by Leigh Witchel
Balanchine’s “Greek” trilogy, “Apollo,” “Orpheus,” and “Agon,” could be the most famous unplanned trio in ballet. Three works by Balanchine to Stravinsky scores – two to mythological subjects, one no more Greek than the title – made over a period of nearly three decades. And now, the youngest of the bunch is 65. How much has changed when all of them are on Social Security?
Before the trilogy, the company’s orchestra began the show with Stravinsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 2, a miniature musical calling card of his wit, acid harmonies and driving rhythms.
Balanchine’s deletion of the birth scene in “Apollo” weakens the idea of how young Apollo is. Dancers playing him being born incorporated that youth and inexperience into his character. After, particularly when taller, weightier dancers also took the part, Apollo became more mature.
Taylor Stanley, just in physical type, would be a natural for a younger Apollo, but gave a performance more polished than wild. He appeared as the curtain rose, a fully-formed artist. When he circled the stage it wasn’t with the staggering of baby steps, but deliberate balances with changes in attack and dimension. Even when he leaped up, retracting his leg to kick it out, he stayed on balance.
The original name of the work was Apollon Musagète (Apollo, leader of the muses). When Stanley raised his hands to greet the muses as they entered kick by kick, that authority was already there. When Tiler Peck danced Terpsichore’s solo, she inserted some faltering balances that Stanley didn’t use.
Unfortunately Brittany Pollack wasn’t having a great night as Polyhymnia; she didn’t cleanly land any of her turns into arabesque. Indiana Woodward was a loosely daring Calliope, easily kicking her finger in high battements as she rounded the stage. She slumped down dejected, but popped up happy, going for Calliope’s variations in mood as the muse of epic poetry, but not pushing that into temperamental swings. Her fate seemed foretold: she scribbled her secret on her palm and sealed it with delicate hands, but turned away at the same time Stanley did, rather than waiting for his reaction. It was as if she already knew he was going to reject it.
Stanley’s solo again depicted a finished product, gradually and carefully raising the volume of repeated side to side steps. His duet with Peck was sculptural, one of the most beautiful snapshots was when he suspended her upside down in a split. The only time anything seemed even slightly off were in some blind partnering moves at the end where he had to find her equilibrium.
When all the women returned, Stanley confirmed his leadership rather than assuming it. He flexed his biceps as they hung off him and and flung the three women before harnessing them like dressage. From the beginning to the final peacock arabesque that finishes off Balanchine’s final version of the ballet, his performance was gorgeous. It was close to perfect. It would have been better just a little less so.
Orpheus forms a chunk of the symbology and mystique of the company. Isamu Noguchi’s lyre is the company’s symbol. The ballet led Morton Baum to invite Ballet Society to become resident at City Center. It’s not performed as often as the other two ballets, and it hasn’t aged as well.
Stravinsky’s commissioned score is magnificent. Noguchi’s simple but effective set elements, that were scaled up for the ‘72 festival on the larger State Theater stage, are resonantly beautiful. The costumes, particularly for the women, could be discussed. But the choreography hasn’t held up over time like the music or décor. The dancing starts slowly and doesn’t gain steam until Orpheus and Eurydice finally are reunited. The furies in hell (tinkered with by Peter Martins as well) don’t provoke grief, fear, awe or even wit; with their constant aerobic jumping, they’ve never seemed more than busy.
Joseph Gordon’s debut in the title role wasn’t there yet. He was less emphatic than usual in a part that might look better were he more emphatic. Orpheus is grief-stricken but you can’t play that on stage. There has to be some hint of chemistry between Orpheus and Eurydice, but Gordon hadn’t worked that out either. Sterling Hyltin – who was ostensibly dead – was the liveliest thing in the ballet. She was kittenish in their pas de deux, as if she were trying to get him to play with her. Gordon fixated on “I can’t look at you” as a motive rather than “I desperately want to look at you.” That’s basic method acting; one produces inaction, the other action. But Eurydice died a second time in Orpheus’ arms and was pulled out of his grasp back to the underworld. He was masked and we couldn’t see his face clearly, but not even Gordon’s body reacted.
