NINA’S ABT SEASON: SPRING-SUMMER 2001, MET OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY

The Friends caught up with the Taylor creation--titled Black Tuesday—on May 2, when we also witnessed Mark Morris’s Gong, with Nina in the cast. It was perhaps unfortunate that the well-crafted and dancer-friendly Taylor piece preceded Gong. A choreographer of true genius, Taylor gave ABT an uncompromising, non toe-shoe ballet set to Depression-era songs. The company shone in it, stretching the soloists’ emotive projections. More performances should bring out the irony the dancemaker surely intended with his seemingly bouncy moves that contrast with the song’s lyrics.

Morris is one of those contemporary choreographers who’s been favored by the dance press, but whose much-hyped gifts has eluded this viewer through many years of attempts to appreciate it. At best, I have found his work pleasant, at worst absurdly simple-minded. He has a penchant for gender-bending that is sometimes amusing. Gong elicited mixed reviews, with the NY Times’ Anna Kisselgoff calling it a "glorious mess" while New York magazine’s Tobi Tobias pronounced it as showing the "choreographer at his fertile best, creating a self-contained imaginary world, full of beauty and pathos…" As for me, I was simply appalled by the piece. I think the best thing about Gong is the music, a 1936 composition by Colin McPhee titled Tabuh-Tabuhan, based on Balinese gamelan music. Morris was presumably inspired by Indonesian dance, but if so, he totally distorted its movements and images for his own purposes. Not to beat around the bush, I believe his intent was to use the percussive nature of the music to make the ballerinas look either silly, awkward, or both. For the most part ignoring the sensuous, undulating line under the bright rhythmic surface of the score, he made the ballerinas pose, twist and plié in some of the most unattractive ways imaginable (At one point they were made to look like orangutans on their toes). Even the lifts and supported landings were contrived to show the female dancers in ugly angles. Attempts to compare Gong’s convoluted partnerings to Balanchine’s Bugaku insult that brilliant work, which in any case is based on an entirely different choreographic tradition and societal order.

Though Morris has worked with toe-shoe companies more successfully in the past, here he seemed determined to use pointes to disadvantage, constricting the dancers to stiff, unconnected movements; the few lyrical flights were allotted to the men. The ballerinas entered with arms in angled poses simulating some of the basic elements of Southeast Asian dance, but aside from that, there was little to conjure Balinese dance as I’ve witnessed in person on that fabled isle. The locale was more successfully evoked by Isaac Mizrahi’s brightly color-coded costumes---mini-tutus for the corps women; full, flat tutus for the principals; the men sported slicked-back hair---the better to show off their gold earrings---plus sleeveless tops with "Mandarin" collars. All wore coordinated tights ending in golden ankle bands. (Perhaps these costumes can be saved for a worthier piece---Abdallah anyone?) Morris ignored the smoothly sinuous grace of the Balinese idiom, offering instead a series of group calisthenics for varying ensembles which seemed unconnected save for stupefying dullness. There were two segments of dance unaccompanied by music—not a novel trick—but these only served to point out the emptiness of the proceedings. The few flashes of flowing steps accorded to the male dancers went nowhere. A kind view of some of the more awkward passages might be to suggest that Morris was perpetrating a parody of some of the most beloved moments in Romantic and Classical ballet. If so, he did it with such heavy-footedness that nobody laughed, and everybody, especially the dancers, simply looked uncomfortable.

A tip-off to the point of this ballet may be its ending, when the whole cast runs to the rear of the stage and are silhouetted against the backdrop. Morris has been playing puppet master all along, in the time-honored Indonesian shadow puppet tradition. And his puppet show is all about making fun of ballerinas, and finally, making them disappear. (This may explain why he kept Nina in the back row of the ensembles, and allowed her a solo that lasted no more than thirty seconds!) Is the choreographer suffering from toe-shoe envy? This whole exercise was a waste of ABT’s abundant talents. The multicast of ballerinas (which included Julie Kent, Ashley Tuttle, Gillian Murphy and Karin Ellis-Wentz), for the most part were given steps any corps member could do. They should be applauded for their professional integrity in going through the performances. Suffice it to say that those assigned the least exposed roles were the lucky ones. (Other credits: Male principals: Angel Corella, Joaquin de Luz, John Gardner, Marcelo Gomes, Sascha Radetsky; Charles Barker, conductor; lighting by Michael Chybowski)

GISELLE

Giselle (May 11) marked another peak in Nina’s achievements. We’ve witnessed at least six performances of this ballet by this artist, and each has had its own glories, but somehow, the last viewing was more wondrous than the others preceding it. As with most performances, the sum was perhaps greater than its parts, though in this case, most of the parts were outstanding. Julio Bocca was Nina’s Albrecht, and he was a model of supportive partnering. The two artists’ growing rapport made their courtship in Act I delightfully believable, with small details (like a stolen kiss) that made Giselle’s inevitable breakdown all the more heartbreaking. Nina’s mad scene, when she is broken in heart as well as body, becomes more deeply moving with each performance. Some restaging of the action in the familiar Gianni Quaranta scenery also added to the verisimilitude—this time the aristocrats do not exit but become the audience for the Peasant Pas de Deux, sweetly and precisely danced by Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo. Guillaume Graffin, a fine Albrecht in the recent past, played a noble Hilarion, a nice change from the usual over-boorish characterization of this part.

