ABT's New Sleeping Beauty—A Fresh Look from the Past

Gillian Murphy as Aurora. Photo: Gene Schiavone

ABT recently had its New York premiere run of Alexei Ratmansky's grand, ambitious new production of The Sleeping Beauty at the Met Opera House. As traditional as it is—with powdered wigs, knee-length tulip tutus, and pantaloons—the most radical element, other than anarchist knitters, is the choreography, which evokes royal court dance of centuries past rather than the full-out athletic style to which we've become so accustomed. Ratmansky drew from Petipa's choreography as recorded in Stepanov notation for an authenticity so outmoded as to appear radical. William Christie and Les Arts Florissants have brought new audiences to early music, but such a rediscovery has been rare in ballet.

Part of the radicalism is that the steps don't always default to a dancer's maximum range, as is often the norm. (As stunning as the Mariinsky and Bolshoi can be, freakish flexibility is now standard.) The women wear pointe shoes (even the girls wear them in the garland dance) but when they chainé, it's nearly always on demi-pointe. Many of the preparatory and closing positions of moves feature broken lines and coyly angled arms and heads; pirouettes are executed with the foot poised near the ankle. The biggest partnered lifts feature Aurora's legs forming a taut diamond shape, or a series of compact fish dives. I imagine that the dancers had to fight everything reflexive and had to re-learn Ratmansky's particular syntax by rote repetition. No six o'clock developpés or mindless strings of filler steps here. 

Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes. Photo: Gene Schiavone

The lavish costumes and sets (by Richard Hudson, inspired by Léon Bakst) set a royal tone. Elaborate hats, headpieces, and wigs—to my eye, distracting at times—reinforce the idea that no expense was spared in this co-production with Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Only the artificially garish hue of the Lilac Fairy's satin dress and gown hints at the 21st-century origination.  

Gillian Murphy (Aurora) and James Whiteside (Désiré) led one performance I caught, with Stella Abrera as the Lilac Fairy. This is a forceful cast with more edges than softness. Murphy is so competent that it would indeed take some kind of toxin or witchcraft to keep her down. Craig Salstein was Carabosse, swathed in pewter lamé and matching makeup, and squired by huge rats. 

In the June 13 evening performance, the more finely burnished pair of Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes danced the leads. They are becoming our era's superstar duo if they aren't already. Gomes manages to make Désiré more impetuous and thoughtful than impatient. Vishneva opted to do some chainés on pointe, whereas Murphy consistently performed chainés on demi-pointe. (Piqué turns were performed on pointe throughout.) Principal Veronika Part, rarely seen this season, danced the Lilac Fairy with graciousness, and Nancy Raffa, a company ballet master, Carabosse; interestingly, both men and women past and present are cast in this juicy character role.

The legend has been fleshed out to include commonly excluded elements. The Act I fairies include not only characteristics, but allegories: Wheat Flower and Breadcrumb, presumably representing abundance and resourcefulness. In Act III, gemstone fairies make appearances at the wedding, in addition to the fairy tale characters such as Princess Florine and Bluebird (with a proper pas de deux), an ogre couple and a gang of boys, and Cinderella and her prince. (Others don't even dance.) It's an exercise in traffic control, as is the Garland Dance; one can only imagine what it must be like backstage. But the all-hands-on-deck casting, which allows casting principals in supporting roles, also provides a substantial opportunity to gauge the talent and resources of this major company. That this is the second Sleeping Beauty production in the span of eight years not only acknowledges the shortcomings of the last production, it also speaks to the strength of the company's development department, and is a confident bet on Ratmansky by the executives. 

Photo: Gene Schiavone

For my taste, The Sleeping Beauty is one of the more trying traditional romantic story ballets still regularly staged. It's thin on overall plot, thick on allegory and bodies, and demands a great deal of patience not required of viewers by most contemporary ballet productions. (Short attention span?) While some musical themes by Tchaikovsky are lovely and evocative, many of the variations end abruptly, necessitating the steps to also end bluntly. And yet there is the accompanying textural richness and depth of tradition. 

