Then there is the, ahem, choreography. Martins meets McCartney only a tiny fraction of the way, offering numbing processionals with arm-waving; crowds that stand on the sidelines staring blankly at the principals; and a messy divertissement with superfluous characters including Drunken Lords who stagger humorlessly and without purpose. Except for Daniel Ulbricht, awkwardly billed as “Entertainers: Leader,” no one has any flashy steps to show their skill at dancing, and the ballet unfurls cheerlessly as a succession of leg extensions and pointless leaps.
Gruesomely, Martins’ female lead, Honorata, remains a passive lump of flesh manipulated and displayed in seemingly endless promenades by her partner, Prince Stone, who is the octopus in this undersea garden. Their clammy encounters sound bottom in the moments after Honorata’s escape, when instead of running for her life she faints, going limp as an overcooked filet of sole.
Stella McCartney’s costumes add interest to the spectacle, although they don’t display a unified vision. In the divertissement, they evoke the tie-dyed and tripping crowd of the musical “Hair,” while in other movements, dancers in the role of Terra Punks sport Pacific Northwest-like tattoos. Honorata’s prison, with shafts of light for bars and mist all around, makes an impressive scene (thanks, Mark Stanley). Otherwise the settings are vague and primitive.
Still, some fresh, new ballet music has come into the world, along with a pile of publicity. Maybe a better choreographer will take the hook.
Some final thoughts: City Ballet used to do rather well in the music department. It had Tchaikovsky and Ravel as stand-bys, and good old Stravinsky could be counted on to chip in. Later there was an American Music Festival. Although this interest in concert music seemed more than a passing fashion, those days now appear as quaintly remote as the mod look of Carnaby Street; while the current director, Martins, lacks even the scant covering of a micro miniskirt to conceal his attempts to scavenge cash and notoriety amid the ruins.
Preceding the performance, attendees might have been stupefied by music director Fayçal Karoui’s fawning analysis of McCartney’s score. Did the far more challenging 1957 premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet “Agon” inspire such solicitude? Does management think its gala patrons are children? Nonetheless, inviting McCartney into the house was an excellent idea.
Perhaps what the ballet world needs most today is an unpretentious musical craftsman who can supply charming melodies and danceable rhythms for fairy tale scenarios that obliquely address modern concerns, like the threat to the world’s oceans, or at least engage real, human emotions. Peter Martins, however, is not the Petipa to choreograph for such a latter-day Minkus as McCartney.
via www.nj.com
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