Wicked Moves with Christopher Scott
Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) steps down the steps, rests her hat on the floor and takes in the Ozdust Ballroom in Wicked. She elevates her arm, bringing her bent wrist to her temple.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
The New York City Ballet’s excellent 2023 Fall Season featured only the works of founding choreographer George Balanchine. This winter, eight choreographers are being showcased as the company’s 75th anniversary celebration continues. But on paper, the most well-conceived program is another all-Balanchine one: the combination of “The Four Temperaments” and “Liebeslieder Walzer.” These ballets present both sides of the Balanchine coin: his stark coolness as well as his lush romanticism. On Tuesday night, however, a wan “4Ts” and a somewhat miscast “Liebeslieder” failed to make this contrast pop, though there were some thrilling individual performances in both pieces that hinted at this bill’s latent potency.
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Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) steps down the steps, rests her hat on the floor and takes in the Ozdust Ballroom in Wicked. She elevates her arm, bringing her bent wrist to her temple.
PlusThe Sarasota Ballet does not do a “Nutcracker”—they leave that to their associate school. Instead, over the weekend, the company offered a triple bill of which just one ballet, Frederick Ashton’s winter-themed “Les Patineurs,” nodded at the season.
PlusI couldn’t stop thinking about hockey at the New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker” this year, and not only because the stage appeared to be made of ice: there were a slew of spectacular falls one night I attended.
PlusLast week, during the first Fjord Review Dance Critics’ Festival, Mindy Aloff discussed and read from an Edwin Denby essay during “The Critic’s Process” panel.
Plus
Oh, thank you Mindy!
Good points here; the production and performances are sharply observed. We see the stage events in a welcomely fresh way. One note: Balanchine went on record as saying that the setting for Liebeslieder he had in mind was not based on anything in Vienna but rather on a rococo building in Munich—the Amalienburg Park palace.
https://www.schloss-nymphenburg.de/englisch/p-palaces/amalien.htm
A delightful reading of performances I missed while recovering at home from surgery. The review had me visualizing the ballets as if sitting in the theater.