Oberon's Glade

Tag: Kurt Nikkanen

  • My Only 2012 NYCB NUTRACKER

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    Sunday December 23, 2012 matinee – Due to the rise in ticket prices at New York City Ballet, I’ve had to adopt strict budgeting rules: for the first time since moving to NYC, I found myself forced to skip NUTCRACKER season altogether. I’d been in the habit of going as many as eight times each year, seeing debuts and covering interesting casting combinations for my blog with genuine enthusiasm. I came to really love and admire the entire Balanchine NUTCRACKER experience, always finding fresh details in the thrice-familiar production.

    But this year, with prices really out of my reach and with the Tchaikovsky Festival looming ahead (I want to go every single night!), I was forced to forego NUTCRACKER; I’ve looked at the casting each week, wishing I could be there but simply unable to deal with the monetary situation.  Fortunately, my friend Monica very kindly offered me a ticket to today’s matinee.

    The cast this afternoon included some debuts, and there wasn’t a principal dancer to be seen onstage. But the soloist and corps de ballet did the Company proud, stepping into the leading roles with confidence and charm. Clothilde Otranto led a lively performance, and special kudos to concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen for his ravishing playing of the Interlude, replete with shimmeringly subtle trills in the highest register.

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    Lauren Lovette’s debut as the Sugar Plum Fairy was a major point of appeal in the casting today. This young ballerina has been doing excellent work in the corps, and she always makes a beautiful impression when she’s cast in a prominent role; her debut recently in Christopher Wheeldon’s POLYPHONIA was a real eye-opener, for she held the stage in mesmerizing fashion in her mysterious solo, danced to one of Ligeti’s most trance-like works. Her Sugar Plum today was lyrical and light in the opening solo, and showed the confident radiance of a seasoned star-ballerina in the pas de deux where her cavalier, the story-book-prince Chase Finlay, showed off his ballerina with  élan. Together they sailed smoothly thru the duet’s many difficulties: difficulties that have been known to undo the most seasoned dancers. Lauren and Chase drew the audience in with their youth and poise, winning a particularly warm reception.

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    I met Mary Elizabeth Sell shortly after she joined the Company in 2006, and have kept an eye on her ever since. She and I share a birthday; I took the above picture of her one day a couple years ago when I ran into her on a rehearsal break. Always a dancer to draw the eye in any ballet because of her vivid presence and perfect smile (she was one of the few dancers to make an impact in the leaden OCEAN’S KINGDOM), her performances stand out in a way that have always made me think she could do well in major roles. This Winter the opportunity came her way – she had debuted yesterday as Dewdrop – and, just as I suspected she would, she seized the opportunity and gave a really exciting performance. Her Dewdrop was on the grand scale, able to make her own musical statement in the role by playing ever so subtly with the timing: holding an arabesque one moment, then swirling forward in a flurry of pirouettes. Her jeté was effortlessly brilliant, her extension regally unfurled, her attitude turns silky, her fouettés gracefully swift and sure. To all of this she added her dark eyes and gracious smile. Her performance had amplitude and (rare commodity:) glamour; in short, she put me in mind very much of one of my all-time-favorite Dewdrops, Colleen Neary. There’s no better compliment, in my book.

    Other notable newcomers were Cameron Dieck (handsomely squiring the marvelous Gwyneth Muller in Spanish), Claire Kretzschmar (leggy and cool as Arabian), and Joseph Gordon (bouncing high in Chinese). Sara Adams was pretty, precise and perfectly pleasing as Marzipan; Anthony Huxley – he of the fabulous feet – a stellar Candy Cane (I was hoping he’d jump thru his hoop on his exit in the finale, as he did when he first danced the role); Andrew Scordato an amusing Mother Ginger; Lauren King and Ashley Laracey led the Waltz of the Flowers with distinction…two of my favorite ballerinas.

    In Act I, Sean Suozzi replaced David Prottas as Drosselmeyer; the change was unannounced. Sean was superb, as we could expect from one of the Company’s most intriguing personalities; he even gave the grandmother a startlingly emphatic kiss. Amanda Hankes and Christian Tworzyanski were the appealing Stahlbaums, Kristen Segin and the very pretty Claire von Enck danced charmingly as Harlequin and Columbine, and Giovanni Villabos neatly executed the Soldier Doll’s solo.

    It’s kind of amazing that there are now dancers in the Company I cannot
    identify onstage; things seem to be changing more rapidly that ever in
    terms of the roster. During 2012 some of my favorite dancers left the
    Company unexpectedly; others are currently injured (an ongoing problem).
    The total complement of dancers stands at 85, the smallest number in my
    years of attending,; apprentices and (sometimes) senior SAB students
    seem to be filling the ranks in the big ensembles.

    SUGARPLUM: *Lovette; CAVALIER: Finlay; DEWDROP: Sell; HERR DROSSELMEIER: Suozzi; MARZIPAN: Adams; HOT CHOCOLATE: Muller, *Dieck; COFFEE: *Kretzschmar; TEA: *Gordon; CANDY CANE: Huxley; MOTHER GINGER: Scordato; FLOWERS: King, Laracey; DOLLS: Von Enck, Segin; SOLDIER: Villalobos, MOUSE KING: J. Peck; DR & FRAU STAHLBAUM: Hankes, Tworzyanski

    The house seemed nearly full, and so nice to run into some of the Company’s most ardent supporters during intermission.

