City Ballet - 1/18/97 Matinee

Isabel Guerin performed Balanchine's one act version of Swan Lake to an almost sold out crowd of people who braved the cold to see her. It was a sculpted performance, illuminating for the choices she made, especially as they relate to Balanchine's aesthetic.

Guerin is a fine example of Paris Opera training, she shows us impeccable positions. Every angle is thought out. She more or less adhered to the Balanchine version, with one major exception, which was the Adagio. Here, the tempo reverted back to Petipa.

Balanchine's version of Swan Lake is compressed down to about twenty-five minutes, it is a conglomeration of the second and fourth acts. Not only is it edited to the lakeside acts, it is sped up, the tempi are dramatically faster than performed elsewhere. There is a reason for this. The Petipa tempi are for a ballet that takes more than three hours to unfold, and has four acts and several mime scenes to tell its story. The Balanchine version is a distillation of the story, boiling it down to a single element, a pair of desperate lovers, never to be allowed to be together. It is an urgent story, and should be told with urgency. Ms. Guerin's slowed down tempi made it seem as if she had all the time in the world with Siegfried. If so, then where's the tragedy? Compared to the New York dancers, who did have the urgency of the story in their bodies, Ms. Guerin danced as if Swan Lake were a Noh Drama, that moved in geologic time, and could do so, because the outcome were unchangeable. I don't think it was the right choice.

New York City Ballet's corps was as it always is in this ballet. Ragged, but full out, bless their hearts. There is a rather perverse element of camp that was built right into the choreography when Martins revived the work and added 5 more swans for which there was no room on stage. So we have circular formations which end up becoming musical chairs, or perhaps Duck, Duck, Swan, with a few unlucky swans in the back bursting out of the circle like an erupted vacuole. As said before, though, the urgency of the story Balanchine is trying to tell is in their bodies, and the way they move.

Phillip Neal did a fine job of partnering Ms. Guerin, and Jennifer Tinsley and Jennie Somogyi were quite good demi-soloists. When Ms. Guerin kept to the Balanchine speeds, which she did elsewhere, her dancing in the part had the character it lacked in the adagio. I've always felt the adagio as Balanchine asked for it was too fast, and I don't want to see it done as quickly as it's usually done at NYCB, but Ms. Guerin pointed out how out of place a truly slow tempo is in that version.

LAW

©1997 Leigh Witchel. All rights reserved.