Calling all dance junkies! Seriously, after being deprived of live performances for more than two yearsâsave for the occasional outdoor terpsichorean pleasureâAngelenos were treated to heavy doses of balletic feasting when Hamburg Ballet made its debut at the Music Center this month.
Not only did the troupe, which has been directed by Wisconsin-born, German-based John Neumeier since 1973, perform Bachâs sublime âSt. Matthew Passionâ in a Los Angeles Opera production that featured 42 dancers onstage during the four hours (solo singers were in the pit alongside the orchestra, led by LAOâs stellar music director James Conlon), but the company also mounted three performances of the West Coast premiere of âBernstein Dances.â
The Neumeier âPassionâ bowed in a church in Hamburg in 1980 and in New York three years later, while âBernstein Dancesâ premiered in 1998. As for the former, there is a timeless quality to the opera that, in this case, proved to be primarily a ballet, but with âDances,â which Neumeier dubbed a ârevueâ and dedicated to his friend, the late great composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein, the choreography occasionally seemed stale and, well, out of step with the times. (And what times they are, what with Covid literally still in the air and the Russians waging a heinous war on Ukraine.)
Bernsteinâs music (Garrett Keast led a stellar LAO orchestra), with its joyous and jazzy rhythms and eminently hummable tunes, does lend itself to dance. But the narrative, which tracks Bernsteinâs career from his earliest dance works and Broadway shows up to âMass,â proved problematic, diving into the composerâs personal, i.e., sexual, life in somewhat of a glib, if heavy-handed and predictable fashion (the Bernstein figureâChristopher Evans in the closing night castâkissing another man).
Jacopo Bellussi performs in âBerstein Dancesâ by John Neumeier. Photograph by Kiran West
With an array of costumes designed by Giorgio Armani, including pristine whites, evening garb for both men and women, with steamy red gowns for some of the gals, as well as form-fitting dance trunks for the dudes and purple bras and suit jackets for the ladies, added to the changing moods of the opus, which was bookended by the livelyâand recognizableâoverture to Bernsteinâs 1956 âCandide.â
Beginning with large projections of the musician conducting, with his dance double first seen slumped over a pianoâand David Rodriguez as Bernsteinâs guiding angel, âLove,â the work also featured singers CJ Eldred and Dorothea Baumann crooning throughout. Initially warbling, âWho Am I,â from âPeter Panâ (1950), with accompaniment by onstage pianist Sebastian Knauer, the vocalists signaled that the onset of Bernsteinâs journeyâpsychological and otherwiseâwas, literally, underfoot and underway.
Emilie MazoĆ in âBernstein Dancesâ by John Neumeier. Photograph by Kiran West
Wasting no time, music from âFacsimile,â Jerome Robbinsâs 1946 ballet about an amorous triangle featured the marvelous Emilie MazoĆ and an athletic Jacopo Bellussi, as well as Evans and Rodriguez, and soon segued into a pastiche of tunes from âWonderful Townâ (1953). With lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, including, âWhy, oh why, oh, why did I leave Ohioââthe number was fun and quirky, but it strained credulity to imagine Lenny, as he was affectionately called, a country bumpkin.
Nevertheless, weâre now in the glorious burg of New York (Reinhart Wolfâs projections featured, among other images, the Twin Towersâhere a mournful reminder of their absenceâand the Brooklyn Bridge), with dancing to match: Exuberant shoulder-twitching, helium balloon-like leaps and entrechats were on full display, while MazoĆ was a standout, her articulated feet and arched back embodying the fervor and electricity of the Big Apple.
Karen Azatyan, Alexandr Trusch, and ensemble in âBernstein Dancesâ by John Neumeier. Photograph by Kiran West
Bernsteinâs spiritual side, which was meant to be conveyed in selections from âMassâ (commissioned for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971; choreographed by Alvin Ailey), was not as convincingâwomen in meditative lotus poses, for example. But the close of Part I, dubbed, âSuccessâA Success Story,â was so beautiful it hurt, the heart aching, as it were, for both the emotional sustenance and relief that art can provide.
Alexandr Trusch, HeÌleÌne Bouchet, Jacopo Bellussi, Madoka Sugai, and ensemble in âBerstein Dancesâ by John Neumeier. Photograph by Kiran West
Partnering was divine, though the blatant phallic imagery of the Empire State Building was almost risible. But it was the urgency in both the music and the movement that was particularly potent, leaving one to believe that there truly is, âa place for us, someday a place for usâŠâ from the anthemic, âSomewhere.â
Part II opened with âFast Forward,â the dancers performing to the overture of âCandide.â Executing lovely unisons and dreamy lifts, the latter featured women held aloft as if they were exquisite hood ornaments, which, for this reviewer, embodied the essential Panglossian idea that, yes, this world is, âthe best of all possible worlds,â as the character expressed to his charge, Candide, in Voltaireâs 1759 novel of the same name.
The âFlashbackâ sequence harkened back to âWonderful Town,â with âThe Story of My Lifeâ the soundtrack to a night of partying. The very, very long table (shades of the dictator Putin, unfortunately, came to mind, no matter that Rodriguez was perched atop it and moving stealthily), added to the atmosphere intended to symbolize Bernsteinâs struggle with his sexual identity. Flowing into the last sequence, âIn the EveningâŠand Through the Night,â the men, oozing a Fred Astairish quality, with the ladies equally glamorous, slinked about to the backdrop of Bernsteinâs complete, âSerenade After Platoâs Symposium.â
But at two and a half hours, âBernstein Dances,â is a tad long and doesnât get to the crux of the composerâs life in a veritable dance drama, one that fully distills his character, the musical highs and the troupeâs technical prowess notwithstanding. When Lennyâs picture descended, however, it was only fitting that the performers hail the American genius who gave the world so much, before launching into a series of intoxicating curtain calls to the always effervescent âCandideâ overture.
Victoria Looseleaf
Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCETâs Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleafâs novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggyâs Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.
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