After the 18-19 season was announced, reluctant to wait for another eight months for Anna Karenina’s North America Premier to visit the city, and at the same time eager to get out of New York for a couple of days, I decided to fly to Tonronto and stay for a weekend while The Sleeping Beauty was still on.
Before going I knew very little about NBC. Few commercial recordings are available. I did see The Winter’s Tale when they came to the Met Opera House in 2016 and remember loving Guillaume and Elena in it, but that ballet didn’t leave a longlasting impression on me. Let’s be honest: Nureyev’s production of SB isn’t a SB that one could feel crazy enough about to fly to another city to see. However, on the other hand, there is nothing to see in New York right now anyway and Toronto is just two hours away, so I just packed and went.
My original plan was to see 3 performances: Svetlana Lunkina on Thursday, Jillian Vanstone on Saturday and Heather Ogden on Sunday. It turned out that Lunkina wasn’t able to perform, so I saw Jillian twice, and on top of that I added another one: Alexandra MacDonald’s debut as Aurora.
Jillian Vanstone
I have to say that I greatly enjoyed both performances from Jillian Vanstone on Thursday and Saturday and couldn’t get enough of her dancing. Vanstone’s Aurora in Act 1 was a confident girl that readily accepted challenges in life, radiant and exuberant in a down-to-earth way. Psycologically mature enough, she was never timid in front of the suitors. When her parents introduced the suitors and explained about the potential marriage, for one instant she feigned shyness by raising one hand in front of her face and looking aside, but the next moment she was greeting the suitors with natural grace, which says clearly that the shyness was just a courtesy that she made out of habit as a princess. I found this interpretation unique and convincing.
Upon entrance, she swept the stage in a series of pas de chat that exuded heartfelt excitement. Even in Aurora’s entrance, there was something special about her arms and upper body that immediately caught my attention. That feeling soon got proved in the rest of Act 1 and the subsequent Act 2. Her steps and placement of arms are more French in terms of style, however, her impeccable musicality，seamless execution flow and expressive upper body are all features of the quentissencial English style. The two styles seem to have blended into each other in her dancing, making her an absolute delight to watch.
The most impressive musical phrasing in Act 1 occurred in the coda where her whole body, in a notable angle with the floor, paused for a moment during the turn to match the music, with her working leg still up in the air. Cynthia Gregory did the same in her Aurora with ABT, but I felt here NBC orchestra’s tempo is slower, which made it even harder to achieve.
Vanstone’s thoughtful control of her arms and upper body during all steps also added dramatic appeal to Act 1: During Aurora’s Variation, she greeted each of the suitors with both arms and eye contact while doing abrabesques; In the coda, upon bumping into Carabosse, her fearful struggle was palpable through the push of her hands and the wave of her arm movements; Even in the end of Act 1, after she fell, she made efforts to show that Aurora was asleep instead of dead (or maybe that’s my wishful thinking, your call, but I didn’t feel the same way when watching the other two). Then came the Act 2 Vision Scene which she shone all the way through. It is so rare to see ballerinas who is able to make the Vision Scene about the longing for saviour, and among these few, Vanstone still stands out with her unique expressiveness. Of course there is the begining of the Vision Scene where she waves at the prince for help, which is not too difficult to tackle. The magic happened around the end of her pas de deux with the prince, with the prince holding her when she moved her upper body first forward (away from the prince) and then backward (toward the prince). I don’t know how it happened but her arms moved in a way that I’d never seen in anybody else, in which I instantly felt her helplessness of being trapped in the middle of nowhere, and her silent yearning for the only saviour — true love. That feeling was further strengthened when she bent backwards (toward the audience) and unfeld her arms along with the stretch of her whole upper body in a perfect arc, crying for freedom in every inch of her muscle. For the first time, I saw contemporary realism in the role of Aurora, which was utterly astounding. (I can’t even remember how exactly she moved her arms and yet I’m now stuck with so many feelings in me…)
Apart from her unusual dramatic talent, Vanstone is also technically strong. Her footwork is doubtlessly very solid, allowing her to deliver a equally magnificent Act 3. Overall speaking, her dancing was steady throughout the night with few glitches; her interpretation and characterization of Aurora is among the best I’ve seen. I hope to see more of her in the next season.
Brendan Saye
This is what I would call a very impressive debut of Prince Florimund . Usually during SB performances, princes don’t get a lot of attention from me, but in this one, Saye’s stage presence was so enchantingly strong that my eyes followed him everywhere he went.
The role of Prince Florimund can be interpreted in many ways, out of which the one that has the strongest emotional impact on me has always been the sensitive dreamer. You don’t get to see such an interpretation often, and when you see one in a soloist, you instantly sense the star potential.
In his entrance at the hunting party, his demeanour showed a prince that held himself not only in social status but also in spiritual pursuit superior than others. Naturally, a sense of loneliness came with the superiority. While flirting with the countess at the party, with all the detachment in his eyes, he seemed to be somewhere else in his mind: deep down he was desiring something else that cannot be found in this world.
His beautiful lines made Act 2 solo and Vision Scene an inexplicably dreamy experience. The way he tilted his neck and leaned his upper body in perfect harmony with his limbs was absolutely lyrical, fully conveying the prince’s longing for a soulmate in another world. It is very hard (even for Nureyev) to make sense out of the crazy choreography of the Act 2 solo, but by employing his expressive upper body and fluid arms in dynamic phrasing, Saye perfectly captured the sensitiveness and yearning in the young prince. In the Vision scene, I almost melted in whole at seeing his arms raise and round up with the music slowly flowing through them.
