Tag: Vitali Krauchenka

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ABT’s LADY OF THE CAMELLIAS

 

(Photo of Cory Stearns and Irina Dvorovenko in John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias, taken from ABT website – click on photo for link).

I so love this ballet. It’s my favorite ABT is putting on this season (since there’s no Manon or Romeo and Juliet). I went to see Lady of the Camellias Saturday night – out of curiosity, went to see the new cast – Cory Stearns and Irina Dvorovenko – and just came away from the Met feeling like I had the fullest, richest, most rewarding night at the ballet this season. I just feel like something about the minimal, but completely realistic sets, the authentic and beautiful period costumes (both costumes and sets are by Jurgen Rose), the depth of emotion conveyed by the story, the heartbreaking story itself, the book it’s based on, the gorgeous partnering, all just really drew me in and made me feel like I was inside of the narrative.

First, I love how there are no curtains – you just walk in to the auditorium and there’s the open stage;  you walk in on the set. And then the first dancer comes out on stage before the chandeliers have risen to dim the auditorium’s lights … so it’s not like a performance at all; it’s like you’re eavesdropping on the characters and their story.

And I love how at points the dancers use the front side of the stage.  You feel like they’re right above you. And you can watch both side stories – taking place there – and the center story, taking place center stage – at once.

I should say, this is the story of a younger man, in love with an older woman – a famous Parisian courtesan (the text is based on the 1849 novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils) who is dying of consumption. It’s a tragedy, as, through the meddlings of others who don’t want them to be together for various reasons – they are torn apart.

Cory Stearns was perfect as the younger man, Armand Duval. He danced very well – executed all of those seemingly impossible but beautiful lifts 🙂 , and he really brought his character to life. He is a natural actor. Either that or he has acting training, because he’s one of the best in the company at that, in my opinion. I love Diana Vishneva in the main role – Marguerite Gautier (and my friend and I passed Diana, holding flowers and still made up, as we were walking from the Italian restaurant where we had dinner to the Met), but I thought Dvorovenko did very well too, danced beautifully, had strong chemistry with Stearns, and overall fit her role as well.

I also loved the supporting cast. Gennadi Saveliev doesn’t often impress me, but wow, he did Saturday night in the role of the party attendant who’s having big fun with that horse whip, holding it next to his pelvis and making suggestive movements, and all that. He was a lot of fun, and he danced the bravura parts spectacularly. Luciana Paris shone as his partner, the sultry, hip swaying, Mlle. Duvernoy, and Melanie Hamrick was also radiant as Olympia, Armand’s would-be mistress, had he not been so in love with Marguerite. Vitali Krauchenka and Grand DeLong were totally believable as, respectively, Armand’s father, and the regal, all-powerful angry Duke who wants Marguerite for himself. And finally, Stella Abrera danced beautifully as Marguerite’s reflection of herself (or Manon Lescaut in the ballet-within-the-ballet, however you want to see it). Blaine Hoven was a good partner for her, as Des Grieux. His ballet technique is near perfect – even someone without a huge amount of ballet training can tell that – and I think he is acting and emoting much better than before, though I still think he has a ways to go before he might be considered principal material.

The pianists (music is Chopin) – Koji Attwood, Nimrod Pfeffer, and Emily Wong – were brilliant. They deserved their substantial applause at the end, during curtain calls.

Everything just came together to make a really memorable ballet. And these weren’t even the “star” dancers – these were the “up and comings”! The choreographer, John Neumeier, originally created the ballet for the Stuttgart Ballet. He currently runs the Hamburg Ballet (both companies being in Germany, of course, though I think Neumeier is American). So many of my European friends think ballet is so much more alive in Europe than in America, and they enjoy going there so much more than here. I can see why. More Neumeier and MacMillan, Kevin McKenzie!

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GILLIAN MURPHY AND ANGEL CORELLA’S MOST PASSIONATE SWAN LAKE

Last night’s Swan Lake at ABT was the best I can ever remember seeing. Honestly. Angel Corella was the most passionate Prince Siegfried full of, by turns, intense longing, boyish amazement, passionate love, sexual excitement, sorrow, tragic pathos, etc. etc. etc. And Gillian was the ideal combination of swan and human being — not too ethereal to have a human connection with him, but also not entirely of this world, representing his ideal.