There’s more than one Dark Angel in Balanchine’s universe; the female in “Serenade” and the man here. Lincoln Kirstein wrote an essay about the angelic in Balanchine’s work, and the idea of angels as messengers rather than moral agents. It makes sense applied to both of Balanchine’s Dark Angels. It’s hard to figure out this Angel’s skin in the game: why does he visit Orpheus, why does he literally push him to plead his case for Eurydice to Pluto, and when that succeeds, why does he take the lyre from Orpheus and leave him and Eurydice to fight their way back up towards the sun? Andrew Scordato was arrowy in the part. He is tall and slender, so the first time he seemed to occupy the space was after he entered, roughly dislodging the tube that bisected him vertically, and later became a binding and lifeline for Orpheus. Megan LeCrone also made an unscheduled debut as the lead bacchante. It’s a murderous part, literally, and she was a beast with long red hair.
How to make “Orpheus” work? Perhaps the solution isn’t to treat it like a narrative ballet, but a masque. It might regain its mythological power if it were more stylized, and the postures even more angular and frieze-like.
“Agon” landed somewhere between good and rocky. Both debuts, Unity Phelan’s and Jovani Furlan’s, went well. But Emile Gerrity knocked her extended leg into Phelan’s in the opening, and in the first pas de trois, Gina Pazcoguin had trouble keeping up with both the tempo and Sara Adams. She almost looked surprised to be there.
Furlan’s performance leading the pas de trois was looser. He flew out to enter, and again across the stage in the flexed-foot jeté in second. His solo had an easy rhythm, then he came forward with an almost combative walk to bow as if daring us . . . to do what? After, in the coda, he returned to a loose, slapping style, moving his foot back and forth, then into a crazy grand rond de jambe. Edwin Denby described the rhythm of this dancer as being like “a New York Latin in a leather jacket.” Furlan is Brazilian and he was importing a new slant on that rhythm.
The second pas de trois was dodgy. Gerrity had trouble with the balance in the entry and her solo was demure but tentative. It just wasn’t her night. But Andres Zuniga, who got thrown in for Harrison Coll, also had trouble keeping Sebastían Villarini-Velez in the last pose in their duet.
The main pas de deux was one of Wendy Whelan’s signature parts; Phelan looked as if she’d been coached by her. At the end of her entry, Phelan finished the pirouette hooked round Amar Ramasar’s head exactly as Whelan did it. Like Whelan, Phelan is also extremely plastic; she plunged into splits as Ramasar dipped her. Her approach to the partnering was close to Whelan’s as well; more human in focus than otherworldly. She looked at Ramasar and danced with him. As normal as that sounds, Darci Kistler seemed to ignore her partners, and in “Agon,” that works. Phelan was manipulated but she was a woman, not a doll. Every couple does the pose on the last note slightly differently; Phelan and Ramasar both collapsed. Coming towards his retirement, Ramasar handled “Agon” well, keeping it simple, clear and musical. The two of them broke character after the duet, but few of us could avoid smiling at the third call for applause.
Ballets don’t age like people; they don’t undergo slow, inevitable deterioration. The right casting or coaching can rejuvenate them. The only inevitability is that over time the original context will be lost. Like mid-century furniture, the clean lines of “Agon” keep it in style. One of the side-effects of Balanchine stripping away costumes and production, as in “The Four Temperaments,” was to make the ballet less prone to dating. He pruned back “Apollo” hard, both choreography and production, but it also resists dating. “Orpheus” remains the conundrum.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Apollo,” “Orpheus,” “Agon” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
May 10, 2022
Cover: Taylor Stanley with Tiler Peck, Brittany Pollack, and Indiana Woodward “Apollo.” Photo credit © Erin Baiano.
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