BWW Reviews: ALL BALANCHINE, Honoring an Internationalist Genius

As Balanchine retrospectives take over the vast majority of the New York City Ballet's fall season, the title "All Balanchine" could be redundant for their three-piece evening of Donizetti Variations, La Sonnambula, and The Firebird. It is only at the program's conclusion that the title is read with proper intonation, not as a dry statement of authorship, but as credit to the choreographer's genius. These three pieces by George Balanchine each utilize ballet to very different ends but compare equally in their formal mastery.

The Donizetti Variations, performed under a clearly lit stage to the amiable music of Gaetano Donizetti, is at its core a peaceful pastoral in both costuming and demeanor. The ensemble of nine dancers in pastel blue with the principal performers, Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette, in pink smile through their astonishing feats of physical dexterity. The work, originally choreographed in 1960 as part of a "Salute to Italy," represents Balanchine's mastery of traditional Italian ballet which focuses on the sculptural capabilities of the body in motion and ignores ethereal pretensions. The worth and excitement of Variations, unlike the ensuing two pieces, is found solely in the physical abilities of the performers. The endless litany of the ensemble's architectural forms and the calm precision of the principal performers ensure the audience of the concrete groundwork for the upcoming emotional experimentation.

La Sonnambula, first choreographed in 1946 for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, begins with a staged masque punctuated with divertissements and a romance between principal dancers Sara Mearns as the Coquette and Robert Fairchild as the Poet. The divertissements include a pastorale quartet and a pas de deux, each displaying the architectural and cultural ingenuity of the evening's titular choreographer. The comic harlequin, through Daniel Ulbricht, is a winning break of kinetic joy and legitimate humor. After the divertissements and courtly dances of the sixteen dancer ensemble concludes, all, save the Poet, exit into the castle. The Poet remains, entranced with the haunting beauty of the Sleepwalker who enters with a candle in hand. Simultaneously statuesque and ethereal, principal dancer Wendy Whelan takes stage like a Fuseli painting come to life. Her dreamlike presence allows the audience to forget the physical strains of dance. The power of her technique arouses an intangible existential beauty. Whelan's entrancing interpretation of such demanding simplicity stands second to none. The piece closes with the Coquette, envious of the Poet's love for the Sleepwalker, commanding the Baron to avenge her. The Baron stabs the Poet who is then carried offstage and into the castle by the mysterious Sleepwalker.

Balanchine choreographed the final piece of the evening, The Firebird, in 1949 for the New York CIty Ballet to a shortened composition of Igor Stravinsky's original piece. Marc Chagall designed the production elements which could indisputably be considered some of the, if not the most, beautiful set elements of in the New York City Ballet's repertoire. The weight of the piece is irrevocably tied to its historical context. First performed in Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in 1910, L'Oiseau de Feu wasn't only the first ballet composed by Stravinsky but is considered by many to be the first properly Russian ballet. It tells the simple story of the Russian Prince Ivan who ensnares the Firebird in a magic garden. He then woos the Firebird until she gives him a feather. Ivan then comes across a group of princesses, with one of whom he falls in love. His love flees, though, in fear of the monsters within the garden who begin tearing at Ivan. He calls on the Firebird through her feather who appears with a magical sword which Ivan then uses to vanquish the monsters. He marries the princess in a final tableau of peace and joy.

In terms of choreography for this piece, there are few moments that match the virtuosity of the Donizetti Variations, and unlike La Sonnambula's haunting Sleepwalker, The Firebird's forest creatures nearly charm, looking like Maurice Sendak sketches. In fact, compared to the evening's previous pieces, The FIrebird's power is married more to the purposes of its production collaborators than performer execution. In 1949, Chagall, Balanchine, and Stravinsky were all exiled from their native Russia in the heat of Stalinist terror. The original Firebird of 1910 was a rosy introduction for the western world to the semi-exotic realm of Russian culture. The forty years of distance between that Russia of their youth and the Stalinist regime which spanned both World Wars, countless massacres, revolutions, and coups is intellectually insurmountable. Balanchine's Firebird, bolstered by the near tactile nostalgia of Chagall, is in this way equal parts fairy tale and prayer. Within it, the foundation of Russian culture lies in an intangible mystic of nature that conquers horrifying evil and restores peace.

The evening is smartly composed from Donizetti to Firebird. All three performances are singular in their approach to the art form, taking the aspects of various artistic movements without ever losing the touch of its creator. Such craft and flexibility in aesthetic is often the mark of artistic genius and, in the case of this New York City Ballet's program, the friendly reminder to this, "All Balanchine," is astounding.

Photo Credit: Paul Kolnik

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