George Balanchine’s Jewels is a relatively recent acquisition at the Wiener Staatsballett. The central gem, Rubies, has played here since 2010, but the complete triptych only made its bow in 2019. This was its 23rd performance.
It was the legendary violinist Nathan Milstein who first introduced “Mr B” to the jeweller Claude Arpels in 1939, but it wasn’t until a 1966 visit to the Van Cleef & Arpels salon on New York’s Fifth Avenue that inspiration for a ballet struck. Each of the three abstract acts focuses on a different gemstone, setting music by three composers, Fauré, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky. Balanchine initially considered a fourth – pairing Schoenberg with sapphires – but ultimately discarded the idea.
Each act has its own different mood and getting all three just right is a good test of any ballet company. It’s to the credit of the dancers, rehearsed by repetiteurs Nanette Glushak and Diana White, that the principals largely convinced, if not always the corps de ballet.
Emeralds nods to 19th-century French Romantic ballet, to “the France of elegance, comfort, dress, perfume” as Balanchine described it, with below the knee soft tutus. Lit more brightly than I’d previously seen (or remembered) it lacked something of the shadowy, shimmering look although the solo dancing was extremely polished. Ioanna Avraam and Kentaro Mitsumori made a fine principal couple, Avraam graceful in her La Fileuse solo, Mitsumori partnering sensitively in the central pas de deux. Olga Esina’s footwork in the Sicilienne (from Pelléas et Mélisande) was so soft that one couldn’t hear a single step, almost floating on air, completely capturing the shimmering quality essential for this ballet.
The finale always gets to me. After the ebullience of the false ending, culminating in a group pose, the scene dissolves, the four women departing to leave the three men alone in misty regret. Tenderly danced and tenderly played by the Staatsoper orchestra – which is basically the Vienna Philharmonic – under the experienced conductor Paul Connolly, this left the right aftertaste of wistful remembrance.
I hadn’t anticipated the Staatsballett attacking Rubies with such sass. Set to Stravinsky’s jazzy Capriccio, played with wit and steel by pianist Anna Malikova, its flashy 20th-century qualities came to the fore, the light reflecting the scarlet-panelled miniskirts that clatter as the dancers traverse the stage. Margarita Fernandes and António Casalinho were splendid as the central couple, cheeky in their skipping rope steps, teasing each other in and out of balances. Lithuanian corps member Milda Luckuté was a splendid, slinky-hipped Tall Girl, the role made for Patricia Neary, kicking up to her ears, flicking her hips, stretched like plasticine into different positions by four attendant males.
Luckuté returned to corps ranks for white tutu Diamonds, Balanchine’s love letter to Marius Petipa and Imperial Russia. Alas, the corps lacked precision here where crisp timing and regimental formations are crucial. The dancing of Laura Fernandez Gromova and Alessandro Frola was clean cut, if lacking the final degree of polish for this most sparkling finale, although Frola made a princely partner.
The woodwind playing in the whirring Scherzo, from Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony, was delightful, matching the gossamer steps of the four supporting couples. The closing Polonaise had all the imperial grandeur of The Sleeping Beauty, surely Balanchine’s inspiration, to close a gratifying, if not flawless, performance.
