by Leigh Witchel
New York City Ballet’s final program, though it was also done in the evening, was very, very matinee: a program just right for kids of all ages, and performed full-out for them.
Stars and Stripes began the afternoon like a picnic on the Fourth of July. Sara Adams led off her regiment with clarity, full of sharp flash-photo details. But like most every other person leading the First Campaign, she looked mildly shocked at being tossed a baton. Maybe it’s too much to ask in the era of digital toys, but wouldn’t it be nifty if anyone who did the part knew how to twirl a baton? Leading the second, taller regiment, Emily Kikta was a big, creamy contrast to Adams.
Daniel Ulbricht, leading the men, was also ready to put on a show. He gave a strongly punctuated performance, suspending a balance as a preparation for an air turn, and then nailing the tour softly into a tight plié. He left walking deliberately and saluting to milk every drop of applause.
Because of Tiler Peck’s absence, Mira Nadon had to cover what would have been Peck’s debut. You wouldn’t usually see Nadon paired up with Roman Mejia; he’s too short for her. There were some height issues; overhead grips were dodgy. If something was supposed to be at arms length, well, Mejia has less arm.
They took that in stride and played the crowd. Mejia posed mid-march and sold his variation with a big grin. Nadon has so much stage presence she can get away with plenty, but she was throwing herself around, and often not placed on her leg. It’s not as if she has no technique; she’s a turner and made all her fouettés. But she’s not such a technician that she can take technique for granted. It was different for Mejia; there was room for him to toss caution to the wind. In the finale, his entry was equal parts march and swagger.
If you’ve watched Stars through the years, there’s a moment in the finale when the lead man and woman each go to one side of the stage. While the corps women are doing extensions in unison, the man, impromptu, partners the woman closest to him. But it’s no longer a lark, it’s become a performance tradition. I think that happened during my viewing of the ballet since the 1980s.
I informally checked in with Suki Schorer, one of the company’s ballerinas in the 1960s, who was also at the performance. She said that wasn’t part of the choreography, it was an addition – stage business. Later additions, particularly things that fill in a blank, can have validity, but it helps to know what the original text is – choreography – and what is business. Business can become choreography when someone has a good idea and everyone copies it. That gets murky because the additions become the text.
An unsolicited note to the male corps in Stars. I know this is hard, and some of you are new. I still recall from bitter personal experience that double tours can be a very emotional event, and twice as hard onstage as in class. But even behind the leads, we see you. This is not the ballet to look miserable in.
Tarantella is a ballet you can sell, and Sebastián Villarini-Vélez was selling. That worked. He was wagging his head and snapping his fingers but also finding his own reasons for his stage business. Smack that tambourine! He powered through his variation but changed the volume and did a little soft shoe in the middle. He warmed Erica Pereira up; she caught sight of him fondly and they did a little passeggiata round the stage.
Pereira floated through her attitude diagonal and then Villarini-Vélez made his own moment of her leaving, then him deciding to dance, windmilling his arms. When the man goes to the corner for his last diagonal, most do it like Olympian in preparation for a tumbling run. Villarini-Vélez looked around for Pereira, and acted as if, since she wasn’t there, he’d do the diagonal instead. It worked nicely and didn’t stretch the piece of shape. And at the end, there’s a piece of business that is text; the man steals a kiss before the couple runs off. That’s been there since Edward Villella originated the part.
Like Mejia, Joseph Gordon is quite comfy selling it to both the kids and the blue-haired ladies at a matinee. These two men inherited a line of roles from Jacques d’Amboise passed down through Damian Woetzel: The American Guy who can do both the Broadway parts and the prince roles. Gordon’s got more than a touch of Rudolf Nureyev as well: the hero fantasy plus a go-for-broke quality when Gordon ended his variation precipitously, racing from a double tour to a quick turn to a double tour to the knee. Risky but royal works for Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux.
Gordon whipped Unity Phelan around in countless turns then put her silently in a fourth position on pointe before he let her go so everyone could see she was on balance. Her lines were both delicate and generous.
She varied the three developpés in her solo without milking them before doing piqué turns into traveling fouettés. She and Gordon almost didn’t make the final dive; there was a momentary stagger before he recovered her. Still, Tschai Pas is a natural outlet for his bravado and a lovely role for Phelan. She can discover how much she wants to play with it.
Carnival of the Animals, now more than 20 years old, is still perfect matinee material, great for kids, witty enough for their parents. It reminds us that two decades ago, Wheeldon was a bright young thing; inventive and puckish as he and his narrator and librettist, John Lithgow, imagined children and teachers in a New York City school as hyenas, lions or baboons.
The narration is more important than almost any of the dancing and second only to Jon Morrell’s cheeky designs. This run, instead of Lithgow, the part was done by Terrence Mann. Mann has had a lengthy Broadway career, but this was also all in the family, he’s Charlotte d’Amboise’s husband and current corps member Shelby Mann’s father.
Many of us know Lithgow’s professorial presence from TV as well as theater. Mann did the narration his own way, with a stentorian voice. He did have a senior moment when he forgot a line and was fed it from the pit. But more than that, there was a wink in his eye and a tendency to play the laughs. His school nurse-elephant in an enormous pink skirt, and Mann’s white beard, had a Milton Berle drag quality.
Though Phelan did the main female part, the school librarian who is part kangaroo, part mermaid, the meatiest performance was Sara Mearns as a gently aging swan/ballerina. Wheeldon took that painfully familiar lament that’s been parodied to death and fashioned it into a bittersweet memory of performances past. It also worked. It doesn’t hurt that Mearns can make an entire show out of standing with her back to the audience.
It’s good to see Carnival again, and good to see it’s still a crowd-pleaser. Years on, it feels like Wheeldon’s preliminary trial for his move to Broadway. The program closed NYCB’s winter season with high spirits, a season marked by the heartening rise of some dancers. But as is often sadly the case at the company, one person’s good-fortune comes at the expense of the illness or injury of others. Let’s see what the spring season holds.
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
Stars and Stripes, Tarantella, Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, Carnival of the Animals – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
March 2, 2024 matinee
Cover: Terrence Mann with New York City Ballet in Carnival of the Animals. Photo © Erin Baiano.
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