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Tender, Tender is the Night: PNB's "Jewels" Round Two

  • Louise Greer
  • 4 days ago
  • 11 min read

Updated: 7 hours ago

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite in Diamonds from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite in Diamonds from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.

George Balanchine’s Jewels never lands identically across different eyes, and that is exactly what he intended: for the interpretations to be our own. But there is one thing that​​ audiences seemed to share night after night at Pacific Northwest Ballet during the first rep of the season. Each time the curtain rose to reveal Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds, gasps of awe lifted from the full theater, a sound nearly as beautiful as the tuning orchestra. If only Balanchine could hear that, nearly sixty years after his sparkling gems first took to the stage, this immortal wonder drawn from his timeless masterpiece of a work: alive and well. 


In its fifty-eight years, Jewels has been filled with memorable artists, both in its New York birthplace and in Seattle, where it had its premiere nearly twenty years ago. Unforgettable snapshots of certain interpretations resound, and yet, as dancers gleamed during a second weekend performance, it hit me all at once: a new era of PNB has begun. How does one characterize such a statement? Balanchine’s Jewels may be a ballet known to summarize “the essential conditions of his craft” (Tim Scholl), but it is also one that, in some quiet way, reveals a dancer’s unsuspecting capabilities like a stone chiseled to glisten. Perhaps it is the ballet’s demand for presence, or casting choices that led new facilities to come into the light, but either way, I believe few performances of Jewels have been as bright, or as intrinsically each artist’s own, as they were during this season-opening run.


Bob Gottlieb, a former programmer for New York City Ballet, reflected many years ago that Jewels may be one of the most popular Balanchine ballets, but it is also the most fragile. Diamonds requires a large corps de ballet of ravishing classical precision, Rubies demands a company with an understanding and fluency of Balanchine’s style, and the most delicate of all: Emeralds. As Gottlieb once declared: “If you don’t have the atmosphere of Emeralds, it’s gone”.


Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy in Emeralds from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy in Emeralds from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.

The celestial light that greets us when the curtain rises on the starry depth of Emeralds is all the work of Jerome Kaplan. The original 1967 scenic design by Peter Harvey, a deep navy with a sprinkling of stars, was replaced at New York City Ballet by a muted green backdrop in 2004, but what a difference the rich depth of night makes on PNB’s stage! There, surrounded by stars, Fauré’s score finds boundless potential to expand into the night.


Each unveiled act of Jewels finds a decadent cast in waiting, but in Emeralds, with the curtains rise, and an audible intake of breath, we find ourselves sharing air with beings descended from another world. There they stand, gleaming in a moonlit woodland: still, and waiting for that rising Fauré swell that will bring their breath to life.


It is an almost Shakespearean kind of beauty that marks their passage amongst one another. They intertwine as if weaving lace, forming patterns of stringed jewels, an expansion and contraction under the spell of a dream. They relate to one another in an almost ecological way, with the corps de ballet responding to the principal couple’s movement and energy without recognizing each other. The corps becomes a forest, the wind, some gentle, unseen presence that surrounds this pair who only have eyes for each other. They move out of their way to expand the forest floor for the wonder-struck pair, a wave of retraction and return. They are the trees through which the couple wind, an ushering of a breeze lifted from their cascading emerald skirts—all lush port de bra, and Romantic-era ethereality.


Emeralds is unlike any other ballet in Balanchine’s canon. Perhaps unmatched in its softness, it is invested deeply in its atmospheric qualities, vastly unpunctuated, and above all, filled with an intimate dreaminess that pervades each breath of earnest beauty. It has no concern for ingenuity, though it is filled with it. It has no care for avant-garde renderings or invention. It simply sings with its own quietly divine peace. Emeralds is botanical and celestial; related more firmly than either Rubies or Diamonds to the geological quality of a gem, and filled with the perfume of the stars. 


Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and Christian Poppe bring an enrapturing soulfulness to their shared, drawn-out breaths of beauty. They are a poetic pair, filled with a wistful underwater dreaminess that lingers long after they’ve vanished from sight. Ryan’s far-seeing, hopeful eyes flood the stage with a reverence so deeply her own that it could not come from any other. In both steadfast focus and glorious freedom, gratitude resounds for each small marvel. I wish there was a way to bottle this pure charm: the way a hand can brush against a welcoming cheek and be the most heavenly glimpse of delight.


Madison Rayn Abeo sinks into every molecule of sublimity of Emeralds. Her vivid musicality swells each passionately poetic gesture, and the cherished details that she brings into the light are silken treasures in her hands. Heavenly épaulement has always been a defining gift of hers, but in Emeralds, the intentionality and fluidity of such artistry is exceptionally radiant. Abeo and Mark Cuddihee find a truly human connection beneath every expansive wonder and are gloriously present with one another. With a wildly beautiful crossed wrist and a Giselle-like swirl of port de bra, there they fall: straight out of an arabesque into heaven-lifted awe. 


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Amanda Morgan brings Mimi Paul’s role to life with whimsy glimmering in her eyes.  Even in such a private, intrinsic variation, Morgan’s eagerness and quiet felicity are a mesmerizing feat of presence that radiate from her even when she turns her back towards the audience. In the pas de deux, with Morgan suspended on pointe, and Luther DeMyer, steadfast in every meaning of the word, they fell under the hazy daze of the time-stilling moment, spellbound themselves. 


This second pas de deux is one that transcends perception. They arrive, unearthly, connected only by a crossed arm, stepping as though no one has touched the earth with such loving grace before. Though they look in our direction as their arms lift in increments like a ticking clock, they do not know that we exist, that they are being perceived. They look through us, far-seeing, off to some brighter place.


In the same role, Lily Wills delicately interweaves sorrow into each rich gesture, and her performance is an awakening of expression suspended in the clouds. Likewise, Yuki Takahashi, filled with a most beautifully tender fluidity, was, even at her quickest blur-of-green, nothing but serene, serene, serene.


In 1976, Balanchine returned to Emeralds to add the second pas de deux, as well as an epilogue to end Emeralds in a way that better served the work. The entire cast faces us in the lively false-finale, but then something shifts in the epilogue: reality itself. A veil is drawn between us and them. They are unseeing, distanced somehow from each other, suddenly quite singular in their movement as they take the most beautiful steps any human ever has. With covered eyes, they shield themselves, but from what? Mystery brews in the chivalrous air between them, where we perceive something not meant to be observed. The night grows dim, and there, arch three arms heavenward, a breathless reverence lifting into the air. 


Author and former New York City Ballet dancer, Toni Bentley, describes Balanchine as a choreographer whose “entire art can be viewed as a supreme high-wire act of balancing the spiritual inside the physical”. Emeralds is inward activity juxtaposed against Rubies' external energy, and we leave changed somehow by these visions shrouded in sacredity; a cocoon of mysterious beauty, a nostalgic echo in the dark.


In 1929, Stravinsky needed a new concert piece for himself, and thus “Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra” came to be. It was the first thing he composed after “Fairy’s Kiss”, a work greatly inspired by Tchaikovsky, and so the first moment of Capriccio that he wrote (which ended up being the third movement) also pays homage to Tchaikovsky, filled with his signature wit and charm without quoting him directly. Stravinsky later said that “To see Balanchine’s choreography is to hear music with one’s eyes”, and indeed, no one ever captured the rhythmic verve of Stravinsky better than Balanchine.


Guided by Stravinsky’s fragmentation, Rubies is a hot-blooded little marvel of both intimate and geometric design. It’s staccato, disjointed, “rolicky exuberance” (Bob Gottlieb), nestles itself between two ballets of nearly academic beauty, and holds its own there, unforgettably distinctive in form.


Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Amanda Morgan with company dancers in Rubies from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. . Photo © Angela Sterling.
Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Amanda Morgan with company dancers in Rubies from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. . Photo © Angela Sterling.

Rubies is one of the few ballets in which Balanchine placed his men at the same level as his female muses. Balanchine’s works reveal, articulate, and praise the feminine as no other choreography ever has, but here, amidst the musical intelligence of Rubies, alights what Arlene Croce called a “smashing male role”. Who knows what would have become of the ballet if Edward Vilella had not been there to bound his way through Rubies’ dynamic springs. We would not have had Rubies, or any of Jewels for that matter, were it not for those original principals whose defining gifts as artists shaped the character of the work. Which is precisely why dancers today must make these iconic works their own. Not a copy, nor an imitation, but rather something authentic that will make a role as uniquely theirs as they once were for the muses.


Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and Noah Martzall did just that on Friday night: daring, testing, and egging each other on from the moment they burst upon the stage. Ecstatic expression, humor, and chemistry, not to mention contagious levity, are the gifts of their boundless interpretation. Ryan tells an entire story with her eyes alone. The startling height of a leg, her brilliant vim and intention, it was all marvelously her own invention on this wish-it-would-never-end night. Meanwhile, Martzall, a whirling dervish if I’ve ever seen one, finds expansive freedom in Rubies, making half-a-century-old choreography seem like nothing more than ingenious whim. Watching these two bring this dazzling feat to life twice was not nearly enough, but the memory will be savored.


In a dazzling debut, Juliet Prine and Mark Cuddihee brought a very sweet and larky partnership to Rubies. With the smallest lift of the chin, Prine declared it all: a playful authority that coursed with dynamic power through each ridiculously impeccable pirouette and penché. As I’ve seen again and again, Cuddihee takes himself to baffling heights, and in Rubies, he is sure-footed and precise, with compressed energy flooding the stage. Their pas de deux was a joyous occasion, nestled so firmly within its score, and propelled by their own distinct convictions.


On Saturday evening, Kuu Sakuragi was a cardinal, propelling himself into the air with such might that I worried he might never come down. The bright spirit he found beside Clara Ruf Maldonado’s clean, rapturous speed was a perfect, back-and-forth negotiation of delight.


Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Batista in Rubies from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust.  Photo © Angela Sterling.
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Batista in Rubies from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.

It’s impossible to watch Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Bastista in Rubies (or anything else, really) without the word “virtuosic” coming to mind. They are fierce technicians, making the most bewildering feats of physics look like nothing more than flighty amusement. Yet, beneath all the rock-solid technical aptitude, Generosa and Batista fill Rubies with an intimate sense of trust and heart. There, in darting, sparkling eyes, a lively story unfolds. They play off of one another with striking strength and attack, and with an ineffable spirit that glows within the brilliance Balanchine devised.


Though Balanchine created over four hundred ballets during his 79 years, the dream that went unfulfilled was his lifelong hope of a splendidly extravagant Sleeping Beauty. He never got his moving stage levels, onstage fountains, or extraordinary budget that would have made such a vision possible, yet in Diamonds, we see a glimpse of what could have been. The grandness of it all, the poise and classical integrity, the fairy-like kneels, the canons, and fantastical polonaise— it’s the wedding act of a story ballet without any story or elaborate scenery to stand upon. His admiration for Tchaikovsky’s sweeping score is built into every articulation of musicality, and there, hiding in plain sight, is the finery that would have filled a production of The Sleeping Beauty as envisioned by its greatest lifelong admirer.


Perhaps no one can classify this quality better than Suzanne Farrell herself, who called Diamonds: “supremely classical in style, epic in scope, ritualized in manner, and yet in the midst of its unmistakable grandeur there lurks immense sweetness and vulnerability.” Within the soft pleats of Tchaikovsky, Balanchine distills classical ballet to its apotheosis; a cathedral built from nothing but ephemeral light.


