by Leigh Witchel
The pandemic blunted the impact of time and turnover at New York City Ballet. Last season’s multiple retirements are just starting to be felt by the dancers taking their roles, but also there are the people returning to the stage.
“Scotch Symphony” contained a first outing and a return. Emma Von Enck made a sparkling debut leading the first movement, in a bright, bouncing reading. As the ballerina in the second and third movement, Ashley Bouder came back onstage after a long absence: first the pandemic and then a foot injury.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she was not in form. The technique was still there. In the final movement, skipping in tandem with Jovani Furlan or waving her hands overhead joyfully, we got a glimpse of the Bouder we know, the one with the cat-who-ate-the-canary smile. That could return with rehearsing and performing regularly.
Furlan made his debut in the role the prior week, and both he and Bouder tapped hard into the ballet’s “La Sylphide” references. That’s mining a story only inferred in Balanchine’s distillation, but it’s probably as good a path of making sense of the ballet as any other.
Furlan performed with high romantic fervor. He ratcheted up his emotions, recoiling when the men blocked him, becoming miserable when she left and thrilled when she reappeared. Bouder also worked towards that relationship in more than her lithograph poses hovering over him. In the finale, Furlan attacked his variation; even the tricky double tours to arabesque that switch facings were done at top speed.
Nobody expects New York City Ballet dancers to dance alike, but in “Divertimento No. 15” it matters that the cast dances as an ensemble. Things didn’t start out that way; in the opening the soloist women were turning differently; the men were holding their arabesques as long as they could. However, by the finish they were simpatico.
The mood started to change by the theme and variations. The theme, as its name suggests, states the idea and sets the tone. Sebastián Villarini-Velez tends to make force his priority, but this time he danced with a creamier attack, and softer arms. Playing off him, Harrison Coll was elegant but pushed for his double rond de jambes.
The variations went well; Sara Adams sped through the antic first solo. Unity Phelan had the plum third ballerina role that is 90% glamour. She resembled an exponent of the role from a while back, Stephanie Saland, but she pushed the poses harder. Emilie Gerrity gave an easy, sunny performance in the fourth variation, having no problems with all the turns.
Joseph Gordon was very punctuated as is his wont; he concentrated heavily on finishing every phrase with a pose. Still, he seems to be finding more sophisticated ways to do that. Like a sports car with a sensitive gear shift, he moved between sharp and slow. Megan Fairchild has done the lead ballerina since her workshop performances at the School of American Ballet, and she flew through it.
Erica Pereira hit a personal best in the second variation. She projected confidence, covered space avidly, and was glamorous without effort, particularly in the pas de deux with Villarini-Velez. She even nailed the final horrible fouetté pirouettes in her variation. The coda was lovely; she and Gerrity turned together in tune and in sync. Fairchild picked up the thread, floating the finish of her pirouettes.
Even if you find the rest of “Divert” academic, it’s hard not to love the coda for its open, happy mood. The beginning of the ballet, like the score, is elegant and presentational. The variations are showy but also cunning: a way of getting to know the soloists. The duets have an innocent romance, a gentle sigh rather than a wild swoon. But the coda is play. The romping tunes Mozart penned were echoed in Balanchine’s steps that swing and skip. There are echoes of Follow the Leader and other playground games in the structure as one ballerina leads, then another. An innate pleasure of the ballet is seeing the most elegant adults at play like children.
As Taylor Stanley went into “La Sonnambula,” Sterling Hyltin went out, and both gave performances worthy of the occasion. Stanley also made his debut on opening night the week prior, and his Poet, hollow-eyed and gaunt, dressed in light gray, made perfect sense. Washed out and ashy, he seemed stereotypically doomed.
In her final performance of the role before her retirement in December, Hyltin’s reading was a fascinating contrast to Stanley. Unlike previous avatars of the role, she was neither dreamy nor otherworldly. Rather she was intensely concentrated, as if her sleep contained a list of tasks that had to be done.
Stanley came close to Hyltin early on in their encounter and recoiled as if she had shocked him with static electricity. Putting his leg out, then his arm, finally bending fully backwards only to have her step past him, even though her interpretation was the road less traveled, the two of them seemed to be on parallel quests for the unattainable.
In supporting roles, there were largely new casts of both the Pastorale and what is now just called the “Pas de Deux.” Olivia Boisson and Andres Zuniga bowed in the Pastorale last week, Lars Nelson made his debut here. The Pas de Deux has an ambivalent history: it started out as a “Blackamoor’s Dance” or “Moor’s Dance” in blackface, this became a “Danse Exotique” done in Aladdin-ish costumes. When Maxwell Read came out with Jacqueline Bologna, he was no longer wearing a turban. There’s been a lot of recent changes of wigs, hairstyle and headgear – it’s a fraught topic now. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, but that costume could use some kind of headpiece.
Georgina Pazcoguin’s Coquette was less of a bitch and concentrated more on her victimization. Kept, trapped and downcast, she was another prisoner of the castle. Her reading would have had more impact if Jared Angle were a better fit for his part, but Angle didn’t have the implicit violence for the Baron. That’s a man who draws a knife on impulse; he is cruel and we need to see that. In the same way, Angle made little of the moment he took the Coquette from the Poet.
Stanley kissed Hyltin before she disappeared into the tower, then pursued her, but it didn’t seem lustful. He seemed in search of Goethe’s eternal-feminine. Having spied that, Pazcoguin leaned against a wall in shock and anguish. Betrayal erupted into revenge. Of course Stanley died beautifully, with pointed toes. When Hyltin came to claim him, it wasn’t otherworldly, but somehow elemental, as if this is what had to be. And like Goethe’s eternal-feminine, she drew him literally on high.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Divertimento No. 15,” “Scotch Symphony,” “La Sonnambula” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
September 30, 2022
Cover: Sterling Hyltin in “La Sonnambula.” Photo credit © Paul Kolnik.
Got something to say about this? Sound off here
[Don’t miss a thing! We’ll send you a notification of every article we post if you sign up with your email. (The signup is right below, scroll down). We promise you won’t be deluged and we won’t spam you either.]
