A Perfect Pair: Semionova and Gomes in Swan Lake

Some dance performances are so phenomenal that it requires time to fully appreciate them.  On Saturday July 2, I took my usual balcony seat at the ABT.  For weeks I had anticipated Semionova in this performance of Swan Lake. Earlier in the season I had seen her paired with David Hallberg in Don Quijote.  It had been a stellar performance, but the two were missing chemistry, which cannot be invented.  Chemistry is either present or not.  For this performance of Swan Lake, Semionova was scheduled to dance again with Hallberg, and so it was with a certain amount of relief that I opened my program to read that Marcelo Gomes would replace Hallberg in this performance.  Hallberg is an elegantly beautiful dancer, and might well be paired with the graceful Cojocaru.  But Semionova requires the passion and sheer physicality of Gomes.

The magnetism between the two was apparent the moment they stepped on stage together.  Semionova portrayed a heartachingly vulnerable Odette, draping herself in a fluid backbend over Gomes' strong arms.  She shone as Odile, performing the grueling 32 fouettes with flawless precision, showing off her prowess with double revolutions during the first five fouettes.  Gomes confidently matched her stamina, and allowed her to steal the show.  He epitomized the gentlemanly manner of the male ballet dancer, who becomes ennobled by supporting the ballerina and allowing her beauty to shine.  The emotion between the two carried the audience on a wave exhilaration until the final denouement, when Gomes leapt heart and soul after Semionova.  It was the grandest stage fall I have ever seen.  Gomes flung his chest out with all his might.  His legs kicked forcefully behind.  In the drama of that fall, he made the audience believe that there exists a love so profound that it can lead a man to the ends of the earth.

More followed.  The drab, unsatisfying ending in which Odette and Prince Siegfried stand separate but united, side by side in the dawn of the afterlife, was no more.  Instead, Semionova and Gomes embraced.  It was the perfect ending to a perfect performance by a perfect pair.

At the curtain call, Semionova and Gomes smiled with obvious joy about dancing together.  Semionova accepted with grace the customary bouquet of roses (at the end of a ballet performance, the principal ballerina always receives a rose bouquet, but the male lead receives none; the ballerina usually extracts one rose, kisses it, curtsies and hands the rose to her male lead).  Then Semionova broke rank and offered her bouquet to Gomes, who refused with barely concealed embarrassment.  Semionova tried several times to give Gomes the flowers, then outrightly placed the bouquet in his arms.  With school boy charm, Gomes bowed to her and placed the bouquet at her feet.  A few curtain calls later, Semionova and Gomes embraced warmly and kissed on the lips.   If you didn't know better, you'd have sworn they were lovers.  Which is exactly how you should walk away from a performance of Swan Lake:   believing that love can be strong enough to conquer the spells of an evil sorcerer.                       

Balletomania

For the past two months certain segments of the New York population have been gripped with balletomania, all the more intense given the all star lineup that appeared on New York stages this season.

Nursing a nearly broken ankle, I was sidelined from dance class.  So I decided to learn from the pros.

For me the fever started in May with Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, rarely seen in the US.  Sulkary by Eduardo Rivero transported me to the Caribbean. Yoruba rhythmns combined with jaw dropping leg strength (deep plies held for impossibly long intervals).  Sultry Latin moves in Horizonte made me want to to buy a ticket to La Habana (I'm writing a letter to Obama-- lift the ban!)  Demo-n/crazy ended with the company holding upside down yoga poses.  Supported on their shoulders, their feet jutted up in haphazard angles.  The crowd remained silent, waiting for one of the dancers to waiver.  None did, so well trained and in control were they.

Then Cuba's classical ballet took over the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  There was an artist talk by founder of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba and prima ballerina assoluta, Alicia Alonso (she deserves her own post, one will follow).  A legend who has worked with all the greats (Balanchine, Nijinsky, Massine, Tudor, Robbins, Agnes de Mille), Alonso is now in her nineties.  Though her health is failing, she still has a regal bearing.  I sat in the audience not twenty feet away (press seats!), and could barely believe I was in the presence of my childhood hero.  As a young dancer in the suburbs of LA, I had read her autobiography: how after injury she had spent a year bedbound, unable to dance, practicing all the greats classical ballets in her head (this was before TV). 

