Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward (Benjamin Millepied, chor.; Nico Muhly, mus.)
Opus19/The Dreamer (Jerome Robbins, chor.; Prokofiev, mus.)
Theme and Variations (George Balanchine, chor.; Tchaikovsky, mus.)
Artists of the Ballet of the Opéra National de Paris
Frédéric Laroque, violin
Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris
Maxime Pascal
The new season of the Paris Opera Ballet also opened with a new Artistic Director, Benjamin Millepied, and a triple bill with a new work from him to mark the event, alongside works by choreographers he freely acknowledges had a considerable influence on his development as a choreographer, as they did on his activity as a dancer. Therein lay the problem with the work - the influences. Just as Philip Glass (with whom he worked extensively) cast a long shadow over Nico Muhly's custom-made score, so did Balanchine and Robbins (as well as more than a hint of William Forsythe) over Millepied's choreography. Muhly's music came out sounding a bit like sub-John Adams, while the choreography holds a certain amount of promise, but also a degree of confusion, as if Millepied hasn't settled on his style yet, but there's both room and time for development in his work.
What was interesting about Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward was something of its concept. In a house where the stars - the étoiles - have been all-important for generations, there wasn't a single one visible in this first piece on the bill. Millepied has taken 16 young dancers from the mid-level of the corps de ballet and created the piece around them, bringing them forward as individuals and in partnerships, a fresh and vibrant crop of youthful artists from which the next decade's étoiles will surely arise, but who, right now, get a chance to shine in front of the public in a way that is never offered to them ordinarily.
Robbins's Opus 19/The Dreamer, choreographed for Mikhail Baryshnikov, on Prokofiev's 1st Violin Concerto, is a new entry to the company's repertory, and a very welcome one, judging from the expressive performance seen tonight, particularly from Mathias Heymann as the eponymous "Dreamer", a melancholy and eloquent figure who rarely leaves the stage during the course of the ballet. His fluid, languorous line is balanced by the more earthy, almost jazzy style of his opposite number (Amandine Albisson), a partner who may or may not be real, as she, and the other members of the reduced corps seem to drift in and out of the Dreamer's sphere of interaction. With a very fine reading of the concerto solo part from one of the orchestra's two leaders, Frédéric Laroque, this was an evocative and poetic ballet that makes it all the more frustrating that we don't (or at least I don't) get to see more of Robbins's work.
The evening ended with what was surely meant to be fireworks, Balanchine's celebrated and redoubtable Theme and Variations. For the first time this evening, the company finally demonstrated something of its trademark military precision - fortunately, because if there's one thing about Balanchine, it's that the margin of error is extremely small, and never more so than when he's in ultra-classical mode, as in this piece. I had noticed earlier what I thought was some slackness in movement in the groups, but knowing neither earlier piece, and not seeing anything egregiously wrong, it could pass. That's never the case for Balanchine. Outside of that very tight margin of error, the least step out of line immediately draws the eye. The girls, who bear the burden of this piece, were generally very good, while the boys, appearing only in the final Polonaise, could have done with an alignment check once or twice, but on the whole the overall effect was very pleasing. However, there was a certain snap and sparkle that wasn't quite coming through, and the principals, fine dancers though they both are, did not make up for that.
Josua Hoffalt performed his second variation with appropriate brio, but otherwise seemed unable to bring some individuality to his part, and lapsed back into the "prop" to which the premier danseur is so often reduced in classical ballet all too easily. Laura Hecquet, while an elegant ballerina, does not, to my mind, have quite the queenly hauteur you want here, and there's no doubt she fluffed the end of her second variation, something one does not expect to see at that level of dancing. While the orchestra delivered the Polonaise with appropriate dash, the company seemed, at points, to be struggling with the speed of the footwork required, and never really put across the serene insouciance you want to see in this glittering homage to Petipa and the Imperial Russian Ballet.
[Next : 11th October]
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