Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Streaming Diary: The fall dance season begins with inspired past performances by City Ballet and the Royal Ballet

• By drediman
• October 1, 2020
• No Comments

Theater’s not the only performing arts genre ramping up its digital programming this fall. This week, I streamed content from two of the world’s great ballet companies, the Royal Ballet and New York City Ballet, both of which have continued to mine their archives to stream inspired past performances.

The Royal Ballet’s Marianela Nuñez and Alexander Campbell in Jerome Robbins’ “Dances at a Gathering”.

THE ROYAL BALLET
Dances at a Gathering

Since March, I’ve been streaming a steady flow of past performances by the Royal Ballet. As a result, I’ve become increasingly familiar with the company’s roster of superb principals and soloists. I’ve particularly become fond of a whole lot of them, notably Steven McRae (Rhapsody), Sarah Lamb (Woolf Works), Matthew Ball (Romeo and Juliet), Frederico Bonelli (The Sleeping Beauty), William Bracewell (the recent Romeo and Juliet film), Alexander Campbell (The Nutcracker), Francesca Hayward (The Nutcracker), Yasmine Naghdi (Romeo and Juliet), and Marianela Nuñez (Giselle), just to name a few. This week, I streamed the world-renowned company’s recent 2020 performance of Jerome Robbins’ seminal Dances at a Gathering (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), a rendition which assembled some of my favorite dancers, most of whom I named above. Set to a suite of elegant piano compositions by Chopin, Mr. Robbins’ pure dance work was originally choreographed in 1969 for New York City Ballet and was first danced by the Royal Ballet just a year later. Although it’s choreographed with classical ballet technique in mind and has only a suggestion of a narrative, the work nevertheless allows for exquisite characterization, giving the ballet’s company of ten the opportunity to flex both their dancing and acting skills. Over the course of the ballet’s hourlong running time, relationships are forged and evolve in a continuous, fluid (re)calibration of the internal dynamics of an intimate group of friends and/or lovers. One of the things that has struck me most about the Royal Ballet dancers is their comfort with portraying drama, which is not surprising given the company’s robust tradition of creating and performing story ballets (“house” choreographers like Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan honed their talent at the Royal Ballet). This sensitivity to the element of theater in ballet has allowed them to especially excel in works like Dances at a Gathering, which fall flat without a natural sense of drama, let alone refined classical ballet technique. You can access this performance (available until October 24th) and others on the Royal Opera House’s website.

New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck in George Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky Pas De Deux”.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
Digital Fall Season – Week 1

Unlike the Royal Ballet’s approach to digital programming – which chose to perform only a single ballet on its fall bill (Dances at a Gathering, see my thoughts above) – New York City Ballet has opted for the opposite tactic. Indeed, this past Tuesday’s suite of mostly excerpts (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) from no less than seven (!) classics choreographed by George Balanchine amounted to something of an embarrassment of riches. Although I still mourn that these performances aren’t streamed live (the performances here date as far back as 2012), this week’s treasure trove most surely whetted my appetite for the day I can once again experience City Ballet’s exciting dancers in the flesh at their home in Lincoln Center. There were quite a number of highlights from the versatile program, which in aggregate clocked in at about an hour. Teresa Reichlen and Adrian Danchig-Waring were marvelously imperious in an excerpt from the closing segment of a relatively recent 2020 performance of Episodes (set to a score by Anton Webern), one of the more intriguing of Balanchine’s “black and white” ballets, which is still strikingly modern despite premiering more than sixty years ago. Another fantastic highlight was reliving Tiler Peck and Joaquin De Luz in the crowd-pleasing Tschaikovsky Pas De Deux, which was captured in the fall of 2018, just shortly before the charismatic Mr. De Luz’s retirement from the company. With her extraordinary musical phrasing and impeccable technique, Ms. Peck – one of the crown jewels in City Ballet’s constellation of star dancers – has never been more breathtaking in the rousing piece than in this filmed performance. Lastly, rewinding all the way back to 2013, I was mesmerized by the now-retired Janie Taylor and the very fine Anthony Huxley in the Ivesiana (“The Unanswered Question”) (set to a haunting adagio by Charles Ives), a rarely-performed Balanchine work that’s notable for its mysterious, avant-garde aesthetic. You can access this program until October 6th on City Ballet’s website. I eagerly look forward to the riches in store in Week 2 of City Ballet’s fall season.