by Leigh Witchel
It’s ballerina season at New York City Ballet. The company’s switch from a long run of Peter Martins’ full-length “Swan Lake” to anchoring a mixed bill with the one-act Balanchine version gave more opportunities for the company’s women to blossom, and we saw that from those at the top, and those on the rise. Yet despite a marvelous harvest on display during this mixed bill, there was plenty to see looking beyond – and behind – them.
The pathos of the Waltz Girl in “Serenade” falls into Sterling Hyltin’s register. She played most of the role neatly contained, but when she played with the music, her variations took on more depth. She made a circle torquing and pulling away from Amar Ramasar (in his debut). During her circuit, her hesitation after each balance, only to melt away as she pulled from Ramasar, felt almost like the gentle collapse of a soufflé. It was more than just musical play; it made us feel something.
The pandemic couldn’t have come at a crueler time for Erica Pereira; in the seasons before she had begun a transformation. She didn’t need that time excised from the second half of her career. Now she finally looks like a soloist: relaxed, confident and definite in the jumps and turns of the Russian Girl.
Aaron Sanz danced with Hyltin in the Élegie as her temperamental opposite: high romantic. Her reading was was about what she didn’t do, as if she didn’t want to admit she’d been broken when Sanz left her. She reached her hand out in desperation, but then went quiet as she laid down. It forged a link between that moment and her final ascent on the shoulders of three men: one of heroic reticence.
Sanz looked the hero, but his emotions translated to a nervous reading: He flipped Hyltin smoothly at the climax of their duet – except for a fidget at the end. In the infamous pivot support by the thigh in arabesque, there is nothing the ballerina playing the Dark Angel can do to help; she is literally entirely in his hands. He almost had Emilie Gerrity off her balance but somehow she stayed on through force of will. Gerrity, who also gave an instense reading, held her pose and even cranked out a high arabesque at the end. Sanz redeemed himself balancing Pereira on his back and tossing her up and round in the air.
Indiana Woodward made an early debut in “Andantino,” pinch-hitting for Megan Fairchild. Originally made for the 1981 Tchaikovsky Festival, Robbins’ brief, gossamer duet was built to show off a very young Darci Kistler. Gonzalo Garcia danced Ib Andersen’s role in the passionate, mercurial way he’s been enjoying his final season.
For Woodward, the girlish runs in a blur of toe work were what we’ve come to expect, but combined with her hesitation and leisure in extension, it crystallized her moment to go beyond whiz-bang and can-do.
Woodward has always been a technician; a natural turner with a rock-solid axis. She’s a soubrette, but “Andantino” let her be everything a soubrette is supposed to be: not just perky, but sophisticated. Finally, she didn’t look like Tiler Peck’s kid sister.
Peck herself followed, again escorting Roman Mejia in another major debut, “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux.” Even more than “Andantino,” this is a showpiece. It’s programmed by the company both to announce rising talent, and also for full-throttle pyrotechnics by established stars.
Peck and Mejia underplayed the entrée, at first stroking the choreography more than hitting it. It was surprising, but not foolish; it left them somewhere to go. Even more, it continued to show Mejia as more than just vying for the next company virtuoso, but a prince as well. He did one wild assemblé/tour jeté hybrid in the opening, but he’s continuing his methodical establishment of himself as a classical dancer.
Peck has done this part enough to find room to hit various accents, but with enough freshness that her execution didn’t seem planned or like a roll-out of stunts. Mejia stuck largely with the canonical steps in his solo, which often gets mangled by male dancers looking to insert their favorite tricks.
The slow build paid off in the coda, as the audience’s excitement mounted. Mejia peppered his entrance with double cabrioles and got applause for the height in his turning jumps circling the stage. Like Woodward, Peck’s virtuosity is her unshakable balance; Mejia released her during a promenade and she floated through a double turn. Not to be outdone, she ended her section with double fouettés embellished with a traveling arm, adding an extra whip and curl to the signature.
If there’s anything Balanchine about the company’s one-act staging of “Swan Lake,” it’s the brisk tempos. But not when Sara Mearns dances it. Mearns isn’t and has never really been a Balanchine dancer. She’s a ballerina and a star; when she does the swan queen she does it her way. There’s a sound argument for that; the idea of “Swan Lake” being Balanchine’s stamp on the ballet isn’t borne out by its performance history. He staged it in 1951 not from any burning desire, but bowing to commercial reality. It’s had things added and subtracted, including a female pas de trois of his own making and Ivanov’s little cygnets quartet.
This version isn’t even fully in Balanchine’s hand. It was restaged three years after his death by Peter Martins, who added the black costumes for the corps. That color switch in the lakeside is about as momentous as black swans in the park instead of white ones, and Alain Vaes’ frozen ice castle scenery still looks good pushing forty.
Less noticed but more potent, Martins added six women to the corps to have 30 swans in the first group entry, which jams the stage so much that some formations look like a backup on the runway at JFK.
Like Katharine Hepburn, Mearns is Mearns no matter what she does, but perhaps she’s less a Katharine and more another Sara(h): Bernhardt. She conquered the stage with an outsize presence, announcing her entrance with a huge, bird-like head roll. As for doing bird arms or classical arms, of course she flapped. It wasn’t about the purity of her line, but the extravagance of it.
In Mearns’ universe, she’s always center stage and we are merely her audience – and as long as she delivers, that’s just fine. To hold up her end of the bargain, she danced the swan queen in the way that looked best on her. A more spacious tempo is right for what she does. At the end of the adagio, instead of the abbreviated sigh usually seen, Balanchine kept the fast coda, but even here, and in her solo, Mearns kept the tempo and the movement spacious.
It’s her ballet but Russell Janzen provided beautiful and logical support. At first, he approached her quietly as if she were a wild creature he didn’t want to frighten. He put his crossbow on the ground to show his intent not to harm where she could see him do it. He seemed awestruck by her. He wasn’t adding different details to the role, instead, familiar ones that were clear and thought through.
Their dance together followed the same logic as it would in the full version: an introduction and an attempt to trust. Mearns created her story by how she looked away from Janzen or fell slowly into his arms, leaning back, rocking into him, or swooning after a turn. At some point during the duet Janzen almost became invisible. It seemed as if she was dancing held by unseen strings. That’s not him being overpowered by her, but the apotheosis of selfless partnering. He reappeared back into awareness soon enough. As the ballet closed, he imported another detail from Martins’ finale, holding Mearns’ arms round her as if trying to stop her transformation back into a swan. But it was to no avail, she left him with rippling toes.
So while the ballerinas commanded the stage, their consorts held their own.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Serenade” “Andantino,” “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,”“Swan Lake” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
February 11, 2022
Cover: Sterling Hyltin and company in “Serenade.” Photo credit © Erin Baiano.
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