by Leigh Witchel
You couldn’t help but compare American Ballet Theatre’s 20th Century Works program to what went on a few weeks prior on the same stage, but also across the Atlantic. The double bill ended with “The Dream,” Ashton’s treatment of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” After years of seeing both this and Balanchine’s, my favorite version is the one I last saw.
But the opening work, “Ballet Imperial” and New York City Ballet’s “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” are largely the same piece. As NYCB did “PC No. 2” earlier in the month, this was an infrequent opportunity to look at them back to back.
The two 20th century masterpieces were built for two other major companies, NYCB and The Royal Ballet. Each company prides itself on having a specific style. ABT prides itself on not having one, favoring versatility and the ability to pick and choose.
Let’s be fair. If ABT isn’t Ashtonian, neither is today’s Royal Ballet. Nor would you want to see today’s New York City Ballet do Ashton. Whether ABT put “Ballet Imperial” or “The Dream” over was going to depend on the strength of the individual performances.
Ashton seemed to survive in “The Dream.” That acceptance may be a matter of not having four decades of viewing history. It may also be a matter of the casting, including the advent of a young man in the corps who is likely to rocket up the ranks, Jake Roxander.
Roxander made his debut as Puck the Saturday before and this is his season. The company was featuring him during the summer season, he did Mercutio, but this season it felt as if they threw the kitchen sink at him, including the leads in two ballets on a single night and he killed it.
He leaped upwards into one high leap after another as if he were on springs, but his acting was also good for the role: his mime was clear and he knew the story. Everything was dialed to 11, but the company was expecting an immense amount from him and his best defense may have been a good offense.
He didn’t let up; springing up into splits or stag leaps. The acting wasn’t bad. He has a young, exuberant presence, was able to do broad comedy in the mixup scene and understood what he was doing when he put the lovers to sleep and was able to show it clearly. In the final moments of the scherzo, Roxander once again rocketed straight up, this time in pas de chats where the elevation was simply, sustainedly amazing.
Was there anything Ashtonian about Roxander? His performance was extraordinary, and that shouldn’t be discounted, but also about 80 percent lower body with a generic upper body. The one who seemed to be working to get the style was Cassandra Trenary.
Trenary was no technical slouch either; she had fast footwork, quick turns, and sure placement. But she was also going for the lines, and finding the looseness in her upper body that Ashton choreographed.
Lawovi was Bottom, and was surprisingly strong on pointe. Under the influence of the blossom’s magic, Trenary sized him up and made up her mind to take a new lover. Her portrayal was a good, complicated mix of high class and loose morals.
This troika was well-harnessed troika and none of the leads were overshadowed. Daniel Camargo characterized Oberon with his long fingers, often holding them as if thinking or examining his nails.
As always, Camargo was a strong but risky turner; he went full-tilt into pirouettes but had the technique to save them when he was off. In his solo he made all those scary turns into open attitude finishes. He did not hedge his bets.
He and Trenary worked well together and their final duet was comfortable. In the complex diagonal of passing hands as Camargo rolled her up and round, he looked out, not at her, and as in earlier performances by them, the element of claiming was downplayed. After, Ashton went all into squiggles and they both attacked those shapes gamely, Trenary moving her shoulders wildly and Camargo shooting his legs out in every direction. She’s worked towards a very mobile carriage, an exaggeration of the waving arms the corps does in the marvelous opening dance. She looked like a minnow flashing in the water before melting together with Camargo at the end.
The lovers had the feeling of Victorian Shakespeare: bawdy by implication, clean by letter. Courtney Shealy was broadly comic as Helena, gesturing to Demetrius, “Yoohoo!” It’s likely broader slapstick that Ashton intended (but then again, the choreography has the women literally fake-slap one another when they argue) but it worked. It backed up the theme that love can be ridiculous.
The most pertinent comparison between “The Dream” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was musical: The overture felt more punctuated and spacious under Ormsby Wilkins’ baton, and Emily Wong’s piano. But we were looking at echoes from a few weeks ago during “Ballet Imperial.”
NYCB’s latest iteration of the costumes for “PC No. 2” by Marc Happel, have become more brocaded than earlier versions, but ABT’s production maintains the Imperial in the older title. The visuals, designed by Rouben Ter-Arutunian, were an updated reference of the original 1941 production for NYCB: a backdrop of chandeliers, draperies and a frozen Neva river. The women wore stiff tutus, the men were in tunics and jabots. Everything was a waterscape of ice blue and aqua.
