ABT From La Bayadere to Rhapsody

Review by Celia Ipiotis

It was a night of comforting, classical ballet stalwarts and a fine way for ABT to feature several casts at the David H. Koch Theater.

Choreographed in 1992 by the Natalia Makarova after the master Marius Petipa, The Kingdom of the Shades scene anchors the full-length ballet Le Bayadere.

The curtains pened on a moonlit night illuminating ridged hills that formed a winding staircase for 32 bayaderes in white tutus and veils. The young ladies,  now ghosts, slowly descended, one after the other in a deliciously meditative sequence of steps into arabesque penches (torso leaned forward and up). The mesmerizing descent harmonized perfectly with the music by Ludwig Minkus. Once the procession of ballerinas, arms and legs moving in unison descended, they were joined by the effervescent Chloe Misseldine. A gifted ballerina, Misseldine excelled because of the invisible melding of her expressivity to her technique. Almost as ephemeral as a whiff of a cloud, she rotated in his arms like a spirit emerging from the mists.

Le Grand Pas De Deux, an endearing and cheeky ballet by Christian Spuck, charged up the audience. Jake Roxander, already an audience darling, revealed a comic streak along with the super silly, bespeckled Skylar Brandt. Nothing says wacky like a ballerina in tutu grasping a red leather purse. The unlikely pair constantly crashed into one another, recovering in ungaingly ways. At one point, she gripped the red bag by her teeth and later Roxander grabbed Brandt’s ankle and wrist and spun her around as if in a playground.

In the midst of all the horse-playing, they boh whipped off impressive multiple turns, satisfying balances, and lickety split traveling steps.  Truly, this heel clicking ballet unrolls a scenario of social etiquette gone wildly amuck. Roxander and Brandt delivered a solid jolt of laughter–something desperately needed by all.

Rachmaninoff’s soaring music underscored Rhapsody by the great Frederick Ashton, performed by an alert Lea Fleytoux and Herman Cornejo. Billowing whiffs of classical ballet unfolded across the stage in this romantic pas de deux. Fleytoux’s whisper swift bourees were caught mid sentence by the disarming Cornejo. As if created in one single choreographic breath, the pair rarely escaped one another’s arms as one body rose and the other formed a solid base. 

The popular Sleeping Beauty, Act III, choreographed by Petipa was staged by Susan Jaffe who applied her well reasoned hand to the  collection of charming fairy tale characters and the Grand pas de Deux performed by Aurora, Isabella Boylston and Prince Desire, Calvin Royal III.

Of the speciality duets, Princess Florine and the Bluebird most effectively caught the spirit of the flighty birds. They gleefully flapped their wings and spun around to show off their feathers and finer selves. Takumi Miyaki’s clean beats and turns matched Yoon Jung Seo’s slippery pirouettes and sprightly leaps. The stately Boylston enlarged her space and adroitly held extended arabesque balances while her committed partner Royal, enabled her crisp execution.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis