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Jewels (NYCB)by Mary Cargill
Jewels returned briefly to the New York City Ballet last week. Its three acts, Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds, are a glorious salute to luxury, but also, like so many Balanchine ballets, an examination of female beauty and mystery, by way of Petipa.
Emeralds, set to selections by Faure, is the least flashy--and the least applauded--section, but is one of the most profound of Balanchine's explications of Petipa's vision scenes. Two sylph-like ballerinas dance around their more human partners almost invisibly, then, like Aurora in her forest, seem to take a human form, and finally fade sadly away, leaving their knights alone, yearning for beauty, love, eternity, perfection, all expressed with a single sweep of the arm and bend of the knee.
I saw two casts, Kathleen Tracey with Helene Alexopoulos, and Rachel Rutherford with Maria Kowroski. Of the four, Tracey was the least spiritual. Her rather floppy arms didn't fit the French inflections built into the Verdy role, and she danced with a big grin, making no real distinctions among the different sections of the ballet. Alexopoulos, in the secondary lead, was much better, with a true sense of mystery.
I much preferred Rachel Rutherford in the Verdy role. She had a slight mishap in her first solo with some of the footwork, but she danced as though she knew the difference between a vision and Western Symphony. Her air of gentle melancholy at the leave taking cast a genuine spell. Kowroski, too, with her elegant abandon, made this a lovely Emeralds.
Edward Liang, recently promoted to soloist, has a clear, sharp approach, and certainly tried to convey the sense of searching in the beginning of the ballet. For me, as yet, he doesn't quite have the stage presence to portray the elegant, eternal longing, the combination of Siegfried and Desiree, this ballet needs. Robert Lyon and James Fayette shared the secondary lead, and both contributed a strong romantic presence. Christopher Wheeldon, as the more playful squire, dancing with the two demis (Samantha Allen, who was a bit stiff in the arms and torso, and Jennie Somogyi, who was just about perfect) caught the subtle contrasting moods, and his final sweep of his arm from the floor to infinity was a beautiful sight.
Rubies, with its bright Stravinsky score and sharp, fast dancing, is a vibrant contrast to the gentle Emeralds. I was not able to see Maria Kowroski's debut as the second ballerina, unfortunately, but did see Monique Meunier's luscious, sensuous, extraordinary performance. Unlike the music, she is not a sharp, clear dancer. Her movements tend to flow together, culminating is a surprisingly large jump and deep arabesques. Her exit, with the extravagant, secure arabesque penchees had the audience gasping. In retrospect, she may have overdone the pelvic thrusts a bit too much for perfect taste and held the deep arabesques a bit too long for the "its no big deal" attitude of the choreography, but while she was dancing I was completely caught up in the pure joy she brings to moving.
Miranda Weese and Damian Woetzel danced the lead couple. Weese has a completely different approach to the role than the joyful, straightforward performance of Patricia McBride. Weese danced with an air of detachment, rather like a fashion model. It came across as almost a take-off on the Siren from The Prodigal Son, with the slightly oriental arms and snakey positions. Weese danced the role with the unconscious superiority and supreme assurance only a truly beautiful woman can have, but her witty timing and sharp dancing seemed at the same time to be subtly mocking this attitude. I don't know whether this multi-layered approach was intentional, but it was very funny.
Damian Woetzel extended the fun, with a bravura performance. He seemed literally to be jumping for joy at the idea that such a beautiful creature would dance with him. If ever a jump said "Whoopee!", his did.
Like Weese, Kyra Nichols dances her role (Diamonds, to Tchaikovsky) very differently from its creator, Suzanne Farrell. Farrell was an extension of Odette, with a hint of tragedy in the falls into her partner's arms. Nichols, with her solid center and grand presence, does not convey melancholy. She made the pas de deux look as triumphant at the wedding pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty. The falls into her partner's arms were an expression of supreme confidence and trust. Nichols does not have all the seemingly effortless security
she had ten years ago, but no one can fill out the role so generously, and a second off a balance or a slightly less secure turn is a small price to pay for the change to see such grandeur.Charles Askegard was her partner. He recently came to City Ballet from ABT and was even more recently promoted to principal. As one of the few tall men not injured, seemed to be learning a new role every week, on top of having to cope with different style. As yet he has not developed a distinct personality, and seems, generously, to be most concerned with partnering. But his solo in Diamonds was elegantly danced. He has a strong, secure, but not overly flashy jump, and, once he gets his breath, should make an even stronger impact. It is hard to imagine how City Ballet could have made it through the season without him.
Fortunately, the Diamond pas de deux can stand on its own, because the frame around it, the corps, looked woefully under rehearsed and were often out of sync. But all in all, Jewels did shine.