ABT—Dark the Soul, Bright the Stars

Julie Kent & Marcelo Gomes in Othello. Photo: Gene Schiavone

We love ballet because it can defy mortality. The grace and ease with which the pros do the most difficult steps refutes gravity and the way most of us clump along, meat bags with a few muscles and bones. On the other hand, many of the full-length ballets in ABT's current Met Opera House season underscore the frailties and downfalls of being all too human.

Lar Lubovitch's Othello is revived every so often in part to showcase a powerful male dancer at the peak of his powers, and ABT has no better embodiment than Marcelo Gomes. Although the role was set on Desmond Richardson, it seems built for Gomes. As the curtain rises, simply sitting on his throne, clutching its arms, head bowed, he commands attention. The muscles on his bronze breastplate may not be his, but we don't doubt the power implied (we're also familiar with Gomes' strength).  

Xiomara Reyes, soon galloping into the sunset, in Rodeo. Photo: Gene Schiavone

It never hurts to have a good tale behind a story ballet, and Shakespeare's deeply troubling examination of loyalty and deceit reveals the darkest side of man's nature. James Whiteside made for a believably sinister Iago, slithering and scything his way around the stage's perimeter like an angry shadow. Julie Kent's Desdemona is effectively naive, and Stella Abrera, as Emilia, perfunctorily foreboding. The addition of Bianca (Misty Copeland) and Cassio (Joseph Gorak), who become vehicles for betrayal, flesh out the stage action while clouding the narrative. Still, these two magnetic dancers have some of the best sections of dancing, unchained from the text. The white scarf becomes a searing emblem of love; the more hands that touch it, the more tainted it becomes as a symbol of devotion. 

Agnes De Mille's Rodeo, on the other hand, begins with its lead cowgirl, Xiomara Reyes, longing for the camaraderie of the posse of cowboys, but being ignored until she accedes to at least some feminine conventions. Xiomara Reyes is retiring this season, but her lead performance makes that hard to believe. She's as sassy and tomboyish as ever, in this, one of her best dramatic vehicles. It highlights a buoyant sense of humor that can be buried in formal ballets, albeit where she excels technically. She will be missed in this role. James Whiteside danced the role of the cowboy who moves from buddy to beau, including a lighthearted tap segment.

Isabella Boylston as Giselle. Photo: MIRA

Giselle as well ponders the foibles of the heart, both figuratively and literally. Albrecht falls for, and guilelessly deceives, the frail Giselle, who after death is consigned to join the Wilis (basically, ghosts of unmarried women who taunt men and make them dance to death). Certain ballerinas are born to perform the role of Giselle, and Isabella Boylston is one of them. Her size, her ballon, and flexibility all contribute to a fine characterization. But it is her sublime delicacy that distinguished her rendition in May 23's matinee. When she lifted her leg in an arabesque early in the Act II duet with Alex Hammoudi (Albrecht), the movement was barely perceptible, floating upward steadily, like a feather on the slightest pulse of wind. Battus resembled the beating of a hummingbird's wings. Other dancers—particularly Russians, it seems—milk the drama more, or emphasize athleticism, but Boylston gives a nuanced, quietly magical performance free of histrionics.

Hammoudi, a soloist, is maturing into his princely physique. He is on the way to becoming a much needed leading man of a large size. His long legs only accentuate the height of his grand jetes, and he can finesse the details in traveling steps with beats. It can't hurt to play against the company's finest character dancer, Roman Zhurbin, who succeeded in bringing some empathy to the beleaguered second fiddle, Hilarion. This young cast supplied rewards of a different kind than expected from the company's headliners—a variety of stars populating ABT's galaxy. 

A company is always in transition, but it feels as though ABT is going through more changes than in recent memory, with three principal women retiring (Kent, Herrera, and Reyes), a recuperating David Hallberg out for the season, the oft-cast Polina Semionova injured, and young dancers being groomed for promotions. So while there is Gomes, a fully matured artist in complete command of the repertory, we watch for greatness to emerge from surprising places. 

Cinderella, Take 3

Photo: Gene Schiavone

Eight years ago, I saw Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes in the ABT premiere of James Kudelka's Cinderella from 2004. Last Tuesday, I saw Kent and Gomes reprise the roles of Cinderella and the Prince, only in Frederick Ashton's ballet from 1948, using Sergei Prokofiev's score, that originated at London's Royal Ballet and was given its ABT premiere last Monday. (Remarkably, Kent also danced the lead role in Ben Stevenson's version in 1996.) 

This version, while not modern, fits ABT's strengths better than the Kudelka, which contains some memorable stage pictures and dynamics—the Prince's urgent dash around the planet—but falls flat in comparison. Kudelka's is like a cartoon tree—a puffy circle atop a cylinder—versus a lushly-leaved, knarled-trunk, detailed etching by Dürer. Wendy Ellis Somes and Malin Thoors directed this production.

There is a tendency in contemporary ballet to push extremes—extend a leg past vertically, push an arabesque into a split, break a sculptured, curved line with a flexed extremity. Ashton (1904—88) often did the opposite. He dimished the exhibitionist tendency, lowering an attitude to an elegant height, holding the foot in coupé derrière, or arranging the arms in crisp Vs held high or low. That's not to say that he pared the choreography to simple forms. As the variations by the four fairies demonstrate, he created knotty phrases that challenge even the most skilled practitioners, in this case Stella Abrera, Sarah Lane, Misty Copeland, Isabella Boylston, and April Giangeruso. In some instances, he detached the music's support of the movement; the two cross paths and sometimes interweave, rather than swimming parallel.

The ballet's most memorable waltz section begs for swooping, dipping actions that emphasize gravity. But Ashton gave the corps' women slashing arms and crisply hit spots, an advancing army that marked the transition from reality to fantasy. Craig Salstein, as the Jester, seemed slightly overwound, pushing beyond the 110% he usually gives. His expressive face was painted clown white, which may have led him to try to use his body more. Nonetheless, he is reliably one of the most enthusiastic and entertaining performers in the company.   

The hysterics of the stepsisters (Kenneth Easter and Thomas Forster, in drag) offset the generally tasteful atmosphere set by Cinderella's passages. The tradition of men playing the sisters may be coveted in Britain, but it has less appeal to me. And yet, if women were given the slapstick pranks of this duo, it would surely count as misogynistic. Does it still? Hmm.

The set, by David Walker (who also designed the costumes), while column-and-candles classical in concept, recalls in practice the Japanese sliding screen form of theater, dogougaeshi. As each fairy makes an entrance accompanied by a pair of children, the portal in which she stands is revealed by a raised scrim. It shows off the great depth of the Met's stage. In Act 3, the ballroom appears to recede deeply, pushing us to focus on the couple, as if at the center of a Fabergé egg. In the final scene, a shower of glittering confetti sparkles hopefully around the couple, already on the neighboring hill.

Kent, after so many Cinderellas, exudes the essential purity and inner glow to be able to transform from peasant to princess. She enters the ballroom by walking on point, in her borrowed tutu and a sail-sized chiffon train held aloft by footmen, mincing ever so slowly down the steps. (I admit to worrying about the potential consequences of those steps, both here and when Gomes pressed her overhead and descended the staircase. He was fine, of course.) Gomes, clad in all white throughout, black hair gathered in a neat ponytail, is the consummate prince, drawing the eye even while darting through the crowd. He so fully inhabits his roles that even the sometimes awkward mechanics of partnering seem natural. His ability to exude both bravura and naturalness are remarkable, a testament to both physical training and artistry.