This was followed by the Ballet Nacional de Cuba:  excerpts of Don Quijote, Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Coppelia,  Gottshalk Symphony.  Why did they end with the last?  Because it had Latin rhytmns?  They would have been better served by ending with Don Quijote, the finest rendition of the lot.  I had the good luck of being invited back stage.  I stood near the wings feeling an exhilaration I had not experienced since childhood: the tense nerves and joyous excitement of imminent performance.

Then American Ballet Theatre season started, a whirlwind of world class performances. Ratmansky's Bright Stream, Julie Kent's 25th anniversary performance in Lady of the Camellias, exquisite Alina Cojocaru, guest artist from the Royal Ballet, in Giselle  and Sleeping Beauty (she also deserves her own post, one will follow); fiery, confident, incredibly strong Polina Semionova in Don Quijote (see post:  Polina Semionova we love you at the ABT), and delicate, though still phenomenally strong, in Swan Lake, a performance which was the highlight of the season for me (post to follow).  Jose Manuel Carreno had been absent most of the season, and he gave his farewell performance in Swan Lake on June 30.  Julie Kent and Gillian Murphy joined him in a banner performance, but David Hallberg stole the show with a cunning and devious von Rothbart.  And then there was a suprise appearance by the Bolshoi's Ivan Vasiliev in Coppelia, a performance which I unfortunately missed as it had not been announced earlier in the season.

The Royal Danish was also in town performing Bournonville variations, Giselle, The Lesson, and a scene from Napoli.  Known for nearly unbroken continuation of the refined classical ballet style as danced in the French court, the men of the Royal Danish stole the show with regal bearing, exquisite extensions, and jumps that were showy enough to command the audience's attention, but without ego.

As if my head were not already spinning, the season concluded with the Maryiinsky Ballet (formerly Kirov) of St. Petersburg.  The visit began with a performance of Ratmansky's Anna Karenina, almost universally panned by the critics and with good reason-- the music is too somber for dancing.  I missed Vishneva's performance, but caught Kondarouva's.  Her dancing managed to carry me through to the bitter end.  I left wondering whether time is needed for appreciation of this ballet, but I have my doubts. The Maryiinsky's final performance on Saturday made up for the ill-fated Anna.  It was a double bill of the Little Hump-Backed Horse at matinee, a light-hearted Russian fairy tale that I enjoyed along with the Russian children and round babuskas in the balcony.  And then in the evening:  Ulyana Lopatkina in Carmen Suite!  Fiery!  Sultry!  Sexy!  Ill-Fated!  Formerly banned in the Soviet Union!  I had only seen her in videos, but the power of her dancing extended far into the upper reaches of the house, which is where I sat.

This season will remain with me always.  It brought me joy at a time when I could not dance, and when my living situation had less than to be desired.  Now, back in my Washington Heights apartment, the balletomania still with me, the bass from my downstairs neighbor shaking the floor, my ankle on the mend, I can't wait to get back in the studio.

We Love Polina Semionova at the ABT

On Saturday the Boshoi-trained Polina Semionova performed to a sold-out audience at the American Ballet Theatre.  Ms. Semionova was on loan from the Staatsballet Berlin, and was performing as Kitra in Don Quixote.  From the moment she stepped on stage all eyes were glued to her.  Poor David Hallberg and Veronika Part, magnificent dancers both, didn't stand a chance.  We (I speak on behalf of the audience) love Polina.  Why do we love her?  Because she balances unwaveringly en pointe for an unspeakable amount of time in an attitude derriere that she then extends to a lingering arabesque.  Because she spins like a top in so many pirouettes you lose count after eight, when she slides her foot down to a sous-sus as if the stage were ice and she a figure skater.  Because she does double fouettes without using her arms to help her around, but instead sets one hand jauntily on a hip while the other hand shoots straight up with a fan, demonstrating her prowess.  Because, when David Hallberg doesn't get that she really can do more pirouettes at the end of a grueling performance, and stops her after three revolutions, she takes an extra balance just to show she has more in her legs.  Because she's not afraid to show off.  Because she shows what the female body can do when in peak form.  Because she wears a girlish, wide smile that fills the theatre with the joy of dance.  Because she makes little girls spin in circles at intermission (this is a fact, I saw it with my own eyes).  Because she reminds us of the joyful little girl in all of us, the one  who would spin around until she fell down laughing and dizzy, the one for whom anything was possible.