    Thanks so much, Monica!

  • Escape to Stravinsky

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    Wednesday September 26th, 2012 – When we’re feeling down, music, dance, art and nature become sources of solace and ways of leaving our troubles behind, at least for a span of time. Tonight an all-Stravinsky programme at New York City Ballet served as a surprising means of escape. While the ballets are all thrice-familiar Balanchine-Stravinsky masterpieces, the dancing as well as the unusual sensation of freshness being found in the scores drew me out of myself for a while.

    There were several cast changes this evening, with dancers scheduled for one ballet shifting to a different one to replace injured colleagues. It all turned out well in the end, though I was sorry not to see Abi Stafford dancing.

    The ballets look sleek and vital, and Kurt Nikkanen’s playing of the STRAVINSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO is always a pleasing experience. Curtain up, and there is Janie Taylor with the four boys. She does all the steps and port de bras that every woman who has ever danced this role have done, but her personal mystique is so intriguing you feel you’ve never seen the ballet before. Then each of the other three principals make their entree, and we’re off. I loved Sebastien Marcovici’s large-scale movement and his steady partnering. Robert Fairchild moves with incredible vitality; he and Janie are a great match-up in their pas de deux. Rebecca Krohn has one of her most congenial roles here; she was superb and she put me in mind of some of my earliest experiences with the leotard ballets, when the great ballerinas who knew Balanchine personally danced these roles. So good to see Faye Arthurs in a brief featured role, and the corps de ballet were looking spiffy with several appeasing faces and forms among their number.

    I’ll always remember my first encounter with MONUMENTUM/MOVEMENTS; it was at a Sunday matinee in the 1980s. I was going to a 4:00 PM Kathleen Battle recital at Alice Tully but I took a standing room spot for the NYCB matinee and just watched the opening ballet. Helene Alexopoulos danced the leading role; I adored her, and I was so fascinated by the way the dancers broke ranks and re-arranged themselves between movements.

    Tonight, the magnificent Maria Kowroski took the stage with her two cavaliers – Ask LaCour and Sebastien Marcovici – and it was a really impressive performance. Maria sculpted her long limbs gloriously into improbable shapes, ideally punctuating her phrasing on the music. The men gave her perfect support, and the audience gave the three a warm reception as they stepped out to bow. The Gesualdo score in particular stood out with burnished radiance in an evening of fine playing from the pit; Daniel Capps was the conductor here. 

    Although Autumn is approaching, it felt like Spring as Megan Fairchild and Chase Finlay took the stage for DUO CONCERTANT. This partnership, so thoroughly captivating in LIEBESLIEDER last season, gave this Balanchine classic a youthful glow. Chase is becoming – or maybe we should say ‘has become’ – quite the dashing cavalier, and when Megan ignited a manège of swift pirouettes, all seemed right with the world. Their joint allegro dancing was perfect, and in the slower and more tender passages of the ballet, the two dancers had just the right feeling of intimacy. Arturo Delmoni and Susan Walters were the musical duo. 

    Is there a more iconic image in all the Balanchine canon that the curtain-rise diagonal that opens SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS?  But we only have seconds to savour it before Daniel Ulbricht comes sailing onstage and bursts into a series of fantastical leaps. Tiler Peck joins him in this rousing passage of tucked-up bounces. (And it’s time yet again to commend Tiler’s vast range and her contagious joy of dance). Savannah Lowery and Adrian Danchig-Waring danced vividly as is their wont, and the pas de deux with its oddly appealng melody was very well-danced by the delectable Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasar. Amar received a screaming bursts of applause at his curtain calls, and he deserved every bit of it.

    That opening diagonal and the ‘melting’ of it at the end of the ballet’s first movement showed us some of our current corps beauties. A very strong group of demi-solistes kept the opera glasses darting madly whenever they were onstage: mesdamoiselles Brown, King, Laracey, Pazcoguin and Smith and their cavaliers Alberda, Dieck, Laurent, Peiffer (long time, no see) and Schumacher.

    The house was far from full though there was considerable enthusiasm all evening. But it is so sad to see the 4th Ring gallery empty and gaping forlorn: that is the place where I and (I am sure) thousands of others first experienced the Balanchine/Stravinsky ballets. And if new generations are to be lured in, these seats at realistic prices are the place to do it.

    STRAVINSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO: Taylor [replacing Hyltin], R. Fairchild, Krohn, Marcovici [replacing Ramasar]

    MONUMENTUM PRO GESUALDO: Kowroski, la Cour
    pause
    MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO & ORCHESTRA: Kowroski, Marcovici
    pause
    DUO CONCERTANT: M. Fairchild, Finlay

    SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS: Hyltin [replacing A. Stafford], T. Peck, Lowery, Ramasar [replacing J. Angle], Ulbricht, Danchig-Waring