NYCB Midsummer - Tomalonis

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
New York City Ballet
Opera House, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC, USA
March 1 and 2, 2007

by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright ©2007, Alexandra Tomalonis

There were some wonderful moments each night in Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” but in the second and third performances, at least, there weren’t enough of them to produce enough magic to make the ballet shimmer. As a whole, the company looked much better than it has the last two visits here; at least it seemed well–rehearsed. For the most part, dancers gave dutiful performances; some much more so. One of treats of the season — the chance to see so many young dancers — had a downside, since it meant that the Lovers, particularly, were undercast.

In both performances I saw, Oberon outshone Titania, which gave a curious imbalance to even this deliberately, magically, unbalanced world. On Thursday, Joaquin de Luz’s Oberon (with Sofiane Sylve) was the best thing I’ve seen him do: very strong, clean dancing that was also elegant, and without the flashiness he once had in classical parts. Friday night, Antonio Carmena’s Oberon (with Kyra Nichols) was also very well–danced, though his rather casual air made him seem more a prince than a king. Sylve danced her role well and was funny, especially in the pas de deux with Bottom (Adrian Danchig–Waring), but seemed all too mortal, especially after Kowroski’s witty and poetic Titania opening night. It was good to see Kyra Nichols again, but her dancing has fadded.

Both Pucks (Daniel Ulbricht or Sean Suozzi) were quite funny, with impressively high jumps and good comic timing. Ulbricht’s Road Runner jogs into the wings brought laughter every time. By Friday, the lighting had been adjusted so that the action seemed to be taking place at night rather in the afternoon, and Puck no longer looked like a Cupid carved out of a huge wad of pink bubble gum, which helped immensely.

Of the Lovers, only Sterling Hyltin (Hermia, Thursday) gave a completely fleshed out performance, and she was lovely both as an actress and a dancer. She made Hermia both fleet and intelligent and it was in large part due to her exceptionally musical performance that the misadventures of the four mortals were as funny as they were intended to be.
Ana Sofia Scheller (substituting for Sara Mearns Thursday and dancing in her own right Friday) was a magnificent Hippolyta, tearing across the stage like a young queen.

The second act Divertissement pas de deux was danced by Jenifer Ringer (partnered by a badly out of shape Nilas Martins) on Thursday and Yvonne Borree and Nikolaj Hübbe on Friday. This pas de deux is ravishing, one of Balanchine’s most beautiful, and Ringer was ravishing in it, all long lines, at once sophisticated and vulnerable. With Borree and Hübbe, however, the pas de deux became a metaphor for ideal love. Hübbe was not only a good partner in the sense that he provided deluxe support, but that he was attentive in every way, presenting Borree with an old–fashioned courtliness. At one point the couple goes to the back of the stage, and the way Hübbe ran with her made it seem as though he was going to take her away, and one could sense the audience's discomfort; the house quieted, the way it does when a great star is about to launch into a virtuoso enchainment. It was merely a run, but it gave the ballet the dramatic tension it had lacked all evening. Hübbe's dancing, too, was that of a courtier: courteous, and with a military precision softened for a ball.

Scads of Washington children, of course, were the bugs, extremely well–rehearsed by Garielle Whittle. By Friday, they were long past counting and actually dancing, dashing about the stage with the zest for dancing that some of their elders seem to have lost. The corps de ballet made the second act choreography look perfunctory, an exhibition of craft, but little more. Once it was said that Balanchine’s choreography was “dancer proof,” that the ballets' architecture was solid they could stand on their own, but that’s never true. Ballets are always dependent for their very lives on the dancers, and "Midsummer's" second act needed a lot more joy (not to mention edge and energy) to take us to Heaven.

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