Act II was magical. Gillian Murphy, a fast-rising soloist, danced Myrta with authority, though she needs more seasoning and smoother technique to match her ABT predecessors in this role. Michele Wiles (Moyna) and Stella Abrera (Zulma) were her compelling cohorts. The corps was in good form. Nina, however, floated above them all. From her "awakening" on, the audience was enthralled with her weightless, fleet execution of Giselle’s demanding steps. In fact, she made you forget the steps. You simply witnessed a Romantic prima ballerina assoluta. Her arms, head, body and legs embodied the ideal in every respect. Her slow arabesques, her soundless landing from traveling jumps simply took the breathe away. Bocca’s impeccable partnering made the lifts seem effortlessly ethereal. To be honest, Bocca was not at his best during the variations, but we learned later that he was dancing with an injury sustained while performing one of the wicked sisters in Cinderella earlier in the week. Ermanno Florio provided firm support from the orchestra pit. The audience exploded in applause after many key scenes, and Nina and Julio were showered with flowers after the curtain fell. We went home with indelible images dancing in our heads to be treasured forever.

The third act, with its thrice-familiar grand pas de deux, was the icing on this miraculous evening. There was no let-up as Nina held balances of outstanding command and length, leading to delighted yelps from the audience. The principals’ exchange of variations was truly exhilarating, as were their final series of fouettés. Nina’s were faster than I’d ever seen her do—truly breathtaking. The audience exploded in ovation after ovation after the curtain fell. Afterwards, Nina said she could have danced the ballet all over again! It was that kind of evening---a gift from the ballet gods—to be cherished and never forgotten.

SWAN LAKE

Nina’s Swan Lake (on June 21) once more became a highlight of ABT’s summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House. Even the usually blasé New York press took notice of how her superb performance of the dual Odette/Odile role drove the packed house "into delirium."

It is truly humbling for a mere mortal to try to describe a magical evening and to express appreciation for having had the privilege of witnessing such an artist evolve in this special part. As anyone who has followed Nina’s career knows, her bravura technique has always made her a natural for the "Black Swan" act. And indeed, she continues to command the stage in this act by virtue of her strongly shaped movements and sharply etched poses. Her whole body projects a different aura when she dashes onstage to conquer Siegfried and the court with her bold charm and scintillating dancing. Every point of the foot, flicker of hand, tilt of the head and arch of the torso is strongly contrasted to the softer image of her "White Swan" acts. Her fouettés, if anything, have become faster and even more expressive of Odile’s character----insouciantly flung as a final and triumphant enticement to Siegfried’s surrender.

It is in the "White Acts," though, that Nina most clearly has shown her continuing growth as an artist. I confess that in earlier viewings of this ballet, I found her Swan Queen rather remote. It was always beautifully danced, of course, but somehow lacking in feeling. In the last three or four years, however, she seems to have found an emotional core in herself---and the role---which she now projects with heart stopping drama. Her Odette is now a palpably vulnerable creature, who slowly learns to trust Siegfried, and to tenderly put her fate into his care. Nina does not resort to altering choreography for emotional impact. Instead, she imparts the steps with emotion---it is all in the execution of the steps----the timing of a turn, the lift of the leg, the slow arching of the back, and of course, the exquisite modulation of her arms. In this performance, she changed her second act exit to face the audience and her Prince, as if to forestall the inevitable gasps from the audience when her arms turn to virtual wings as she is drawn off the stage by Rothbart’s magic. Her fourth act is similarly nuanced, with her whole body signalling her forgiveness of Siegfried and her resignation to their fate.

I must say though, that Nina accomplished this breathtakingly beautiful and dramatically engaging performance despite the current distracting and discontinuous staging of Swan Lake, and the fact that she only had two days to rehearse with a new Siegfried, Jose Manuel Carreño. A second viewing of Kevin McKenzie’s rearrangement of this classic seemed only to point out its weaknesses. The first act seemed more interminable than ever---why do the partygoers have to linger onstage so long after the Prince has departed? In Act II, McKenzie has wisely deleted the interpolated solo for Siegfried, so at least here the choreography is left to flow much as it always has, although the flock of swans seems to have been directed into fussier groupings. The emendations in ACT III, though not as tedious, still distract from the drama. Odile enters spectacularly with Von Rothbart only to dash off the stage again, so the Sorcerer can have his (added) solo, casting a spell over the Queen Mother and the Princesses. Odile’s premature exit sans smokescreen at the end of the act is also undramatic (although probably necessitated by a quick costume change back to white---since there is only one intermission---between Acts II and III).

Carreño was a gallant partner, though the lack of adequate rehearsal time showed in a few moments of imprecision and less rapport than would have been ideal. However, he created his own poetry in his solos. Brian Reeder and Marcelo Gomes were both capable in their differentiated Rothbart characters. In the end, however, one came away from this performance dazzled by the continuing magic and majesty of Nina.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY Excerpts

Towards the end of the season, Nina appeared alternately in the Rose Adagio and the final act of the Petipa masterpiece. I have to comment that though she performed consistently at her own superb level, seeing these snippets of the ballet shorn of most context was quite unsatisfying. The all-Tchaikovsky evenings of which these excerpts were part started with Balanchine’s magnificent Theme and Variations, danced with variable success by different principals. It left one wondering why Nina was not cast in this ballet, in which she would have been outstanding. At the final performance of the season, Nina raised the temperature and glamor quotient of the evening in the concluding Sleeping Beauty Grand Pas with Carreño. With her sparkling beauty, impeccable form and command of the classical idiom, she once more put a claim to being the Aurora of our generation, a worthy successor to her current ABT coach, former Kirov star Irina Kolpakova, and, of course, the unforgettable Margot Fonteyn.