Diamonds are Forever

It’s amusing to read in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s generally exceptional program notes that George Balanchine choreographed the triptych we now know as “Jewels” because he visited Van Cleef & Arpels and was struck by inspiration. I mean, perhaps visiting the jeweler did further tickle his imagination, but—PR stunt, anyone?

Performance

Pacific Northwest Ballet: “Jewels” by George Balanchine

Place

Digital stream of performance in McCaw Hall, Seattle, captured live on September 26, 2025

Words

Rachel Howard

Pacific Northwest Ballet in “Emeralds” from George Balanchine's “Jewels.” Photograph by Angela Sterling

A more patent truth often repeated about “Jewels” is that Balanchine tailored its many rich roles to the array of distinctive talents at his disposal in 1967, when his New York City Ballet was nearly twenty decades established, and the company was growing into the grandeur of the recently completed New York State Theater. The photos taken before the premiere tantalizingly corroborate this, clustering Mimi Paul and Violette Verdy (“Emeralds”), Patricia McBride (“Rubies), and Suzanne Farrell (“Diamonds”), in costumes that dip below the nipple line, leaving the breasts to appear nude beneath flesh-toned fabric, with dainty little swirls of boob-tracing faux gemstones. (One wonders how Balanchine’s muses felt about that.)

Like most of the multitudinous companies that dance “Jewels” today, PNB has replaced these scandalous costumes by Barbara Karinska with considerably more demure bodices. (PNB’s are by Jérôme Kaplan, commissioned for “Jewels” 50th anniversary in 2017, and they actually cover a bit too much, bulking up the torso and waist, although the dancers do sparkle, and they look comfortable.) But the company’s latest “Jewels” performances share in the spirit of the 1967 premiere in one key way: today’s PNB has a sparkling constellation of diverse talents to draw upon.

In the digital stream just released as part of PNB’s online subscription series, it was a joy to see both the vanguard and the up-and-coming generation dancing with freedom, musicality, and lush expansion. But most of all it was a thrill to marvel at Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite in “Diamonds.”

Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite in “Diamonds” from George Balanchine's “Jewels.” Photograph by Angela Sterling

Biasucci is in the prime of her career, having joined PNB from Oregon Ballet Theatre in 2011, and though I don’t know the company as deeply as local observers, she seems to be the troupe’s leading Balanchine-style dancer. That said, she’s not at all who you’d typecast for the grand Tchaikovsky fantasia of “Diamonds”—she’s a tiny bumblebee whereas Suzanne Farrell was a long gazelle, and naturally warm in temperament where Farrell was icy. Postlewaite, meanwhile, is a prince of a company MVP who’s at the end of his career—he joined PNB straight from its school in 2003, and will take his final bows at the end of this season. Together their chemistry made a whole fresh story out of “Diamonds.”

The ballerina of “Diamonds,” walking slowly on the downstage diagonal to meet her consort, is famously self-possessed and seemingly self-sufficient, top ruler of the “Jewels” universe. Biasucci embodied every inch of that serious regality despite her smaller stature. (She’s always had the gift, like former San Francisco Ballet principal Tina LeBlanc, of filling the whole stage with the vectors of her lines.) But she also allowed for spontaneous moments of connection and tenderness with Postlewaite, and real love radiated from her face as he took her hand and walked a slow circle around her. How could she resist a gentle smile, as Postlewaite beamed adoration?

The attention to gestural implications in the partnering was exquisite—every offering of the hand, every acceptance, was its own small story of relationship. And the technical moments were a wonder of crisp precision. We tend to remember “Diamonds” for the sweeping partnering of the adagio, not the fast footwork of the variations. But Biasucci took a passage I’ve seen a dozen ballerinas muddle—that tricky bit of jumping out to a leg extended in second position, then pulling up into the pirouette, repeated in the round—and restored clarity and excitement to it. Meanwhile, Postlewaite was not showing his age, engaging in some music-teasing fun with his beaten assemblés and a time-freezing arabesque balance, his plié still juicy as a teenager’s.

Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Batista in “Rubies” from George Balanchine's “Jewels.” Photograph by Angela Sterling

Because PNB’s roster includes dancers across the gender spectrum (and God bless artistic director Peter Boal for his open-minded inclusivity in these fracturing times), the company’s materials designate the ballet’s roles as “pointe shoe” parts versus “flat shoe” parts, rather than female and male. Well, in this cast, the “flat shoe” dancers tended to draw the greater interest. This felt strangely fitting in the Romantic glade of “Emeralds,” to Fauré, with its coda of kneeling consorts abandoned by their regretfully vanishing love interests. Christopher D’Ariano left the most remarkable impression of any dancer I’ve ever seen assigned to the first pas de deux, making his long limbs into soft trailing wisps that mirrored Elizabeth Murphy’s wafts of tulle.

In the second couple’s pas de deux, in which the dancer in pointe shoes steps slowly on each beat of the music, soloist Luther DeMyer was deeply endearing in his sincerity. Unfortunately his partner, Amanda Morgan, was not really suited to the role in movement quality or feeling, though she looked irrepressibly overjoyed to have the part. (Alas for her, the music needs to be danced as a gentle lament.) Morgan had a better outing after the first curtain as the tall girl in “Rubies,” where her spider-like legs and her effusiveness fit the assignment. Angelica Generosa pranced her way through the main “Rubies” role with the ease of someone who’s danced it a dozen times, egged on by a fleet and saucy Jonathan Batista.

The main disappointment for this semi-distant PNB admirer was missing the chance to see multiple casts—I wish I could have taken a jaunt up the West Coast to catch rising corps member Ashton Edwards, who really should by this point be a soloist, debut in the “Rubies” “tall girl” role. The orchestra under Emil de Cou sounded especially vital playing Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. Seattle ballet lovers, you have it so good up there in Washington State thanks to PNB! But surely you knew that. Sending you West Coast solidarity from California.

Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard is the former lead dance critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. Her dance writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Hudson Review, Ballet Review, San Francisco Magazine and Dance Magazine.

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