New York City Ballet Founding Choreographers Review
June 6, 2023 | Kennedy Center – Washington, D.C., USA
New York City Ballet’s opening program at the Kennedy Center Opera House featured some of the most treasured ballets of the company’s repertory: Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun and George Balanchine’s Square Dance, Concerto Barocco, and Donizetti Variations.
It was an exciting evening – the company’s dancers brought loads of joy, charisma, and sheer dedication to the stage, exhibiting polished technique and supreme sense of style in their dancing.
It was a double pleasure to witness a new crop of talent taking center stage. I particularly admired outstanding performances by NYCB’s newly promoted principals: Isabella LaFreniere, Roman Mejia, and Mira Nadon.
New York City Ballet Founding Choreographers Review
Balanchine’s Square Dance made for a perfect curtain-opener. This charming and elegant piece, choreographed to a medley of Baroque compositions by Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi, never fails to warm the heart and lift the spirit.
Premiered in 1957, for a principal couple and an ensemble of six supporting couples, with Patricia Wilde, Nicolas Magallanes in leading roles, Square Dance is a sparkling gem of a ballet, in which Balanchine’s neoclassical minimalism meets Americana.
In its original incarnation, true to its title, the ballet had a country look: the dancers were dressed in hoedown costumes, looking like cowboys and cowgirls. There was also a professional square-dance caller on stage, whose exclusive role was to call the steps.
Ten years after the premiere, Balanchine re-designed and re-imagined this piece. (He liked to tweak and fine-tune his ballets to keep them fresh.) In the new staging, the caller was gone; and the dancers’ elaborate attire was changed to plain white and grey practice costumes; there was also a new solo added for a male principal dancer.
In its stripped-down version, “Square Dance accentuates Balanchine’s craftsmanship in creating a kaleidoscopic variety of intricate patterns and formations.
Here, the elaborate choreographic designs artfully combine the traditions of American social and folk dance with the classical ballet idiom, all spiced with a stately Baroque flavor.
The opening night cast, led by Megan Fairchild and Joseph Gordon, performed with an appealing exuberance and youthful zest. Gordon was particularly poignant in his languid solo, dotted with a series of beautifully articulated backbends, which at times reminded of the Melancholic variation from The Four Temperaments.
Enveloping the leading duo, the six couples of the corps were perfectly coordinated in their movements, dancing with a palpable sense of elegance and grace.
Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun brought an air of tranquility and meditation to the theater. Set to Claude Debussy’s expressionistic symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, this ballet takes place in a ballet studio and features two dancers (a man and a woman).
At first glance, the ballet’s scenario is very simple: two young dancers are warming up at the barre and then rehearsing a duet while looking at themselves in the studio’s mirror (which, in fact, is the audience.)
Yet in Robbins’ masterly hands, the ballet acquired a pronounced emotional and erotic tension. (The choreographer was inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky’s famous ballet of the same title which was created for the Ballets Russes and had its premiere in Paris in 1912 with Nijinsky himself in the leading role.)
On opening night, Unity Phelan and Gordon gave a top-notch rendition of this delightful piece. Phelan, playing with her long flowing hair, was mesmerizing in her role, dancing with a touch of enigma and discernible allure.
It’s always a treat to have Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco on a program. It’s a double treat when this piece is danced by New York City Ballet.
On opening night, this masterpiece of neoclassical ballet acquired a renewed sense of freshness and high-octane energy due to the remarkable performance of leading ballerinas, LaFreniere and Nadon, who brilliantly personified the two solo violins of Bach’s famous concerto to which this ballet is set.
The effervescent Donizetti Variations, which culminated the program, is neither a grand ballet nor is it a masterpiece. It doesn’t boast a grand symphonic design and the wow factor of a large exuberant corps. Quite the opposite is true.
Donizetti Variations has a warm, intimate feel and utilizes a small number of dancers: a leading couple and a nine-member corps de ballet. Yet despite its chamber size and lighthearted atmosphere, during the opening night performance, the ballet felt like a showstopper thanks to a glorious dancing by the entire cast, led by the dazzling pair of principals, Tiler Peck and Mejia.
The ballet’s buoyant opening brings on the stage three trios (each of them composed of two women and a man) and instantly draws the audience into the magic of Balanchine’s choreographic invention.
Dressed in a festive folk-inspired attire, the ensemble breezed across the stage with vivacity and ardor; their steps reverberated the quick pulse and tempo as well as the effervescent charm of Donizetti’s music.
Yet the ballet’s centerpiece belongs to its principal ballerina.
Peck brought the house down with her invigorating and utterly inspiring performance. Her technique was impeccable; and the marvelous attack, stunning speed and flair of her dancing left the audience in awe.
Mejia partnered her with assurance and delivered his solos with an admirable stylistic clarity and appealing bravura.
Featured Photo for this New York City Ballet Founding Choreographers review of the company in George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco. Photo by Erin Baiano.
