaru and Marianela Nuñez, neither of whom remotely resembles either Ms. Calegari or the role’s definitive originator, Suzanne Farrell.

“Jewels” demands particular upper-body pliancy from female dancers, and today’s Royal Ballet meets the requirement gloriously. The way the choral lines of “Emeralds” responded to the soloists here showed what Balanchine learned from Fokine’s romantic “Sylphides,” and the polacca end of “Diamonds” revealed Balanchine’s debt to “The Sleeping Beauty.”

Even though “Rubies” - often called the American part of “Jewels” - was led in separate performances by the Royal Ballet’s two current American ballerinas, Sarah Lamb and Alexandra Ansanelli, it bore the strongest British accent here. The male role’s vaulting and accelerating solo passages prompted the athletic but often bland Carlos Acosta into appropriate brilliance; the boyish second-cast Ricardo Cervera, overtaxed, stayed bland. (It must be said that the Covent Garden audience lapped up “Rubies” gleefully anyway.)

In “Diamonds” not only the ballerina role shone. The four female demi-soloists danced with particular luster. And though Thiago Soares made the male lead in “Diamonds” look merely conventional, Rupert Pennefather’s truly distinguished dancing drew attention to both his solos’ slightest details and to the way their heroic flair is set against remarkably quiet music.

Ms. Cojocaru, whom Mr. Pennefather partnered, is petite and fragile, excelling in sylph-type roles; Ms. Nuñez is sunny, robust, the most thrilling interpreter of the three-act “Coppélia” ballerina role that I have ever seen (excepting Patricia McBride). None of that should qualify them for the “Diamonds” ballerina role. But the Royal Ballet has no two dancers who improve more tellingly from one performance to the next or who work more intelligently to find the right style for each ballet. Each rose to give a deeply personal, highly detailed account.

Ms. Nuñez, dancing with great richness of tone throughout, performed the “Andante elegiaco” pas de deux as if it were her own dream, moving from one grandly poignant moment to another with molten fluency. Just as wonderful was the way she found quite different dance tones for the Scherzo (heroic) and finale (celebratory). Though Ms. Cojocaru’s account of the andante was more conscious of the audience, her delicacy here was ravishing, and the gathering radiance she found as the ballet proceeded was truly diamanté.

“Jewels,” 40 years on, looks more than ever a classic steeped in classicism.

@New York Times, 2007