by Leigh Witchel
The opening night of the Stravinsky’s Fairy Tales double bill in Amsterdam for two of the composer’s one-act story ballets exhibited all of the highs, a few of the lows, and many of the inspirations for how Alexei Ratmansky tells a tale.
In his hands, The Fairy’s Kiss was both a ballet about the artist as creator, and a ballet about ballet. The piece, done in 2017 for Miami City Ballet, was Ratmansky’s third treatment of the score, set on Dutch National Ballet by Michael Breeden. Derived from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, many of Ratmansky’s inspirations seem to have been Danish.
The ballet began with an unusual depiction of snow: not the stereotypical female corps in icy white crystals, but a mixed corps in beige, the men bare-chested. The mother arrived in rags, cradling her child. Sixteen women surrounded her. As in Ratmansky’s version of The Nutcracker, snow was classical, calm and dangerous.
This was still less of a pas d’action and more of a classical set piece that moved from the sixteen women to eight couples. The ensemble brought on the fairy (Anna Tsygankova), who whirled down a line. Tsygankova was very Russian with loose arms and wrists. By this point, the mother had expired, and the men removed her.
The fairy tossed the baby to four women as if it were a football. When she retrieved it, she kissed it, but again tossed the child to others who played catch with it. That’s a link to how Bournonville saw the fairy world in La Sylphide, as innocent of human consequence, but it’s #Ratmanskyness that in his own goofy way acknowledged the conventions of theater. It would have been impossible to throw an infant without harm unless it were a doll, and we all know it’s a doll, including the audience.
The fairy’s fouettés brought in the villagers, who rescued the infant, who we quickly see aged to a young man played by Timothy van Poucke. Van Poucke was a whole-hearted dancer with a huge jump, flying up and back in jetés en tournant.
Amsterdam, like New York City, has both the energy and chaos of a diverse metropolis, and it’s reflected in Dutch National Ballet, which is also diverse, yet still cohesive. The company is strong, and in contrast to, say, Paris Opera Ballet, the effect of the ensemble is athletic rather than exquisitely uniform with dreamy lines.
The ballet benefited from expressive woodblock-inspired sets and drops by Jérôme Kaplan (with elements revised from the Miami production to be less abstract and clarify the narrative). The women as villagers wore character shoes for a big dance, and Ratmansky’s loose and energetic style looked good on them. The male ensemble moved grandly in allegro; they made celebratory dances look like a celebration.
Van Poucke and his bride, Erica Horwood, had a potent chemistry together that added a layer to the story. The young man wasn’t betrothed to the wrong woman. The fairy was making him sacrifice, not rescuing him.
He met a troupe of vagabond fortune-tellers (the ballet stereotype formerly known as gypsies), actually the fairy and her retinue disguised. She insisted on reading the boy’s fortune. Half-entranced by her, the young man tried to flee.
The story of The Fairy’s Kiss has parallels, particularly about destiny, with La Sylphide. There’s a recording of Ratmansky dancing La Sylphide from 1991, assumedly with Ukrainian National Ballet. By 1997, he was dancing with the Royal Danish Ballet and would have been further exposed to the work. The mime gestures the fairy used (abandonment or loss of a child, riches) were those Madge used in her fortunetelling scene.
Van Poucke sprang into a huge side sissonne to begin a lush solo, all with gorgeous elevation. The fairy arrived veiled and wearing the same dress as the bride. The difference was that she was on pointe; Ratmansky reserved pointe work for the supernatural. The boy was besotted and carried the fairy about.
As La Sylphide was the template for fortune-telling, Act 3 of Swan Lake, was the one for deception. The fairy went into Odile’s kneel on the ground imitating Odette. The more ballet you know, the more meaningful The Fairy’s Kiss was.
As in Swan Lake, it helped to understand that the young man was bewitched, and his being unable to tell the fairy and his fiancée apart was part of the point. The young man grabbed the fairy by the back of the legs as she arched way back, which looked like a remix of the final Black Swan pose.
After a classical divertissement for four snow couples, the young man tried to kiss his bride, lifted her veil and discovered with horror that he had been fooled. And as the fiancée echoed Effie in putting on her veil earlier, we also saw the failed wedding in the background as the fiancée removed her veil and dropped it sadly to the ground.
As an apparition, the fiancée joined with the young man and the fairy in a tug of war between the two women, like the one in the Elegy of Serenade. He hugged his fiancée one last time but he was already lost to her. The men lifted the young man and the fairy in tandem, then the fairy set him down to watch his destiny: a vision of ballet creation.
Ratmansky began with a tweak of the slow arabesque procession of La Bayadère, only he added men so the arabesques were partnered and dipped into penchée. He returned to Bournonville with the beginning of Konservatoriet, and the young man transitioned from watching the action to directing it into different formations: some of the most iconic from Serenade, Les Noces and Giselle. It’s partly Ballet’s Greatest Hits, but it’s more Ratmansky’s love letter to his predecessors.
Ratmansky knew he wanted to choreograph The Fairy’s Kiss by the time he was 18. It’s as Romantic as Ratmansky gets, buying into the idea of the artist, and choreographer, as a man searching for his destiny.
A man. Not a woman. That could just be a sense of identification, but the final moments felt off in Miami, and they still did. The fairy, the fiancée and the mother walked in for a final pose, laying down and gazing at the young man as he was raised high. Was that an artist’s benediction of the women who inspired and nurtured him, or were they laying down so he could walk over them on his way up?
