by Leigh Witchel
Beyond the top two or three, it’s tough to agree on the top rank of Balanchine’s ballets. Much of the winnowing process happened while he was still alive; the best of the best may depend more on your taste than his skill. One often thinks of both “Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet” and “Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3” as step-children; “Suite No 3” because you have to sit through the three lesser movements before you get to “Theme and Variations.” “Brahms-Schoenberg” now seems like a ballet rolled out when a big ballet is needed and the company doesn’t want to do “Symphony in C.” Yet there are so many beautiful moments in it, both in the corps sections and the partnering for the leads. Is it out of the top rank just because the competition is so fierce?
The company programmed both ballets together, with many debuts. The opening of “Brahms-Schoenberg” doesn’t feel like the first movements in Balanchine’s symphonic ballets. In “Symphony in C” or “Western Symphony,” the opening states themes: it’s both a welcome and the lay of the land. Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ first piano quartet is filled with anticipation, from the mysterious opening call. We first saw the mauve draperies of a ballroom with a hazy view across a vast plaza of a palace. People rushed on, searched and left, and the orchestra kept its pace brisk. What was about to happen?
There were new leads in both the first and second movements, and their dancing furthered the mood. Chestnut-haired Emilie Gerrity bourréed onstage excitedly in the opening with the bright smile of an ingénue. Lydia Wellington took the solo role with a consistent, urgent attack. Joseph Gordon, with his surfer-boy hair, pushed himself with fast turns around a wild axis.
In the next movement, Lauren Lovette moved away from ingénue roles to find her repertory as a woman. The Intermezzo fit right in. The role is one long swoon; Lovette danced the role low in her back, bending with abandon. Another dancer celebrated for the part, Jenifer Ringer, is a possible model. Lovette and Ringer both have dark-haired glamour. Both seemed as if they might be all beauty and little strength, but both are deceptively technical. Lovette floated through à la seconde turns in a perfect position.
It’s impossible to do the Intermezzo without a stellar partner, and Andrew Veyette was there for Lovette in every bend and dive. Weaving through them, the three corps women (Marika Anderson, Mira Nadon and Mary Elizabeth Sell) formed a Greek chorus, again of anticipation, searching in arabesque or traveling intricate patterns with fast pointe work.
Megan Fairchild handled the third movement with sophistication; Gonzalo Garcia seemed more frazzled in his solo. The Andante carried the anticipation forward; the orchestra pulsed as the corps ran through formations before the march theme came in. Once again the question seemed to be, “What is about to happen?” Brahms’ answer is straight from composition class: the main theme. Balanchine’s answer seems to play a longer game: the Rondo alla Zingarese.
The gypsy rondo marked the return of Amar Ramasar to the company after being dismissed for sharing sexually explicit photos. Brian Seibert’s piece in the New York Times says everything I would have; I’ll add the irony that the one time the company put the concerns of its female workers first, it was fought and reversed by its own workers’ union.
Ramasar looked much as he always has in the part, putting it over through attack and charisma. But the rondo belonged to Sara Mearns. It’s a role built for a ballerina to go for broke in, and that’s what Mearns did. She took turn after balance right at the edge of a nose dive or skid, but she made them all. She didn’t need to try and serve the choreography at all. Being Sara Mearns served it best.
“Theme and Variations” was created in 1947 for American Ballet Theatre. Reviving it in 1970 for New York City Ballet, Balanchine added three movements in a markedly different, freer and emotive style, with costumes that looked like silk and chiffon outtakes from a bad swashbuckler. Adrian Danchig-Waring and Teresa Reichlen conveyed the cinematic emotion of the opening Élegie as if it were a long-forgotten tearjerker: “A Tale of Seven Women and Their Hair.”
If the opening trio are step-children, they also can look better on an inspired day. Lauren King is always a good dancer, but every now and again she’ll land a sleeper ballerina performance of such focus and intent that blows it out of the water. She did that in the Valse Mélancolique. The usual subtext of that section is that the woman is a sphinx, the man in her thrall, unsure where she will lead him. At the end their arms slowly waving as if they were underwater, she backs him off to an uncertain fate.
Her blond curls hanging wild, King rewrote the script into a riveting vignette of a woman possessed. She may have taken her cue from the moment towards the end of the movement where the woman holds her arms in front of her like a sleepwalker. Waltzing precipitously, she seemed shocked to find Peter Walker’s arm around her, as if startled out of a dream: one that he was not in. At the end, instead of backing Walker off, he touched her, and she looked both shocked and resigned. He led her away as if she finally recognized him.
In their debuts in the Scherzo, Unity Phelan and Roman Mejia had to work harder for chemistry; they were an odd match physically. She’s long and thin; he’s short and powerful. But Mejia continued his march through the company’s jumping roles, flying offstage right on a high note.
Anthony Huxley has already made it through “The Sleeping Beauty” but “Theme and Variations” was another big challenge: his part in “Beauty” crammed into 20 minutes. Ashley Bouder broke him in, and they looked good together. His reticence meshed well with her brashness; he calmed her down: Her first solo was unforced with clean stitchery in the turns and delicate leg circles in the air.
As always, the solo material wasn’t the challenge. Huxley has easy ballon, and made it through his first solo with clean turns with connected phrasing. He can sustain a line; if he’s short, he’s well-proportioned with long legs. The infamous tours to turns in the second solo happened at the edge of risk – he lost his spot as he went on, but made it anyway. Bouder nailed the balance right before she started her last solo, and kept her momentum.
The pas de deux has blind lifts, low carries and other partnering tar pits. You could see how hard Huxley had to concentrate. But he was there for Bouder. Occasionally he had to take her by the wrist instead of the fingers, but if Bouder had to compensate, she wasn’t showing it, and she didn’t hold back. He even popped her into the air in tosses. She hit the switching balances before the end of the duet, and the only thing that was slightly off was the final pose, where Huxley couldn’t tell he had her back on her leg. But then again, after her solid variation, she bobbled her last turn – and in both cases it all came out in the wash. Once the hard work was done Huxley even flashed a hint of a smile.
At the Olympics, the difference between the finalists in gymnastics and 23rd place might be one step outside a chalked boundary. In ballet, the difference between a dancer in a national company and a regional one might be one physical flaw. This is a fiercely competitive world. The difference between top drawer and second-tier might be one blemish. Maybe it depends on the day. With the right performance, “second-tier” works could be the masterpieces.
copyright © 2019 by Leigh Witchel
“Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet,” “Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
May 19, 2019
Cover: Anthony Huxley in “Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3.” Photo © Erin Baiano.
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