Gliding Through the Classics With a Sample of What’s Ahead

<First published online in the New York Times on May 16, 2007>

I come from centuries-old agricultural stock. Why do I mention this when starting to review the Monday night gala that opened American Ballet Theater’s spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House? I once groaned, “I’ve got to go to a gala,” to my brother, who had then been specializing in pigs for 15 years. He replied, “You said that in just the same tone as I use when I say, ‘I’ve got to clear the pig slurry.’ ”

Those who put together the Monday gala certainly knew three invaluable rules. 1. No matter how many ballerinas, only one set of 32 fouetté turns. 2. Only one death scene. 3. No “Dying Swan.” But for a gala, you want a feeling of Champagne on the stage, and that’s hard to sustain in an evening quilted together out of 5- or 10-minute “highlight” excerpts.

The best galas have a once-only atmosphere. Monday’s sole one-off came in “Lady’s Choice,” a Chopin waltz pas de deux choreographed by Brian Reeder and danced by Stella Abrera and Sascha Radetsky It was handsome phrase by phrase in its rich supply of ways of filling the music’s 3/4 time but soon trite in its meandering assortment of ballet he-loves-her situations. The pianist, Lang Lang, then remained onstage to dispel whatever tender atmosphere the Chopin had established by playing an account of Liszt’s best-known Hungarian Rhapsody with a vulgarity to engender long-term Lisztophobia.

This gala otherwise served as a preview of coming attractions: a sampler of the stars and ballets that will keep American Ballet Theater busy at the Met from now till July 7. Unfortunately, though the company’s “Sleeping Beauty” (June 1 to 9) is announced as the season’s chief new production, the four dances shown here were unpromising in more ways than one.

Let’s start with matters of historical accuracy. The program announces that these four dances have choreography in the manner of Marius Petipa (who made the 1890 original) with “additional choreography and staging by Kevin McKenzie, Gelsey Kirkland and Michael Chernov.” But the Prologue solo for the Lilac Fairy was given in a slightly modified account of the version choreographed, early in the 20th century, by Fyodor Lopukhov, and the Vision Scene solo for Princess Aurora (not even using the same music Petipa employed) uses Soviet choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev.

This would matter little were these dances delivered with revealing style. But Michele Wiles danced the Lilac Fairy’s variation as far after the music as she could get away with: almost, but not actually, interesting. As the Aurora of the celebrated Act I Rose Adagio, Veronika Part lagged behind the music the same way, fell off point in the first exposed passage and thereafter never revealed any of the choreography’s potential.

In the Act II solo Diana Vishneva showed her exquisite schooling at a tempo so funereal that it would have put the watching Prince to sleep too. In the Act III grand pas de deux Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky showed more rhythmic acuity but with otherwise more bland delivery. The more you listen to “Sleeping Beauty,” the more you hear how Tchaikovsky was developing a rhythmic subtlety for which 19th-century ballet music had no precedent; but how many dancers today bring that kind of response to it?

Things picked up after intermission. Herman Cornejo and Xiomara Reyes in the balcony scene from Kenneth MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet” retold the familiar episode with exceptional freshness. Both dancers filled their steps with innocent youthfulness, and Mr. Cornejo’s love-blown virtuosity was a marvel.

Julie Kent, eloquently partnered by Jose Manuel Carreño, lighted up the bedroom pas de deux of Mr. MacMillan’s “Manon” with a heart-catching alternation of capriciousness and surrender.

Alessandra Ferri brought true luster to Lar Lubovitch’s “Othello” scene, but her willing-victim role didn’t return the favor. This choreography pursued a hammy old dance-expressionist rule: “Never express an emotion to the left that you don’t also express to the right, preferably several times either way.” There was much labored intensity from Marcelo Gomes in the title role.

Dancing the “Black Swan” pas de deux’s adagio and coda with Angel Corella, Nina Ananiashvili showed true ballerina decisiveness in her timing and phrasing, including an eloquent imitation of the “White Swan.”

The evening began and ended with dances from Natalia Makarova’s 1980 production of “La Bayadère.” How splendid this staging’s painted scenery still looks on the Met stage; I had forgotten. Despite a few wobbles, the corps de ballet proved poetic in the famous Shades dance of Act II. And though none of the Act I dances are juicy enough to make a satisfactory ending to a gala, Paloma Herrera (despite her Ruby Keeler face), Gillian Murphy, David Hallberg and Ethan Stiefel each brought stylishness and skill to them.

They made me feel, as Bottom says to the fairies in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “I shall desire you of more acquaintance.” Once the “Othello” excerpt was through, any comparison to pig slurry was banished from my mind.

@New York Times, 2007