New York City Ballet Goes Four for Four

Duelling musicians are front and centre in this winter’s ‘Classic NYCB’ program – a group of four works, seemingly selected by the blindfolded, dart-throwing method, that turn out to play nicely together.

Pianists Susan Walters and Stephen Gosling square off on an invisible platform set above the dancers in Peter Martins’Hallelujah Junction, invoking composer John Adams.

For Albert Evans’ In a Landscape, violinist Arturo Delmoni and pianist Alan Moverman huddle in the pit, meditating over John Cage.

And through the mayhem that is Jerome Robbins’ The Concert, onstage pianist Elaine Chelton communes with Chopin, keeping a (mostly) straight face while the orchestra lobs bright oom-pah-pahs into the fray.

But to open, the easy-listening strains from Verdi’s Don Carlo to which George Balanchine made Ballo della Regina. My balletomane friend Jane, adores Ballo and summed it up aptly: Such fun. Over before you know it. 

On Friday we got live wire Megan Fairchild in the role inaugurated by the regal Merrill Ashley. Fairchild demolished those packed blocks of jazzy petit allegro – explosive pas de chat followed by a sharp twist of the torso; arabesques shot from warp-speed piqué turns; turning assemblés en manège alighting on pointe. Her trusted ally Anthony Huxley darted in and out with impressive acceleration. The buoyant entourage dispatched the choreography's overly fussy arms with sangfroid; notable among them Ashley Hod whose leaps caught big air, and Olivia Bell who tore through the corps work with great clarity. Then that inexplicably glorious moment, amid folks strolling around the ton (as in Bridgerton), when four corps women, their backs to us, paused for a luxurious dip forward then a deep backbend to gaze at us, upside down.

In a Landscape, created on Wendy Whelan and Philip Neal for a 2005 gala, was Evans’ third and last work for the company: the second African American principal dancer after Arthur Mitchell, and a company ballet master, he was 46 when he died in 2015. Corps dancer Ava Sautter is a revelation: not as sharply angular as Whelan, but eloquently long-limbed, with bourrées so light they almost aren’t there. For her entrance and exit, she lies crumpled on some invisible conveyance that propels her along the floor, her arm reaching skyward. A few steps ahead walks an impassive Gilbert Bolden III, possibly tethered to her by an electromagnetic force. He is dressed as a civilian, while she is in leotard and tights, reinforcing the idea that they don’t inhabit the same world. Drenched in a dim light and Cage’s chill, barely-there score, they pull apart then come together in long, uninflected stretches of movement. Bolden seems to be rearranging the spaces created by her limbs, hinging and unhinging the elements in an architectural puzzle. The work is spine-tinglingly beautiful, cerebral and haunting.

The central pas de deux in Hallelujah Junction, starring Alexa Maxwell and Joseph Gordon, registers as a striking sequel to In a Landscape, full of melting lines and tricky but seamless partnering transitions, like one long exhale – until they exit in a spectacular series of flying turns. There is a sense of drama here, driven partly by the pianos’ ominous placement, floating high above the dancers – the clatter of the pianos, sometimes insistent, sometimes calm, like instructions from air traffic control. The silvery vertical panels edging the wings reinforce a sense of airspace. Four dynamite couples charge boldly, if somewhat untidily, across the stage in terse strings of turns, jumps, kicks and flicks at tempi and rapidly changing rhythms that make Ballo look like a stroll. KJ Takahashi in black appears to be on a mission to nudge the lead couple into the ensemble, his arsenal of classical bravura moves delivered with urgency, notably grands pirouettes that practically achieve lift-off.

Jerome Robbins did transcendent things with the music of Chopin, but he also made a riotously funny thing and populated it with the ‘types’ who most annoy us in the theatre (you know who you are.) On Friday The Concert’s kooky costuming and silly jokes executed with great seriousness and precision provoked the usual laughter – starting with the earnest man who walked on with a folding chair and lowered his posterior onto it ever so gingerly so as not to distract Chelton at the grand piano. The six ballerinas in the ‘Mistake Waltz’ replayed every dancer’s nightmares to perfection, without overselling it. Debuting in the role of the mad ballerina, Mira Nadon nailed all her ditzy, droopy moves but has yet to figure out how to project from under her succession of ludicrous hats. The mood turned pensive when umbrellas started unfurling, as the dancers looked to each other to confirm whether they, too, felt a raindrop. In this intricately staged vignette, without a single dance step, Robbins created poignant imagery of ordinary people seeking validation and safety in community.