As the solo ballerina, Skylar Brandt entered chest up to present herself, the breastbone lifted almost as if she were Aurora. It was lovely, but it also emphasized a static pose, not the ability to move forward into the next phrase. All the same, she did beautifully clean arabesques and seemed comfortable with the demands of the role. And it IS nice to see everyone do the same arm overhead.
In the lead, Isabella Boylston’s first entry was tentative. She took the swivel turns slowly, arriving early, and finishing with a long arm – she was hedging her bets. When she circled the stage doing battements serrés, they were accent in, but with no attack.
As her consort, James Whiteside has a facility that would be just as welcome were he to walk across the plaza. He has long lines, stretch, good cabrioles and beats. He served drama as he entered, and brightened when he saw Boylston. He raised his head when supporting her in arabesque to complete her pose. That was stock Siegfried. When he walked her in a circle, surrounded by the corps, he literally presented her to a court. They bowed and nodded to the corps in acknowledgment.
Even if Brandt was doing Esperanto instead of Balanchine, she had the basics covered and wasn’t tentative. She made all her turns with arms overhead easily and with Carlos Gonzales and Melvin Lawovi leaping behind her, she projected. But the production could have done with less worrying about the window dressing and more attack.
The transition to the adagio was more rushed in blocking than at NYCB: Boylston left and Whiteside came right on, which made him seem dim about not understanding where she was. The way Boylston did downcast bird heads and arms, or came forward to Whiteside and sadly embraced him was full-on Odette. He did his opening port de bras as if it were mime, which ironically isn’t all wrong.
“Ballet Imperial” is a gloss on “Swan Lake.” Even the music, which in the slow section also had violin and string solo lines movingly played by Kobi Malkin and Scott Ballentyne, sounds like the adagio in “Swan Lake.” That’s staple repertory for ABT, so it makes sense for its dancers to act as if the two ballets should have the same style. It would be hard for them not to fall back on it.
But “Ballet Imperial” is a gloss, not the story. If you try and make a Balanchine ballet about a story that’s referenced, but is only vestigially there, and not about the movement, it’s going to look odd. Just a few weeks before in NYCB’s fall season, Mearns also linked “PC No. 2” back to “Swan Lake,” but this is familiar turf for her. As not-very-Balanchine as Mearns is, she’s still NYCB enough to emphasize movement over poses.
Watching Whiteside emote and ache skywards at the end of the movement made you wonder why he was pushing it so hard. All that acting was happening behind the corps women who were already entering and getting ready for the third movement.
The finale was brighter and more energized. The women opened the third movement with more accented pas de chats and emboités. Boylston burst onstage for her second entry with a huge jump, Whiteside did a small solo that was punctuated enough with hair flips to make it seem as if he were doing more than he was. For all the bird Boylston was giving earlier, she seemed happiest when she was just dancing.
At the end of a luxe but anemic performance, questions remained. ABT hearkened back to the 1941 production, using the subtitle “classical ballet in three movements.” and calling it in its program notes, a “new ballet in the style of Petipa and the Petersburg tradition.” The company’s reading emphasizes Petipa and minimizes Balanchine, basically as little more than a conduit.
From a 2011 article by me on Merrill Ashley coaching Tiler Peck in the ballet:
Ashley makes an important historical note. Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 was not just a revival of Ballet Imperial without tutus. It was a rethinking of the work, and an adaptation to the style and temperament of the company he had built in the three decades intervening. In Ballet Imperial this music was used for mime. “This is where Mr. B really changed the ballet for chiffon rather than tutus. This is very flowy.”
This is telling, and why Happel’s costumes for NYCB, with their more constructed bodices, give wrong notes.
The textual differences between ABT’s and NYCB’s productions are small but interesting. As usual, there is elasticity in the man’s solo parts. Whiteside did tours to fourth position instead of to the knee. A friend and ABT alumni, John Summers, pointed out that “Ballet Imperial” only allotted the two demi-soloist men the pas de trois in the first movement. ABT’s production emphasized this by putting the two in different colored tunics than the corps men.
But why are there any differences? The ballet was staged by Colleen Neary, who danced the second ballerina role on the first night of the 1973 revival. It’s a safe bet that she staged the version she danced and that largely, ABT is not doing “Ballet Imperial,” but “PC No. 2” with tutus.
ABT largely ignores the idea of a Balanchine style, rather everyone danced it, as they do with “Theme and Variations,” as if it were lost Petipa repertory. The corps was square, academically correct, working with even accenting. It was Balanchine in name only.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Ballet Imperial,” “The Dream” – American Ballet Theatre
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 25, 2023
Cover: Jake Roxander in “The Dream.” Photo © Rosalie O’Connor.
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