by Leigh Witchel
It wasn’t clear whether there was more emotion on stage or in the seats as Roberto Bolle bid farewell to American Ballet Theatre. He arrived to a gale of applause without dancing a step.
Dancing Des Grieux in “Manon,” simply wandering onstage earned Bolle an ovation. Still, he brought several virtues with him, including solid technique and skilled partnering. The least important was still his special something: movie-star good looks. Bolle’s limbs are greyhound long, so his first solo seemed even more exaggerated. He took it pose to pose, sticking the positions: his last stamp on the role. Bolle had a very different effect from Anthony Dowell, the role’s originator. He’s simply a much taller tree.
Hee Seo, his Manon, arrived after. In Kenneth MacMillan’s version, designed by Nicholas Georgiadis, so many times, that team seemed to be cranking out a sequel to their earlier hit, “Romeo and Juliet”: so many burnished rust and orange draperies, so many hookers, so many street scenes.
Seo has an innocent look, and MacMillan also handed Manon all kind of Juliet details, including rippling bourrées in a filmy shift of a dress. Seo is demure by inclination, so the rapacity in the part played against her nature interestingly.
Everyone conveniently left the stage so that Seo and Bolle could dance their first pas de deux. Seo couldn’t have looked lighter in his hands; he is a stellar partner, even in a role that’s a test of partnering ability. He carried Seo across the stage, deposited her on the ground, tumbled over her and still looked rapturous to prolonged applause.
In New York, we’ve probably seen the Act 1 bedroom pas de deux more often than the full ballet. Seeing it in context, it came faster in the story than you’d imagine – an Act 1 pas de deux is usually where a couple gets to know one another. These two were already in bed. Still, it’s a showpiece. Bolle matched Seo’s lines elegantly and partnered beautifully, ending by swinging her round him to the ground. This time two had to continue making out for an extended period to fill the applause.
James Whiteside played Manon’s brother, Lescaut, attacking double tours in his first solo with manic aggression. Roman Zhurbin, as Manon’s patron Monsieur G.M., was the most developed character on the stage. When Zhurbin took Seo’s foot while partnering her, he sniffed it, as if he wanted to possess even her scent.
The second act is more Manon’s than Des Grieux’s. Seo arrived for her entry in a fabulous outfit that was Georgiadis’ moment. In a room full of women in orange and rust dresses, Manon arrived escorted by Monsieur G.M., wearing an enormous coat. When she removed it, she revealed a black dress trimmed in gold: a woman kept like a gift-wrapped possession. Zhurbin partnered Seo, putting her on display as immensely valuable, and at the end put another bracelet on her arm.
Des Grieux was distraught to see Manon. Stella Abrera, who was Lescaut’s mistress, kept taunting him and he couldn’t reach Manon, but over and over he reacted the same way. It was a strange fit for Bolle; there’s only so long you can play distraught.
Whiteside careened through a drunken, off-axis solo that was done at his best speed: full tilt. After, he danced a slapstick, woozy duet with Abrera, who gamely held the awkward positions he dropped her into.
Against a backdrop of the corps arrayed like a Hogarth etching, Seo danced Manon’s variation like a predator, leading aggressively with the neck or the pelvis. From there, she headed into the famous adagio with multiple partners. The clients of the brothel passed her overhead from man to man – one of MacMillan’s best reconciliations of the subjects he wanted to talk about with the form he chose to express it. Not just Manon, MacMillan pivoted the female corps de ballet 180° from an impossible virginal female ideal to its exaggerated polar opposite. A ballet rouge, as opposed to a ballet blanc.
Seo remained aloof, even looking as if she enjoyed the attention until she was passed to Des Grieux. Bolle was cringing and weeping, but relating to no one in particular. But this night wasn’t about Bolle’s acting skills.
After the soirée, the couple’s argument over Manon’s bracelet showed you saw their relationship most clearly: her selfish vanity, his desperation that turned into abuse and cruelty. The first thing she did in her bedroom was show off her dress, and she was fixated on her bracelet. He yanked her to get her attention. Soon enough the act ended in tragedy with Manon’s arrest and the death of her brother.
Bolle was more focused on Seo in the final act, where things went from worse to worser, and MacMillan got even more verismo, with mixed results. A prisoner with her hair shorn, Manon was maneuvered into an unnervingly quick blowjob by her jailer (we’re a long way from “The Nutcracker”), whom Des Grieux then killed. The he danced, because that’s what one does after a stabbing.
MacMillan’s ending was sensational, with flashbacks as Manon expired in a swamp after Des Grieux dragged her through one last pas de deux. And sadistic – from my notes: SUFFER MANON SUFFER. And a few minutes layer: DIE MANON DIE. Bolle tossed Seo into a beautiful double air turn, a good acrobatic way to kick the bucket. After which he opened his mouth and cried silently.
Even with the flaws of the ballet, it’s an effective vehicle. And for Bolle, a good way to go out for what it showed off. This night was about his goodbye, and it was joyous.
The curtain rose on the exhausted couple emotionally drained but still craving applause. The audience happily obliged. Seo dipped behind the curtain after an opera pull, leaving Bolle to take a solo bow. The curtain re-opened to reveal the whole cast, tossing white roses at him. The principal women came out bearing bouquets, then Whiteside brought a floral horseshoe, then the ballet masters, then four principal men attacked him with flowers. Kevin McKenzie came out, Alexei Ratmansky, even Julie Kent came back onstage to give him a long hug.
Bolle was beaming, there were cheers from the crowd and the stage. Like the performance, it was exactly what you would expect with no surprises, but isn’t that what one wants from a good goodbye?
copyright © 2019 by Leigh Witchel
“Manon” – American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House, New York, NY
June 20, 2019
Cover: Roberto Bolle at the curtain call of his ABT farewell performance. Photo © Gene Schiavone.
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