Violin Concerti @ New York City Ballet

Saturday September 25, 2010 evening – Ballets set to three great 20th century violin concertos were presented tonight at New York City Ballet. This excellent programme was one of the most enjoyable – and impressively danced – evenings in recent seasons. Faycal Karoui was on the podium and three very fine violinists took turns, playing works of Barber, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

Arturo Delmoni (above) played the gorgeous Samuel Barber piece. Read about this concerto’s troubled ‘birth’ here – it’s a great story out of recent musical history. Mr. Delmoni played it gorgeously tonight and the orchestra – save for an errant oboe – sounded wonderful.

A Paul Kolnik photo from BARBER VIOLIN CONCERTO above, with this evening’s cast: Charles Askegard, Sara Mearns, Jared Angle and Megan Fairchild.

When Sara Mearns stepped into the spotlight I just knew she was going to give an astonishing performance and she certainly did: her dancing had a great sense of freedom and expansive lyricism in the opening movement where she would step into whirling arabesques which she sustained with a floated feeling. Charles Askegard was yet again the ideally attentive cavalier: always right there at the right moment. They look super together. 

The ‘modern dance’ roles in this ballet were originally created on Kate Johnson and David Parsons when they were members of Paul Taylor Dance Company. It would be fun sometime to see current dancers from the Taylor company in this Peter Martins work; I’d love to see Aileen Roehl and either Michael Trusnovec or Francisco Graciano in this ballet. But NYCB’s Megan Fairchild and Jared Angle are so fine in these roles that we really needn’t look elsewhere. They dance bare-footed, something you don’t often see at NYCB.

Above: tonight’s cast in a Paul Kolnik photo. In the second movement, Jared Angle’s tortured soul is becalmed by Sara Mearns – up to a point. Then suddenly the tension shifts and it is Sara being subjugated by Jared; what a frisson when her hair comes down! Jared carries her off to some unknown fate and we never see them again.

What a terrific performance Megan Fairchild gave – her Henry Leutwyler portrait above. I’ve seen her in this ballet before but she’s totally upped the level of her performance both as dancer and presence. It’s quite a leap from being a perfect Aurora to this role which has built-in elements of humour but is performed with a straight face. Megan nailed it and in the closing allegro section she pestered Charles Askegard to perfection; the audience were laughing but the dancers were dead serious. At the end she clambers up onto Chuck’s shoulders, he flips her and drops her to the floor – a tricky passage, expertly timed by the dancers today. Watching Megan Fairchild’s performance I thought I’d love to see her in more of the Taylor rep.  

Above: Gonzalo Garcia photographed by Kokyat while dancing with MORPHOSES in Central Park last summer. Gonzalo has chalked up one success after another since joining NYC Ballet but I tend to think that his performance in Jerome Robbins OPUS 19/THE DREAMER is one of those perfect matchings of dancer to role. For all the passion and intensity of his dancing here, Gonzalo always keeps that slight detachment from reality that sets the dreamer apart. A beautifully wrought and expressive performance. His muse tonight was Janie Taylor whose sense of mystery plays so well into this ballet, for we do not know if she is real or simply a figure in the dreamer’s imagination. Janie danced beautifully – her third role in two weeks – and she is such a captivating dancer to watch. Excellent dancing by the corps made this performance of OPUS 19 especially pleasing, and violinist Lydia Hong (I cannot find a photo of her!) played with poetic clarity. 

Kurt Nikkanen played the Stravinsky with authority, an ideal mixture of tension and flow, and touches of wit and of gypsy bravado.

In the Stravinsky, Maria Kowroski (above, in Henry Leutwyler’s photo) gave a sensational performance, remarkable for the clarity of her technique, her sweepingly high extensions, wonderfully supple torso and a quiet sense of joy in dancing Balanchine’s steps in the final movement. In her pas de deux with Sebastien Marcovici, the two dancers kept a current of dramatic energy flowing back and forth. Sebastien looks great – a powerful force onstage – and he and Maria created a whole portfolio of memorable black-and-white Balanchine images in that single duet. 

Sterling Hyltin (photo by Jeff Gurwin) looks so delectably lovely and youthful when the curtain rises; when she starts to dance it’s with a real feeling of authority. She has worked up a superb interpretation of this role, not only in her footwork and timing but with facial expressions which transmit both the nuances of the music and her underlying pleasure in dancing Balanchine’s phrases. Ask LaCour towers over Sterling like a protective prince; the beautiful moment when they simply stand together and Ask, with a sweeping gesture, shows Sterling the world before her, was especially poignant tonight.

Sterling and Maria exchanged smiles as the finale progressed and the whole Company seemed to be on a thriving mutual wavelength of camaraderie. The individual performances by the corps dancers gave me a lot to watch and as always the watching paid off. Wei was especially happy to see Faye Arthurs dancing in a duet passage with Sebastien right after their first entrance.

Maria, Sterling, Sebastien, Ask and Ms. Hong were enthusiastically applauded and came out for an extra bow at the end of this wonderfully satisfying evening.  

In a dance-related story, an exhibit of costumes from the Ballets Russes opens in London. I hope this collection will eventually be shown in New York City.