Walking has never been so beautiful an act as it is as it weaves its way through Jewels. The magnetic, destiny-imbued steps were the last piece of the pas de deux that Balanchine choreographed, but perhaps he could only begin in such a way, knowing where their winding road would lead.


 Removed from their echoing stories, the recognizable steps within the pas de deux illicit emotion in themselves. Some of these, such as when she brushes her hand to lower his head as she burees away, are direct quotations from Swan Lake. Others, like the arrow-like arm and hand placed on the back of her head, echo Raymonda, but are an invention of its originator that Balanchine accepted. Farrell writes in her memoir that she thought to place her hand on the back of her head to model the dazzling crown she knew she’d be wearing. It was this immense freedom “not only of movement but of spirit” that let Balanchine’s dancers live so fully in his works, and it is also a reason why today’s dancers must find a similar freedom.


On Friday night, Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Batista’s debut was exactly what Balanchine would have wanted: exquisitely and distinctly their own. From the moment they stepped upon that serene stage, there was not a drop of empty space between them. The beautiful thing about Diamonds is that, when danced by two artists with trailing history, every story ever told in unison arises quietly under the surface, imbuing each breath with something far deeper than this brief bliss they share. Balanchine once said, “Why do Americans always have to see meaning in everything?” But with a partnership strung upon vulnerability and presence, how can one not see each unfolding arm as a heart-strung vision of Swan Lakes passed?


Their Diamonds was a richly human Diamonds. Miraculous in technique, control, relinquishment, passion, and yet, deeply human. They caused quite a stir on both Friday and Saturday night with stupefying ambition that showed us the epitome of their craft in steadfast, gleaming form. 


Generosa’s musical ear, swift clarity, and unwavering control found their full revelation in the pas de deux. Simply the pristine stillness she finds in sous-sus is breathtaking. And while technically impeccable throughout, what resounded above these defining executions was the depth of soul brought into each glimmering extension, turn, and balance. 


Some partners undertake Diamonds on separate planes of existence, but Jonathan Batista was right there beside her, not only emotionally on the same page, but endlessly propelled with the greatest might. A gleaming form of striking speed and height, his finessed art knows no limits.


In a run of countless debuts, one last debut landed during the final performance of Diamonds. Beside Elizabeth Murphy (who seems to be ever more spun from the heavens, so light is her touch upon this earth), Christopher D’Ariano took his rightful place. A sense of awe marked the beginning of their pas de deux, steeped in honor, legacy, and longing. Led by the music’s sweet sorrow, Murphy and D’Ariano found a sincerity that rose from deep within, something so true that it let us believe they’d be dancing these very steps even without a soul to witness their splendor.


D’Ariano is steady in his intentions. He possesses a quality similar to American Ballet Theatre’s Aran Bell, a quality characterized by quiet excellence and modesty that allows effortless flights of Principal-level refinement to flood upon the stage without an ounce of pretention. Instead, profound proficiency abounds effortlessly. I’ve always noticed D’Ariano’s absolutely silent landings, but in Diamonds, these details glowed. Never have I heard anyone land a manège as softly as D’Ariano; like a feather grazing the earth only to lift once more, like a beam of light dancing across the floor…we were spellbound in the wake of such a confounding phenomenon.


Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Diamonds from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.
Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Diamonds from Jewels, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Suzanne Farrell once said: “There is very little in the way of excitement and glamour that can equal Balanchine and Tchaikovsky in a polonaise.” And indeed, it is a rigorous endeavor of imagination and musicality that unfolds before us at the close of a brilliant night. With thirty-four bodies on stage, the possibilities for bewildering patterns are endless, but how does a mind envision such a thing? Can one even envision the overwhelming thrill that will build when contrasting energies of refracting, fine-cut angles catch the light? Balanchine, of course, could envision such intricacy, and as with many of his beloved, brilliant finales, there floods more endless kaleidoscopic marvel upon that stage than two eyes can gather in a single night.


And so, we will be back, be back, be back once more…




 
 
 

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