ABT returns to London

Robert Greskovich looks at the history of the world famous American Ballet Theatre and gives an insight into their current repertory as the company prepares to return to London this month for the first time in 16 years

American Ballet Theatre was still marking its Golden Anniversary in 1990 when it last performed in London (during July, at the London Coliseum, and reported on by Sophie Constanti in the September 1990 issue of Dancing Times). The troupe was then in the early days of the short-lived directorship of Jane Hermann, who, alongside former, longtime ABT director Oliver Smith, had just assumed leadership in the wake of the abrupt, contentious departure of Mikhail Baryshnikov, who headed the company for the previous ten years.

Now, more than 16 years later, under the direction of Kevin McKenzie, who replaced Hermann in 1992, ABT will perform a week at Sadler’s Wells following a similar stint in Paris. Interestingly, even after more than a decade’s lapse, the 12-work repertory chosen for this tour mirrors that of the previous one in three instances: Natalia Makarova’s 1980 staging of Marius Petipa’s choreography for La Bayadère, Act II (sometimes called The Kingdom of the Shades, as it was in 1990), Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room (1986, to Philip Glass), and Mark Morris’s Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes (1988, to Virgil Thomson).

Otherwise the repertory includes various pas de deux: two different ones from what passes today for Marius Petipa’s Le Corsaire, the so-called “White Swan” and “Black Swan” pas de deux from the McKenzie’s 2000 ABT staging (after Ivanov and Petipa) of Swan Lake, plus Tharp’s 1982 Sinatra Suite (staged by Elaine Kudo, who danced the premiere opposite Baryshnikov), and Michel Fokine’s 1911 Le Spectre de la rose (staged by former ABT dancer and now ABT Studio Company director, Kirk Peterson).

The company’s recently revived stagings of George Balanchine’s Mozart-inspired Symphonie Concertante (1947) and Kurt Jooss’s (1932) The Green Table, join ABT staple and classic Fancy Free, by Jerome Robbins (1944), to complete the repertory. (For a detailed rundown of credits, with thumbnail photos related to each work, readers should visit ABT’s website, www.abt.org and click on “ABT on Tour” on the home page’s “Performances” tab.)

If a kind of muse could be said to hover over ABT’s current appearances, it would be that of Baryshnikov, and not, as might be expected, Baryshnikov the dancer. While Baryshnikov’s formidable dancing career left a strong imprint on ABT’s late 20th century profile, and in kind, on American dancing in general, his artistic vision as director remains evident in the works now deemed likely to showcase ABT’s 21st century dancers and to attract contemporary audiences.

For the record, Baryshnikov commissioned the 1983 re-staging of Symphonie Concertante, which hadn’t been seen for over two decades, as well as the staging of In the Upper Room. He had Sinatra Suite created for him and commissioned a premiere from Morris, whose Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes featured Baryshnikov within its ensemble structure.

Baryshnikov’s ballet company vision was not always viewed in a positive light. During his years at ABT’s helm, more than a few critical voices were raised to complain about his taste, his choice of ballets, and his lack of interest in importing what ABT’s audiences came to call “star” dancers, or guest artists. As Constanti’s report noted, Hermann was quick to swerve in the foreign guest “star” direction that had been well-known at ABT before Baryshnikov’s directorship; she hired as a guest artist the Kirov’s Farukh Ruzimatov to amplify ABT’s own male dancer roster. (In fact, Baryshnikov himself brought in Ruzimatov and Altynai Asylmuratova in 1988 to dance a few performances of La Bayadère during a hard-to-sell US holiday weekend in New York, but that was an isolated venture.)

Nowadays, perhaps because of the lasting inspiration Baryshnikov’s own superstellar male dancing lent to ABT, male dancers of remarkably high calibre gravitate there. One budding female dancer, while still something of a student herself, noted casually to me that the “word” around US ballet schools, particularly regarding the popular summer programmes where students from around the country come to study in bigger company settings, was that young men overwhelmingly wanted to study with and join ABT. (New York City Ballet and its affiliate School of American Ballet are thought by this generation to be more interested in and concerned with female dancers than their male counterparts.)

Such generalities may be less than reliable, but ABT is today especially well known for its roster of stellar male dancers. Even with the incredibly expert Ethan Stiefel, who left NYCB to join ABT, recently off with injury – though, the company hopes to have him perform on this tour – ABT’s roster of sterling men can seem almost top-heavy. Barring unforeseen indispositions, ABT’s impressive line up of principal male dancers is set to appear full strength in London. Jose Manuel Carreño, once a familiar presence with English National Ballet is scheduled to appear on opening night, as is the impassioned and impressive Brazilian-born Marcelo Gomes. Unnamed within what the casting announcement for Upper Room calls “company” are the stellar likes of the Argentinian-born virtuoso Herman Cornejo, and the extraordinarily gifted American David Hallberg, to name but two of the thrilling performers due to enlive Tharp’s high-powered choreography. Simlarly, the “company” casting for Drink will only reveal its rich roster of performers once the house programme is opened on each of the three occasions in the Wells season.

To tout the troupe’s male contingent isn’t meant to bypass the strengths in ABT’s female ranks. One dancer Hermann’s regime began to promote to a great extent was that of Julie Kent, whom Baryshnikov hired, and who will appear on opening night, having just celebrated a 20th anniversary with ABT. (She’ll be showcased in the “White Swan” duet opposite Gomes.) Too bad the season includes none of ABT’s MacMillan works, since it is in this repertory that Kent has shone with extra beauty of late.

Despite any number of cavils about its being less than top drawer Balanchine, Symphonie Concertante has proven to be as animated a “garden” of female beauty as any Petipa “jardin”. In the various casts slated for London, the special glow and effortless authority of Michelle Wiles (dancing the part Balanchine fashioned to the violin’s music) has become an especially happy display of her formidable gifts. As the viola “voice” in another cast, led by Kent, Paloma Herrera, has shown wondrous effects. Otherwise, Herrera is scheduled to ignite the theatrical fires of Tharp’s work, notably as one of the prominent pointe-shoe-wearing women in Upper Room. Gillian Murphy, a ballerina with an unerring physical strength mated with an extra-dreamy serenity, will also be showcased in Symphonie (“viola”), and as the “Black Swan”, opposite Stiefel’s Siegfried. Very likely too, she’ll appear as one of the sneaker-shod “stompers” in the feistier passages of Upper Room, where, rarely has there be a more voluptuously Tharpian ballerina.

The super-stellar and aptly named Angel Corella is on board to brood wittily and precisely through Baryshnikov’s Sinatra role as well as to romp through the same great dancer’s original role in Drink. Corella’s keen rendering of the complex and sly inventions Morris arranged originally for Baryshnikov so electrified New York audiences this past autumn that the ballet got interrupted by spontaneous applause in several unexpected places.

Overall ABT’s London repertory reads very much like that shown at the New York City Center for the now-annual second NY season put in place by McKenzie. The intent is for smaller, more intimate works to be shown, and to stress, perhaps, that smaller is by no means lesser. To be sure, selective, smaller works can show more artistic depth than any number of the bigger, multi-act ballets currently dominating ABT’s annual, longer seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House, but that’s another story.

ABT perform at Sadler’s Wells from February 14-18. For more information and booking details see page 93 of Calendar in the magazine.