When “Polyphonia” was new, it was just what the doctor ordered for ballet worldwide. It handled the classical vocabulary of Balanchine (in particular), Ashton and others without being inhibited or retro; it has a constant supply of inventiveness. And it is unmistakably well built: here, as elsewhere in Mr. Wheeldon’s repertory, you see motifs returning when you least expect them, so that you feel the happy surprise of pattern falling into place.
Since its New York City Ballet premiere Mr. Wheeldon has staged it for eight other companies around the world, using 144 dancers in various casts. It is hard to think what other post-Balanchine ballet has been so immediately successful. The Morphoses casting reflects this, with members of City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Hamburg Ballet.
The other four items on the Vail program ranged musically from Ponchielli to Arvo Pärt. “The Dance of the Hours” ballet, made in October for New York’s Metropolitan Opera production of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda,” shows Mr. Wheeldon in his most traditionally classical mode, but still individual and charming. As the audience starts to recognize the music it knows from such comic contexts as Disney’s “Fantasia” (the ostrich-hippo ballet) and Alan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,” it expects to giggle.
But Mr. Wheeldon’s trick is to lead viewers back into what’s genuinely delectable about this music (which was one of Toscanini’s concert favorites). The eight corps de ballet women are given the brightest, most fragrant choreography of all, and each has her individual part. The male dancer has several brilliant passages, and the ballerina has in particular one ebullient diagonal that is irresistible in the way it brings one piquant musical phrase to physical life. This ballet’s principal dancers are Letizia Giuliani (who was in the Met original) and Gonzalo Garcia (the San Francisco Ballet dancer who is joining New York City Ballet).
“Polyphonia” had introduced the Hamburg ballerina Hélène Bouchet and Thiago Bordin, for whom Mr. Wheeldon has made “Prokofiev Pas de Deux.” The Vail audience was given an official preview of this rapturous mood study, which will have its Morphoses world premiere at Sadler’s Wells.
via www.nytimes.com
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