For a few years now,
American Ballet Theatre has presented a two-week season at New York’s City Center. It
has become an opportunity for the company to try-out new works and to revive shorter
pieces that have been absent from its repertory at the Met and other large auditoriums. City
Center does provide a welcome intimacy between stage and audience, but it comes at some
cost. Even after partial renovation, the sight lines at City Center are far from ideal,
even from the best seats. However, it is a treat to see the dancers close up---the energy
from the stage reaches out to the audience and seems to bounce back to the stage,
resulting in a warm, enthusiastic interaction between performers and viewers.
As previously mentioned in
this site, Nina’s arrival in New York was delayed by bureaucratic matters, so she
learned and danced only two pieces new to her, both pas de deux---Stevenson’s Esmeralda and Balanchine’s Sylvia. She reprised the second movement of Symphony in C on both opening (Oct. 23) and closing
(Nov. 4) nights.
The contrast of character in the
two pas de deux set off Nina’s special qualities as a dancer. Esmeralda (seen Oct. 24, 27) is in the Kitri mold:
full of bravura dancing and posing, difficult, held lifts and turns. In a gorgeous,
emerald-green tutu and bodice crisscrossed with diamantine crystals, with a bright orange
flower in her dark hair, Nina embodied the flamboyant Gypsy. Eyes flashing and dancing
with her full body, she executed the jumps, turns and quick changes of direction with her
usual élan. She and partner Jose Manuel Carreño set a playfully flirty tone in the
opening pas de deux, then they took turns dazzling the public in their variations.
Carreño excelled in a series of high turns in the air. Nina’s variation with a
tambourine culminated in a series of fouettés accented by taps on the tambourine; later
she crossed the stage in off-kilter turns while tapping the instrument above her head.
This show-stopping number naturally drew cheers from the audience.
Sylvia (seen Nov. 2) demanded and got an
entirely different mood. Although the piece (choreographed in 1951 for Maria Tallchief and
André Eglevsky) also requires strong
technique and musicality, especially in a series of hops and turns on pointes, it is of a
quieter, more lyrical vein. Nina was particularly radiant in the opening adagio, where her
partner (Carreño) gently supports her in beautiful poses, then releases her to hold the
balance on her own. Their dancing spoke of love and trust, as befits this extract from the
story of the nymph Sylvia, and her lover, Amyntas. The costumes of elegant, silvery gray
enhanced the atmosphere of the ballet.
ABT’s presentation of Symphony in C was apparently a premiere for the
company. Though the City Center stage is too small for this piece, the company acquitted
itself honorably for the most part. Some of the casting for the principals seemed strange,
but, of course, Nina shone in the ballerina role of the second (adagio) movement. Her
elegant carriage, her superlative control and the unbroken cantilena of her dancing are
truly breathtaking to behold. It was a short, but memorable season.
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