It is in fact disorienting to see the archaic form when we're so accustomed to seeing the hyperextension of every line. But it gives this production a unique, genteel style that looks forward by looking to the past. Interestingly, over the course of the run's last week, the style rebounded somewhat away from the archaic and shifted toward the modern, or the second time around, it wasn't so shocking to my eye. (It could also have been Vishneva's reluctance to fully embrace the archaic style.) What will it look like next year or in five years? No doubt we'll find out.

Beauty, Beast, and Balanchine

It's high ballet season at Lincoln Center. Pretty amazing that on any given day, for the last half of May anyway, there might ostensibly be 5000+ people simultaneously watching ballet within a couple of square acres of Manhattan. Crazy, right? Notes on last week, when I saw NYCB's All Balanchine program and ABT's Don Quixote.

ABT's Don Quixote, May 16, Met Opera House

Paloma Herrera. Photo: Gene Schiavone

Bear with me while I descend to clichés: it starred Beauty (Paloma Herrera as Kitri) and the Beast (Ivan Vasiliev as Basilio). Herrera's cool charm and elegant lines nicely balanced his kangaroo-like jumps and leaps. Her center was clearly spot-on that night as she sustained ridiculously long, watch-checking balances. And no one can extend a leg in second and present a perfectly arched foot with such care.  

Vasiliev adds scissor splits to jetés, does three revolutions in the air instead of the standard two, holds Herrera overhead on one hand while  relevé-ing on one foot... things that have no terms because no one else does them. It's bizarre and sensational, but it pushes male ballet beyond the limit, and that's exciting if not always beautiful. They're an unlikely pairing, but that also makes for an interesting, quirky dynamic.

Veronika Part and James Whiteside danced the second featured parts of street dancer Mercedes and toreador. He is well-suited to this juicy, if brief, morsel of ham, with its taut-bow lines and bang-bang rhythms. She looked happy to be in this midi skirt-swishing role, less stressed out than she can while bearing the full weight of primary leads. Part also danced the Queen of the Dryads, magisterial, Amazonian, and elegant, in full tutu.  

NYCB's All Balanchine program, May 13, Koch Theater
The selection of repertory showcased the depth of corps members and soloists.

Lauren Lovette and Anthony Huxley in Raymonda Variations. Photo: Paul Kolnik

Raymonda Variations (1961) featured Lauren Lovette, clean and sparkling, with Anthony Huxley, technically a perfectionist, if slightly bloodless; could benefit from partnering work.

In The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1975), Erica Pereira and Daniel Ulbricht made the most of this mostly syrupy fable saved by a poignant ending. The part of a toy soldier suits Ulbricht—physically superhuman, but whose facial expressions can lack nuance. Good to see Pereira, a victim of the "lost soloist" syndrome.

Le Tombeau de Couperin (1975), a b/w leotard ballet inspired by the intricate interactions of Baroque dance, which could also be read as square or folk dance. Comprising two "quadrilles" of 16 corps members who perform four movements—it feels like work to watch, after a time, and one can only imagine the effort that went into choreographing it—but there's a warmth and graciousness to it that resists the affect of modernism. 

Le Tombeau de Couperin. Photo: Paul Kolnik

As I've likely written before, Symphony in C (1947) is the big test of major companies' depth, skill, and musicality, and among my favorite high classical Balanchine works. 

• 1st movement: an injured Andrew Veyette was replaced with Zachary Catazaro to partner Tiler Peck. While Catazaro looks the part of a swain, he needs polishing and partnering rehearsal; all in due time.
• 2nd movement: The luminous Teresa Reichlin glittered extra brightly with the relatively new crystal-encrusted costumes. Tyler Angle is a consistently brilliant, suave partner, but that seems to mean that he is cast with the taller, often more difficult to handle women, rather than those of a more suitable relative height (as is his similarly-skilled brother, Jared). A pleasant problem, indeed.
• 3rd: Hey, there's the elusive Gonzalo Garcia!, dancing with corps member Ashly Isaacs, in the danciest section. They treated the lilting rhythms fairly lightly but suited one another well. 
• 4th: This section is really more like half a movement, but it's always a pleasure to see Taylor Stanley's technical confidence and charisma; here he danced with Ashley Laracey, featured more and more often, with reason.

This week brings "Classic Spectacular," a mixed bill at ABT including La Gaieté Parisienne, and Jewels at NYCB.