For those of us who thought Ratmansky’s Firebird was made for American Ballet Theatre, according to the program, it was first done at the end of 2002 for the Royal Swedish Ballet. The current production, with the fabulous designs and projections by Simon Pastukh and costumes by Galina Solovieva, was co-produced in 2012 by ABT and DNB. It was staged by ABT’s original Ivan Tsarevich, Marcelo Gomes, along with Nancy Raffa.
Pastukh set the opening on a stage striking for its blankness: a featureless room with a single door. It was almost an asylum. Giorgi Potskhishvili may have been all in white, but he was not an inmate. His outfit was white brocade, and he was a prince. He suddenly noticed the door and made a decision, crossed himself and walked through. Shortly after, in a great cinematic touch, a projection at the back pivoted us 180° and we saw him walk through the door from the other side.
In this strange landscape, with apples neatly lined up across the front, eight fiery couples in bright red danced. Ratmansky never stints on classical set pieces that are integral to ballet: the Waltz of the Flames, or what have you.
The Firebird, Maia Makhateli, raced in to do a solo of open turns while the couples were at the side. Her Firebird was fiery but distant and cautious. She didn’t come alive, or do more than steps, until she encountered Potskhishvili.
Makhateli is tiny, and Potskhishvili is big, so he popped her in lifts. He was another big mover, leaping and twisting. Unlike in Balanchine’s version where Ivan is trying to get the Firebird to trust him, this was a dance of possession and capture. He did a huge toss with Makhateli at the end, then she begged to be set free. She threw a long red feather at his feet and fled.
Smoke rolled in from the side, and the maidens loped in. Ratmansky imagined them entranced but in a kind of giddy, drugged stupor. But again, they could still dance a set piece, this one with four neatly changing lines.
The princess, Yuanyuan Zhang, wandered in as if asleep; her maids dragged her about and clapped her awake as she stamped her feet. Her behavior was another Ratmansky theme, very similar to The Little Humpbacked Horse among others. He imagines princes and princesses as almost feral in their innocence: the very Russian simple hero who triumphs.
The maidens did an antic dance whirling riskily into turns, and in came Ivan. Now Potskhishvili almost had manners, identifying himself as a prince, gesturing to his outfit. Zhang responded to him with piqués that were a silly mess. And gave him an apple. She was like a tween fighting with the rest of her stoned clique.
Shadows and smoke portended the arrival of Kaschei. Leo Hepler, a young Canadian corps member trained at Canada’s National Ballet School, was not even listed in the printed program as one of the potential soloists. But he did first night. In the best way, he recalled both the physicality and the zany malevolence of the original Kaschei at ABT, David Hallberg.
Hepler came out in a racing walk, almost losing his cape as it snagged momentarily, twiddling his fingers, plotting. Pastukh’s projected trees moved dizzyingly into arches of long gnarled trunks and tumescent blood red buds. As was the joke went when the work bowed in New York, they looked like dog penises, but were still wonderful.
Kaschei may have been funny, but he was still dangerous. His smoky breath sent Ivan into a trance, then Kaschei turned him into a frog, and a dog. The women in Kaschei’s thrall all hopped at his command.
Ratmansky’s staging used Stravinsky’s whole score, which felt long to a New Yorker used to the suite. This also meant things happened in a slightly different order. Ivan tried to get the princess away, then brandished the Firebird’s feather here, instead of at the end of the Infernal Dance of Kaschei.
The Firebird came in, prancing and turning. While the maidens scampered, Ivan and Kaschei duked it out, fighting over the princess. They punched one another before Kaschei forced everyone to dance. Hepler is young but has stage presence. This role gave him an exuberant outlet that he bit down and chewed hard on.
The Princess, Ivan and Kaschei all fell down as the Firebird entered. Rather than Balanchine’s calm after the storm, Ratmansky envisioned the Berceuse as the battle itself, often in slow motion, and with a pairing of movement that, as with the young man and the fairy being lifted in tandem earlier, suggested matched destinies.
Things didn’t look good for Ivan when Kaschei got on top of him, but Ratmansky added back a detail that Balanchine deleted: The Firebird showed Ivan the egg containing Kaschei’s soul and Ivan broke it, destroying Kaschei and ending the enchantment.
The Princess removed her green wig and dress to reveal herself in a pale shift. Ratmansky has grown more sensitive to things he once infamously did not pick up on, so there was a slight costume change here. At ABT, the maidens wore uniform golden wigs looked like the fairies in 19th century productions of The Sleeping Beauty, but didn’t sit well on a diverse cast. Instead, the women wore their own hair loose.
The tree trunks (there were actual ones as well as the projected forest) opened and the maiden’s suitors, who had been imprisoned inside, fell out, half-dazed. Everyone was reunited in a big, jumpy celebration.
It was a solid, enjoyable evening. One of Ratmansky’s gifts is making a company look good, and Dutch National Ballet returned the favor. Both dances showed so much about Ratmansky’s imagination and his approach to both fairy tales and ballet. The Fairy’s Kiss is a work of synthesis, Ratmansky claiming his heritage as his birthright. Firebird is Ratmansky’s own Fractured Fairytales take on the narrative in a funhouse mirror. Both are versions only he could have made.
Copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
The Fairy’s Kiss, Firebird – Dutch National Ballet
Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam
June 15, 2024
Cover: Leo Hepler and Giorgi Potskhishvili in Firebird. Photo © Altin Kaftira.
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