I do think that he needs to work more on the lower body, especially in jumps, turns and balance, although it can be difficult to take full control of the limbs for a tall dancer. Stamina is also important, especially for a lengthy classical ballet like this which requires so much energy from the leading dancers. With that said, I still like him a lot and can’t wait to see how he will tackle Ashton’s The Dream in the next season.
Heather Ogden
Heather Ogden’s Aurora is more of the stately type: reserved and composed. Maybe not as composed as the Russian Aurora’s, but definitely an Aurora that lives far above in a dream castle instead of in a real-world royal palace.
Before Aurora’s entrance variation, she paused on the top of the stairs and took a moment to look around and observe the crowd. She then took the steps one by one in a unhurried manner before instigating astonishment among audiences with jumps light as feather. The Rose Adagio was even more jaw-dropping as she stayed on pointe in the air for 2 to 3 seconds in a perfect balance before giving her hand to the second suitor. Although the subsequent balances were not as impressive as the first one, I got the sense that this ballerina is daring to take challenges by retrieving back her hand and starting the balance before the next suitor came into place to offer his hand. Furthermore, her balances were incredibly steady, adding to the confidence and grace of the character in front of the suitors. She also controlled the speed of her turns very well when accepting roses from the suitors. All of these showed a dancer who’s technically strong, particulary in the lower body.
Yet even in the triumphant Rose Adagio, there was something unsettling about her dancing: she willingly sacrificed artistry for a show-off of technique. Out of the four balances, the musicality of the other three were noticeably impaired by the prelonged first balance. This uncertainty was proved to be sensible in the rest of the ballet performance, and I felt that her technique was strong but lacks stability: when she did the same pirouette in a sequence for three times, the first one was mediocre, the second one was barely completed, and the third one was perfect. However, I hadn’t seen her dance before so I wasn’t sure whether that had always been an issue for her or it was only with that performance. While this is an unconfirmed doubt, one thing I can confirm about her is that she doesn’t have a dramatic upper body or a top-notch sense of musicality and thus didn’t strike me as a splendid Aurora in Act 1 coda and Act 2 Vision Scene.
Guillaume Côté
Guillaume Côté’s great dramatic talent lies in that he knows how to apply musical phrasing to acting even when he’s not dancing. Quite different from Saye, his prince was manly and charming. At the entrance of the hunting party, he acted as if he was kissing the countess girlfriend’s hand, but before his lips touched her hand, he paused and winked at the countess, evading the courtesy with his charming smile successfully. He appeared nice to everybody and looked as though he was really enjoying the party, but the perfunctory dancing during the game and the sigh of relief after getting rid of the countess revealed his real feelings: deeply bored.
Côté’s interpretation of the solo and the Vision Scene was unlike any other I’ve seen. Usually the prince doesn’t look very happy in the moody solo because he’s unsatisfied with the world he’s in and is in search of something else, and he’s further saddened by the disappearance of the Lilac Fairy who just told him that what he was looking for exists somewhere. Côté’s exactly the opposite: he was all excited at hearing that his soulmate existed (although she had been asleep for a hundred years) and was elated at the prospect of seeing her soon. Thus his Act 2 solo became a energetic celebration instead of quiet reflection. The Vision Scene was also interpreted in a similarly exuberant way — an intimate relationship between the two was already in full blossom in the pas de deux. The magical kiss also was done in the most natural manner: it was like they had been lovers for a long time even though it was the first time he had seen her. I’m not sure if this interpretation had anything to do with the fact that his partner Heather Ogden is also his wife in real life and they had known each other for 20 years, but it certainly gave this ballet a refreshing new look (although it did look a bit weird to me).
In Act 3, his landing of jump and turns was cleaner than other NBC dancers I had seen and his barrel turns caused quite a stir with the audience. It wasn’t a perfect grand pas de deux: the barrel turns were a bit too physical for my taste; there were noticable glitches in all the fishdives; the turns weren’t musical enough. However by that time the male dancer was usually already exhausted so it was quite difficult to complete the pdd in a effortless manner. I do remember very clearly his lovely arm movements while Heather was doing pique turns: he travelled along with her with his arms unfeld, supporting and protecting his princess in the back without touching her — absolutely adorable.
Others
Elena Lobsanova‘s classical lines instantly drew my attention in the group of fairies on Thursday night. She danced the Third Variation both on Thursday and on Saturday night, and it was the only fairy variation that was danced to perfection. I wdiseas very happy to know that she debuted as Aurora this year and look forward to the many seasons to come.
Francesco Gabriele Frola debuted as Prince Florimund on Saturday night. His jumps were soaring indeed, however the landing was often messy or stiff. I think he needs to pay more attention to controlling the change of his body lines during the landings and strengthening his upper body in order to add characterization to his dancing. I don’t see him going anywhere with his current approach: higher jumps and quicker turns without fine control of the upper body and musical phrasing strips art away from dancing.
I can’t remember much of Harrison James as I forgot to put down my thoughts of the performance on Thursday night and the memory of the performance soon faded away… All I can remember is that he was princely enough and had solid partnering technique.
Alexandra MacDonald debuted as Aurora on Saturday afternoon. Her pas de chat at the entrance were surprisingly light and vigorous. Her arms were also lovely during the entrance variation, so I did see potential in her. However the rest of the performance showed that her footwork was far from solid, and she didn’t have attention to spare for her arms and upper body when she was trying hard to get steps done. However this is only the debut so I shouldn’t be asking too much… She has many years ahead to improve her technique.
Among soloists, Kathryn Hosier, Skylar Campbell, Chelsy Meiss and Jack Bertinshaw stood out from the rest.