Ethan Stiefel's Adieu—a Slave is Set Free

Bye, Ethan. Thanks. (Ethan Stiefel as Ali. Photo: Hidemi Seto)

ABT's 2012 Met season drew to a close with a week of Le Corsaire, your quintessential pirate ballet. Corsaire is such a rowdy tongue-in-cheek celebration of ballet's cliches that I can forgive many of its flaws. In this production staged by Anna-Marie Holmes after Petipa and Sergeyev, we get a clunky pirate ship (twice), a tepid score (based on Adolphe Adam's music), slave girls, and an endless, very pink dream sequence overstuffed with females and flowers. And how could we forget the very proper tutus and tiaras worn by the lead women, so appropriate to the town square and grotto settings? 


Of course, it's not like swans should be wearing tutus either, but the swan metaphor works perfectly with the art of ballet on every level (hence its nauseating overexposure in pop culture), so that leap is much easier to make. Setting aside the assessments of verismo, Corsaire is all about the second act pas de trois between the pirate Conrad, Medora ("a young Greek woman") and the slave, Ali. The two men are usually played by principals, and therein lies the delight of this ballet: having the chance to see Marcelo Gomes and Ethan Stiefel at one performance, and Cory Stearns and Ivan Vasiliev in another (plus the terrific bonus of Herman Cornejo in the role of bazaar owner).


Stiefel scheduled two performances as Ali to mark his ABT retirement; he can hence devote his full attention to running the New Zealand Ballet. (Why that company is another topic; the sheer flying miles required to fulfill such duties boggle the mind.) He had been sidelined with injuries in recent years, so it had been too long since I'd seen him. I expected to see a faded version of my memory of him, but in fact he was far stronger, fitter and more eloquent than that. Ali requires an odd combination of proudly wearing just turquoise harem pants and a feathered headband, and being completely subservient and obedient. His movement alternates between explosive jumps and cowering in humility in kind of silent film manner. Stiefel managed it all more than capably, with admirable jumps and turns.

Ivan Vasiliev. Photo: Rosalie O'Connor

Vasiliev (born in 1989 and, controversially, a recent exile with Natalia Osipova to the Mikhailkovsky Ballet from the Bolshoi) feels like a new breed of male dancer. Like Cornejo he is relatively short, and his gifts have allowed him entree to the top rank. But Cornejo is both a supreme athlete with the ballet superpowers of ballon and spin, and he is a poet. He mesmerizes with his ease and naturalness as his acting has seasoned each year. Vasiliev is all brute force and big muscles, a kind of Rocky Balboa of ballet, and people love him for that, and also that he's earnest and forthright—uncomplicated—in his acting. I used to consider Stiefel among the more athletic men, but the presence of Vasiliev redraws the scale considerably. Factor in his switch of companies as somewhat mercenary, and there are many parallels to today's free agent athletes.


As Conrad, Gomes felt three dimensional, letting a lock of his ebony hair run roguishly loose. Gillian Murphy, as Medora, possesses a note of playful irony that seems entirely appropriate, and she's always up for a display of technical fireworks. This is a backhanded compliment, but she can be too perfect—so capable that insecurity simply isn't an emotion in her palette. In contrast, Veronika Part (across from Cory Stearns) seems filled with insecurity, sometimes like a foal establishing its footing for the first time. But you can't argue that she has the most gorgeous lines and a genuinely complex internal life, and her vulnerability usually plays right into the arms of her current prince. Stearns has similarly beautiful lines and terrific loft; maturity, experience and some bulk will only add to his depth. 


ABT promotions were announced yesterday: Hee Seo is now a principal, and Alex Hammoudi a soloist. Both have been dancing principal roles this season, and Seo last year as well. She is the embodiment of refinement and delicacy, and he, a magnetic prince in the rough with prodigious physical gifts. But with the exodus of Stiefel, Corella, Carreño, and Beloserkovsky (oops—sorry, he's still on the roster, though I haven't seen his name lately), the company is now suddenly in need of male principals; I suspect Hammoudi will be slotted in above his pay grade far more often in coming seasons, until he—or others, probably recruited externally—rises to principal, alongside the few resident and handful of guest principals.