by Leigh Witchel
New York City Ballet paired up two of its gems, but set several new stones in them. A group of dancers made their first outings the prior night, and did well, but like many settings, everything benefits from some polishing.
The beginning of the The Four Temperaments was less biblical and more lapidary, with Olivia Boisson and Samuel Melnikov inviting us to look more at small details in the first theme, a careful closing into fifth or a hip twist, than the big sweeping picture. Olivia MacKinnon made her debut in the second theme partnered by Kennard Henson, both of them sharp and staccato, racing with the tempo but keeping on top of it. In another debut, Sara Adams extended what she did in Polyphonia to the third theme. She paired nicely with Davide Riccardo both in height and outlook; he dropped her low, and turned her doll-like before carrying her off. He was a good foil for her dreaming presence.
Sebastían Villarini-Vélez went in for Anthony Huxley in Melancholic. There was a link to how Villarini-Vélez does Love Letter (on shuffle) as he bent back and crumpled down. His melancholy was rooted in frustration. There was motion to his emotion; when he bent low he collapsed, not creating a shape, but an action. He raced back and forth between a quartet of women to a duo, or sighed on the ground, exhausted. All the motion, the twisting and jumping happened because he was thwarted.
Sanguinic fit Isabella LaFreniere’s stage persona: Diana the Huntress. Sanguine by nature, she hit a pumped foot on every fast plink of the piano. Yet for all her precision, details were smudged: she did single turns instead of doubles, gargouillades were left out. New to his role, Preston Chamblee looked precise and after what seemed like a rough year he’s coming back into form.
Adrian Danchig-Waring was Villarini-Vélez’s opposite in Phlegmatic, decorative rather than forceful. He completed the shapes, with lush backbends and flexed wrists like a Thai dancer. But he also has a disorienting en face quality on stage, as if he’s looking straight at us, yet not seeing anything.
In Choleric, Emily Kikta floored the pedal. Bless her for going full out, but she almost lost it a few times as she careened, spinning into a crouch. And when Danchig-Waring and Villarini-Vélez lifted her under each armpit there was very little she could do to help so she didn’t tilt. Working out the height differential is up to the men.
This was the first time I had noticed that the allegro quintet for the female leads, “The Devil’s Dance” is a reassembly of motifs from the other sections. Balanchine built the ballet thematically analogously to how Hindemith had built the score, out of beautiful, modular blocks.
Liebeslieder Walzer also had several debuts: Danchig-Waring in Conrad Ludlow’s part, Mira Nadon in Diana Adams’, Peter Walker in Bill Carter’s, and Roman Mejia in the role created by Jonathan Watts.
Danchig-Waring looked good in The Four Temperaments but he and Megan Fairchild were not a blessed partnership in Liebeslieder Walzer. In the duets for Jillana and Ludlow, not only were Danchig-Waring and Fairchild thrown by their height difference but they felt off in timing as well, not slotting into each other as they came cheek to cheek. Later on he pulled her off pointe.
Many times in the season folks ended with the energy level they should have started at. But the T(i)(y)lers, Peck and Angle, started dialed to 11 in their first duet, with stolen glances, shaded eyes and drama, drama, drama. The parts for Violette Verdy and Nicholas Magallanes begin more calmly and allusively than that, but the choreography caught up to where they were. Peck and Angle quickly hit their stride. Angle is a phenomenal partner, bracing her on his back so smoothly in a lift that there was no pause between the ground and the air.
Some of how dancers come off is plain old unfair. Nadon should have looked contrived in her walking duet with Peter Walker, originated by Adams and Carter. But she didn’t. She’s blessed with a great stage face and presence. When she inclined her head, you sensed her listening when Walker made a stage whisper.
The ballet is in two parts, in between the women made a full change from individual gowns into the same soft Romantic tutu (the men were already dressed the same). The guys got off easy, natch. They only had to remove their white gloves.
Liebeslieder may be one of the most conversational of Balanchine’s ballets, not just in the ballroom setting. Like Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, even with the women in pointe shoes, the phrases were constructed less like design and more like communication and speech.
Mejia partnered well, but he was too short for Unity Phelan, something that made the “swimming” lifts in the great duet for Melissa Hayden and Watts have the wrong shape. He couldn’t get her low enough for her to extend her leg way out in front of her.
Peck and Angle’s second half pas de deux was magical. The heightened presence that seemed too much in a ball gown felt right on pointe. She used rubato for dramatic effect, sharply hitting positions, but floating her arms and legs. Nadon drifted in arabesques gently guided by Walker. They sped up; she whipped in piqué turns round the stage before running off with Walker in pursuit.
Phelan has been in seemingly every plum role for the past year, but unlike Nadon, she has to work for her stage magic. Here, she enlarged her presence, lingering without distorting the music with each arabesque or fall. If the company intends to make her the center of the repertory by any means necessary, this is one of the parts she needs in her fight to evolve from principal dancer to ballerina.
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
The Four Temperaments, Liebeslieder Walzer – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
February 7, 2024
Cover: New York City Ballet in Liebeslieder Walzer. Photo © Erin Baiano.
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