 

 

 

The White Swan pas de deux, which I am often bored by, was just breathtaking, oozing with passion. You could just seen Angel’s boyish marvel at Odette transform into romantic love. I don’t think anyone arches her back quite like Gillian. And Angel was all over her, resting his head on her chest when she’d end in that arched back pose. And those overhead lifts were heart stopping. They were the same lifts Marcelo Gomes did with Nina Ananiashvili in Le Corsaire — where he lifts her so high and she arches back so far she just looks weightless and you wonder how in the world she’s staying up there like that.

Audience went nuts for them. And at the end of the pdd, Angel harkened Gillian out for another bow. He let her have all the applause, and bowed to her, though the audience was going crazy for them both. So cutely boyishly deferential to his ballerina 🙂

And at the end of that pas d’action, when Odette turns back into a swan and floats off the stage, Gillian marked the tranformation from girl to swan with razor sharpness, shooting her arms out almost violently to her sides right as von Rothbart’s wicked theme begins in the music. And then she moved her arms up and down with such expansiveness and fluidity — she definitely had the biggest, most beautiful “wing span” of any ballerina I’ve seen!

And then in the Black Swan pas de deux that gorgeous wing span returned. Between every fouette, Gillian would do multiple pirouettes and raise her arms up and down, up and down. She really looked like she was flying. The audience went completely nuts. And Angel! Those two are the quintessential spinners! His fouettes, well they were just Angel fouettes – -no one, NO ONE turns like that man, with that kind of speed and wildness 🙂 And he kept leaning his head far to the side when he’d dip Gillian’s Odile. It was interesting because it looked dramatic and original and all but it also looked like he was really falling under her spell, like a foreshadowing of his encroaching ruin.

 

 

Jared Matthews danced like I’ve never seen him, not only perfectly clean but really nailing with precision and detail all of those jumps in his Benno (Siegfried’s friend) solo. Honestly, I’ve never seen him dance so well. He danced Benno’s pas de trois with Maria Riccetto, and Stella Abrera. It was my first time seeing Stella dance something difficult since her injury and she was perfect. She really lit up the stage and I can’t wait for her to make her full return.

Gennadi Saveliev and Roman Zhurbin danced von Rothbart, Roman in the sorcerer’s swamp creature form. And Roman completely took over every scene he was in, which is typical for that one 🙂 I don’t know what it is — others like Vitali Krauchenka who dance that part — are taller and larger, but somehow Roman just has a way of eating up space. He kept bending his knee and lunging far to the side for one thing, which gave him a lot of breadth. And he really threw those caped wings about with such flair. Roman, ever the scene stealer!

 

 

But Gillian and Angel really made the night. They’re just magic together. Just everything they do — at one point, they were doing a series of assisted pirouettes and it really looked like she was just spinning herself around and around. Of course she wasn’t but that’s how it should look; it shouldn’t really look like the guy’s doing the work.

Ever so fortunately, there’s actually a DVD of this cast (but with Marcelo as von Rothbart!), so everyone can see it. And watch some YouTube clips: here, here, here, and here. The last link is to the Black Swan solos. Gillian doesn’t do the rapidly “flapping” arms there, but the straight fouettes. I wonder if that’s a new invention of hers…

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ABT GUEST-STAR NATALIA OSIPOVA’S ATHLETICALLY ASTOUNDING GISELLE

 

 

 

The Bolshoi! Russian ballerinas! Insane extensions, insane jumps, insane speed!

Last night Bolshoi ballerina Natalia Osipova guest-performed with American Ballet Theater as Giselle. David Hallberg was her Albrecht, Jared Matthews Hilarion, and Veronika Part was Myrta. (Go here for a synopsis of that ballet).

It was all-around some of the best dancing I’ve ever seen, but I have to say, on a scale of 1-10, in terms of chemistry between Osipova and Hallberg, I’d give it a 1.5, and in terms of all-around acting (excluding Kristi Boone’s captivating turn as Bathilde and a rather amusing Vitali Krauchenka as her father), a 2. Regarding the chemistry, to be fair, Osipova was originally supposed to dance with Ethan Stiefel, but because of an injury, David danced in Ethan’s place. A Twitter friend DM’d me asking why she didn’t dance with Angel Corella and I think it’s a good question. He would have been a better fit size-wise and stylistically for her.

