THREE
MASTERPIECES
May 15-18, 2008
Approximate run time - 2:05 (includes two
intermissions)
Concerto
Barocco
MUSIC: Johann Sebastian Bach
CHOREOGRAPHY: George Balanchine
Dark Elegies
MUSIC: Gustav Mahler
CHOREOGRAPHY: Antony Tudor
In the Upper
Room
MUSIC: Philip Glass
CHOREOGRAPHY: Twyla Tharp
Performance Schedule:
Thursday, May 15 at 7pm
Friday, May 16 at 8pm
Saturday, May 17 at 2pm and 8pm
Sunday, May 18 at 2pm and 7pm
Mikko Nissinen speaks about the production.
Concerto Barocco is
one of Balanchine’s most inspired ballets, the embodiment of
dance for dance sake. Performed to Bach’s Concerto in D
Minor for Two Violins, Concerto Barocco is a ballet about the
relationship between dance and music: we “see the music and
hear the dance,” as Balanchine liked to say. The ballet was
premiered on June 27, 1941 by American Ballet Caravan – one
of Balanchine’s companies prior to New York City Ballet
– just two days after the company gave the first performance
of his Ballet Imperial. These two ballets were the first ones in
which Balanchine dispensed entirely with the fragment of a theme or
story. It is with Concerto Barocco, Anna Kisselgoff, wrote
in The New York Times that, “Balanchine became
Balanchine – that is, he established the definitive model of
the neoclassic plotless ballet that became his signature.”
She calls it his greatest work. Concerto Barocco, last
danced by Boston Ballet in 1988, gently but firmly weaves its spell
with choreography that seems to grow organically from the music.
This is a ballet that reveals itself quietly, totally without
bravado. Its understated beauty is achieved through elegant, formal
and classical steps that are made intricate through ever-shifting
patterns and unexpected syncopations. The significance of
Concerto Barocco is perhaps underscored by the fact that
Balanchine selected it to be the opening work on NYCB’s
first-ever program.
Antony Tudor (1909-1987) is best known for his
compelling psychological ballets, dances that probe the heart and
mind in minute detail, often to heartbreaking effect.
Dark Elegies (1937), danced to Gustav
Mahler’s poignant song cycle Kindertotenlieder, is one of his
most powerful works, a deep and moving exploration of grief and
mourning. Dark Elegies is performed by an ensemble of 12
dancers, including three principal women and three principal men,
plus an onstage singer. Their costumes indicate they are peasants,
and much of the movement springs from folk dances. It is the title
of Mahler’s score, rather than the choreography, which
reveals that the community has experienced the death of children.
Tudor was a master of understatement in his approach to
choreography and storytelling, and feelings in his ballets are
conveyed through subtlety – subtle gestures, subtle body
language, subtle dramatic expression. Tudor wanted the characters
in his ballets to look natural, like real people rather than highly
polished classical dancers. The original cast of Dark
Elegies included Tudor, Hugh Laing, and Agnes de Mille.
“I danced this piece toward the end of my career and I loved
dancing it,” said Nissinen. “It’s a little bit
like Ibsen: not much happens, but there’s so much going
on.”
A lot happens in Tharp’s In
the Upper Room, a propulsive, high velocity,
wonderfully inventive work choreographed in 1986 and last performed
by Boston Ballet in 1995. Danced to a commissioned score by Philip
Glass, In the Upper Room is a 40-minute torrent of
movement. Dancers emerge, disappear and reconfigure in groups large
and small, enveloped by Jennifer Tipton’s astonishing, smoky
lighting which gives the piece an other-worldly quality. Tharp was
one of the first choreographers to blur the lines between ballet
and modern dance, and in In the Upper Room, four women
wear (red) pointe shoes while the other nine dancers are in
sneakers. The choreography rushes at the audience in waves of
virtuoso dancing and arresting patterns. Tharp incorporates
classical ballet steps, stomping, spinning, jogging backwards, and
feats of acrobatics and athleticism. When Tharp’s company
danced the premiere in 1986, Dale Harris wrote in The Wall
Street Journal “the expressive force of the work is so
clear, so vividly communicated, that the audience can hardly but
give it an ovation.”
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