The National Ballet of Canada has presented a winter mixed programme which runs the gamut from cool, classical poise through modern high-energy dancing to the flashiest and showiest of balletic showpieces.
The programme opened with George Balanchine's Apollo, set to Stravinsky's neoclassical score for strings, and first performed in 1928. This ballet is thus almost a century old, but remains as much a landmark of the repertoire as any of the great Petipa or Diaghilev ballets of the past.
In large measure, this is because of the significance of the male title role, and the major technical challenges which that role presents to the dancer. The significance of Apollo is also found in the stylistic parameters it set for Balanchine's work, parameters which he continued to explore throughout the remainder of his career. Most notably, this ballet marks a clear encounter with the sheer musicality of Balanchine's choreography, which he would later summarize in his famous maxim: "See the music; hear the dance."
The choreography of Apollo is marked by cool, clean, poised execution and frequent slow movements or even held poses -- in sharp distinction to the sometimes-frenetic virtuoso showpieces of the earlier Russian tradition.
Faced with an embarrassment of riches on the male side of the company, the management has divided the seven performances Apollo across six different dancers. In the opening night performance, the Apollo was danced by Brendan Saye. He clearly had the measure of the role, and gave a very memorable reading of it indeed. I was especially struck by his clean line and the smoothness of movement in the slower moments of the role, where any unevenness is easily detected. The net result was a powerful combination of grace and strength.
Equally memorable support and contrast came from the three muses, danced by Emma Hawes, Heather Ogden, and Miyoko Koyasu -- their three contrasting solos were all beautifully done in their varying styles.
Julia Adams choreographed Night for the San Francisco Ballet, and it receives its first performances by the National Ballet in this programme. Gravity seems almost suspended as the cast of eleven dancers move about the stage -- rolling, crawling, walking, leaping, doing handstands and more. Again, the focus is on the male dancers who take eight of the eleven roles.
The dynamics of this ballet depend very heavily on contrasts taking place at once -- slow and fast, angular and smooth, still and mobile, standing and lying down. The musical score composed by Matthew Pierce effectively deploys contrasting groups of instruments from the orchestra in what sounds almost like a theme and variations structure. It's one of the more interesting and effective commissioned scores that have come our way in recent years.
The ensemble work among the company in this piece was noteworthy. Although Skylar Campbell and Ben Rudisin have featured roles and billing, their parts are far from being leads. In Campbell's case in particular, his part often calls for him to act as the focal point for the actions of the other dancers.
All in all, Night is both effective and involving. Really, I only have one criticism. The costumes for most of the men have the legs covered with loose hanging strips of material, the effect looking like nothing quite so much as a worn-out Papageno costume that's falling to bits. Those flapping loose pieces serve in part to obscure some of the close-together movement combinations.
The third piece was set by Choreographic Associate Robert Binet, and was entitled The Sea Above, The Sky Below. After seeing the ballet, I have no idea why he chose that rather "precious" title. It did nothing to prepare us for a strikingly-classical pas de trois of a woman and two men. Set to the famous Adagietto movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, this piece is very closely wedded to the flexible, breathing rhythms of the score. The numerous hesitations, extended bars, and the like, all find their choreographic counterparts.
Heather Ogden, in a role debut, danced with a soft-grained presence and motion that completely suited Binet's vision, unlike anything I have ever seen from her before (clean precision being the usual hallmark of her art). Effective partnering came from Felix Paquet and Harrison James, the final minutes with all three dancers giving a sense of total involvement and commitment which matched beautifully the passion of Mahler's score. No other work I have seen from Binet has come close to the strong sense of unity and finish throughout this piece.
The programme concluded with a new staging of Paquita. This Spanish-themed ballet, with music by Ludwig Minkus, was originally staged by Marius Petipa for the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the height of Tsarist power. It was all of a piece with what the Imperial Ballet was expected to deliver: flashy, acrobatic dancing, with plenty of featured female roles for the "favourites" of all the major nobility, all set to workmanlike, not-especially-inspired music. As was typical of the times, the story of the ballet was told from start to finish in the first act, leaving the second act free to become a classic divertissement.
The divertissement was often an entertainment at the happy-ending wedding of the hero and heroine, but in the case of Paquita the first act has been generally discarded. What's left, then, is simply the second-act divertissement, and this one has been widely acknowledged as being the flashiest and showiest of them all.
Associate Artistic Director Christopher Stowell has mounted a new adaptation, based on Petipa's classic 1881 revival of the ballet. With blazingly brilliant costumes by Jose Varona, this piece explodes across the stage in a dizzying whirl of virtuoso fireworks and high spirits.
The lead couple (presumably the lovers of the original full-length ballet) have to execute some of the most fiendish and memorable technical work in their variations, and both Jillian Vanstone and Francesco Gabriele Frola did sterling work in making all this show-off dancing actually beautiful, as opposed to merely exciting.
The same was true of the pas de trois, danced with great verve and spirit by Rui Huang, Jordana Daumec, and Naoya Ebe.
In the four named variations, Jenna Savella, Emma Hawes, Heather Ogden, and Chelsy Meiss created four distinct and memorable portraits, each in a short space of time.
The supporting corps de ballet displayed impressive unanimity and grace in polished execution of their dances.
No catch in any of this, by the way. Paquita was impressive, involving, and breathtaking from start to finish. If anyone doubts the depth, strength, and classical credentials of the National Ballet (I most certainly do not), this high-energy, beautifully-finished performance of Paquita will silence their concerns.
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