But as I said, the dancing was tremendous. During the second act, Osipova did a develope to her ear, she did those hops with her arms in the air as if she had springs in her toe shoes or had a trampoline beneath her, and she did that flat-footed jumping turn at the speed of damn light. Seriously, when she made her entrance during the Wilis act, I put my opera glasses to my face, watched her walk out, and suddenly she was gone from my frame of view. I searched around and around for her with the damn glasses attached to my face wondering where in the world she went. When everyone around me suddenly started screaming BRAAAVAAAA BRAAVAAA BRAAAVAAA, I nearly dropped the glasses. When I took them away, I saw her mid-jumping turn going around and around, in a blur.

Audience (largely Russian, at least in the back orchestra) went stark raving nuts for her. I nearly had my left eardrum blown out over the ear-high develope. And those hopping jumps — seriously, she was half-way to the ceiling. I mean, when Paloma did them (I really did like her Giselle the more I think about it) she raised her head, like those jumps were a prayer to return to life. But here Natalia was going boing boing boing, up to the sky, head straight forward probably so as not to take away from her springing height. I mean, I don’t know. I love to be moved by the image a step creates, as Paloma did, but I can’t deny the thrill of those insanely high jumps and that lightening-fast turn and that insanely high develope.

The high bravura jumps in the first, peasant act, though, worked with her characterization. Her Giselle was all frolicking gaity, a girl in love with dance, in love with life. Her mad scene was over-the-top histrionics. The critic next to me described it as traditional.

And then David. Well, at the beginning he did his Albrecht as a romantic not a carefree playboy. But his was a romantic who was pretty madly infatuated with her. I think David is trying hard to get rid of his nice guy image. He rapped on her door like her mother’d better let her out or else. And when his squire didn’t full-out approve of his peasant costume, I thought he was going to kill him. And after the mad scene, he had kind of a mad scene of his own: I thought he was going to throw poor Jared’s Hilarion straight into the orchestra pit.

But ditto for David on the virtuosic dancing. I think by the time the second act came around, he was following Natalia’s bravura lead, doing sky-high jetes. He only did a Marcelo throw back of the head on the first jump in the diagonal, and then did the ten bizillion entrechats, same as Roberto Bolle. But David’s Nureyev feet!  His feet are so heavenly — I think he has the best of any dancer around today, at least any dancer I’ve ever seen. Those entrechats were from God.

As Myrta, Veronika Part jeted around the stage like I’ve never seen her leap before. She really takes up the stage when she leaps and she appeared to just be flying. I don’t even think I noticed all those jumps before! Her Myrta was icy cold and remained so throughout. Of course it was hard to concentrate on her face with all the theatrics going on behind her, but I didn’t see her peeking over her shoulder like Michele Wiles did. After she directed Hilarion’s death, she turned from him, toward us, and gave a wickedly simple little “and that’s that” nod right to the beat of the music, right as he fell, a smug smirk crossing her lips. Splendidly frightful!

I loved Kristi Boone as Bathilde, Albrecht’s betrothed princess. This is a pure character role, no dancing, and she was radiant in that gorgeous red dress, initially all supremely bitchy and regal, then softening when Giselle started pressing her skirttails to her face, allowing the poor girl to have one thing in common with nobility — a love of clothing. Then, when she realized Albrecht’s betrayal, instead of stomping all over Giselle’s pride and insisting Albrecht kiss her gloved hand, she looked more wounded and discomfited.

Vitali Krauchenka was rather amusing as Bathilde’s father, the prince, probably unwittingly so. He seemed to have his eyes half-closed the whole time and the way he looked at her, following her all around as she decided where to sit, whom to talk to, etc., it looked like he was saying “yes, yes, miss priss, whatever you want.” It cracked me up. I think he might have been better opposite Maria Bystrova’s Bathilde though. Hers was more of an unrelenting snobby witch.

Hee Seo and Blaine Hoven were very good in the peasant pas de deux. It was one of the most entertaining peasant pdd’s I’ve seen, which I guess went along with the virtuosity of the whole night.

Only the Russians 🙂 I’ll be excited to see more of Osipova next week. She’s dancing La Sylphide with Herman Cornejo on Monday night and again with David Hallberg on Wednesday evening. Go here for the full schedule.