by Leigh Witchel
“The Goldberg Variations” is one of the most monumental ballets in New York City Ballet’s repertory. And like many monuments, people are ambivalent about it. It has its passionate defenders; it has those for whom it’s an endurance test. It reentered repertory with several new cast members, preceded by “Serenade,” which also featured three debuts.
You’d almost call this a “tall cast” of “Serenade,” but Taylor Stanley was cast as the lead man in the Waltz. You rarely see Stanley and Sara Mearns together; she is generally too tall for him. Still, if they matched better physically, opposites might attract. His performance was quiet and self-effacing, but that’s also the role; it’s largely partnering or shadowing the woman. But his coolness could rein Mearns in enough to keep her from going off the deep end.
In her debut as the Dark Angel, Miriam Miller introduced herself and her long, full movement her own way: the first arabesques are usually done with the arms windmilling, one then the other. She brought them both up before separating them. Like most of the company she could be looking for ways to personalize the choreography, which is usually a mistake with Balanchine. Just do the steps. Really. But so far her shifts of speed or slight variation of port de bras have added interest rather than merely calling attention to herself.
Ashley Hod’s initial moments in her debut seemed tense, but she got into her groove by the time she danced the Tema Russo, and looked her best in the Élegie, racing to Aaron Sanz with her hair streaming behind her. Sanz was not having a good partnering day; he had trouble both with balancing Hod on his back and flipping Mearns slightly later. In “Goldberg” he nearly blew a lift with Daniel Applebaum balanced on Sanz’ feet like a swimmer.
Miller reappeared with Preston Chamblee in the opening Aria of “Goldberg” to dance a slow pas that was Robbins’ fantasy about Baroque dance; one that quickly left court dance behind in favor of high extensions.
From there, the ballet is built in two halves each with a different symmetry. The first part is led by a sextet of two trios, each with two men and one woman, and never with a stable coupling. Jovani Furlan squired Ashley Laracey through a promenade, then did the same for Sebastían Villarini-Velez. Most of the men were new; Chamblee, Furlan, Villarini-Velez and Sanz all got their first crack at “Goldberg” the prior evening.
The corps is more stable; four men and four women at first fronted by Furlan. Robbins quickly threw the corps out of symmetry; one woman shadowed Furlan and echoed his steps. He joined her to form a couple and escorted her off; and the corps did a neatly unbalanced dance for four men and three women.
If the steps are classical, the relationships are not. Furlan’s character is young, a dreamer. Daniel Applebaum joined Furlan for a vigorous duet and then a slower moment where they lay down, doodled on the ground with their fingertips, and stretched their legs in counterpoint: a canon of quotidian movement. They met and rotated round one another before separating, arms stretched towards one another as they exited on opposite sides. The relationships in “Goldberg” are what makes his work so temporal: fifty years on, if this is Robbins looking at other partnering possibilities beyond heteronormative, it’s so done in secret code that it’s dated.
The dancing, however, hasn’t aged. The ballet looked good on Laracey; particularly in her solo performing for the men. Her limbs looked clean and controlled where she can go flyaway. Here, she was both folksy and elegant as she flirted.
Villarini led five other men in an aw-shucks-we’re-just-big-kids number, which led into the quartet of male leads tumbling and rolling. The men (you want to call them boys, but that’s how Robbins characterizes them) do a near-quote of the lead women’s steps in Concerto Barocco. For all the ideas in “Goldberg” and Robbins’ commentary on and consideration of the music’s structure, there are also moments that are just hokey.
The first part went on, and on, until finally the cast greeted the corps for the second part: twelve women in blue. Robbins exchanged asymmetrical units for symmetry, the six leads of the second part were now three couples. Chun Wai Chan and Indiana Woodward, who made their debuts, led off in a happy canon, followed by Amar Ramasar folding and unfolding Sterling Hyltin as if she were a pocketknife. They were comfortable enough with each other to be daring; Hyltin barreled toward him and jumped into a hoop Ramasar formed with his arms. Ramasar can sell Robbins with the mix of Broadway and ballet needed to pull it off.
The lights dimmed for Adrian Danchig-Waring and Isabella LaFreniere, also making their debuts. Robbins loved his Stretch Queens, and her long legs, easy extensions and lush movement looped back to Maria Calegari. LaFreniere stalked off; Danchig-Waring danced a solo ending with a Petrushka slump.
A section for the corps women led into a dance for the men. It was beautiful and it also went on, into Chan carrying Woodward as she lifted her legs in great, fanning arcs. The corps came out in demi-habillé (that’s your sign that the ballet is heading to the finish line), and Hyltin and Ramasar reentered, also more fully dressed.
The music shivered as the corps did tight pointework and London Bridge formations. The leads danced small variations and finally Woodward and Chan returned. Everyone was now fully dressed for a massive dance that concluded in a group pose that felt as much like a photograph as Ashton’s climactic poses in “A Wedding Bouquet” and “Enigma Variations.” The ribbon on the box was the return of Miller and Chamblee, now in 20th century practice clothing, to do a final dance to the opening Aria.
“Goldberg” is long, and there’s a partisan divide on whether it goes on too long or not enough. That hasn’t been helped by time. Robbins’ choreography always dated faster than Balanchine’s because it uses the manners and mannerisms of its time. The farther we get from the original cast, the less the challenges Robbins set for both the audience and himself resonate.
Also, the score, like Bach’s “The Art of Fugue,” may not have been conceived to be performed as a whole. Bach’s biographer recounted the variations were made to be dipped into by the eponymous pianist, to soothe the insomnia of his patron. Playing them all would have made a long, sleepless night, and Robbins’ choreography of all of them is both monumental and dogged.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Serenade,” “The Goldberg Variations” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
April 21, 2022
Cover: Daniel Applebaum, Emilie Gerrity, Ashley Laracey, and Aaron Sanz in “The Goldberg Variations.” Photo credit © Erin Baiano.
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