Mary Cargill

Gold Standard

"The Nutcracker"
New York City Ballet
Koch Theater
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts 
New York, NY
November 26, 2010

Balanchine's version of "The Nutcracker" returned for its annual visit, all of its innocent beauties intact.  The first act is a glorious celebration of childhood, full of beautifully dressed little girls playing with dolls and rambunctious boys playing with guns--no namby-pamby tut-tutting about gender roles here.  Though Balanchine, nor any in the audience, actually had

"Symmetry", "Moments", "104º Fahrenheit", "Allegretto, Innocente", "Five Songs for Piano"
New Chamber Ballet
City Center Studio 4
New York, NY
November 19, 2010

The New Chamber Ballet is, it seems, born from limitations--live music is too expensive?  Use works with only a piano and a violin.  Stage space is prohibitive?  Perform in a studio without scenery or a backstage.   Flashy male virtuosity is all the rage?  Choreograph introspective, contemplative works for women.  

"I'm Old Fashioned", "Plainspoken", "Tarantella", "Western Symphony"
New York City Ballet
Koch Theater
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts 
New York, NY
October 7, 2010

The brief fall season included a gala, with the New York premiere of a new Benjamin Millepied ballet, sandwiched between some charming older works.  The evening opened with the orchestra, on their new floating stage, rising up and playing the exhilarating "Candide Overture", and then disappearing back to watch the equally

"Serenade", "The Magic Flute", and "Stars and Stripes"
New York City Ballet
Koch Theater
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts 
New York, NY
September 30, 2010

New York City Ballet took various looks backward in its programming. "Serenade" is Balanchine's gloriously romantic hymn to femininity, a direct descendant of those pale vision scenes so beloved of nineteenth century audiences, "The Magic Flute" is Peter Martins' take on a lost Ivanov one-act ballet full of nineteenth-century comedic idioms, and Balanchine's

"Zéphyre and other ballets by Jean-Philippe Rameau"
The New York Baroque Dance Company
Symphony Space
New York, NY
September 21, 2010

 Nymphs, muses, and goddesses invaded Symphony Space with the New York Baroque Dance Company, led by Catherine Turocy, and the New York premiere of Rameau's chamber work "Zéphyre".  According to the detailed program notes, there is no record of this at the Paris Opera, and may have been written for the court of Versailles and Madame de

"Serenade", "Grazioso", "The Four Seasons"
New York City Ballet 
David H. Koch Theater 
Lincoln Center, New York 
September 14, 2010

The first, presumably of many, fall season for the New York City Ballet (made possible in part by the unfortunate financial problems of the New York City Opera) opened with a festive note.  The theater opened an hour early, there was a jazz trio on the promenade serenading the audience enjoying the new seating arrangements, and

"Allegro Brillante", "Romeo and Juliet", "Thaïs", "Manon", "The Dream"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
June 21, 2010

ABT's "All Classic Masters Program" was a glorious sight, from Balanchine's bright "Allegro Brillante" to the moonlight glade of Ashton's "Dream".  Gillian Murphy was in her element in Balanchine's glorious cacophony of steps, throwing off multiple turns and stops on a dime as if these were as easy as talking.  But it was not just a display of technique, it

"La Source", "Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux", "The Lady with the Little Dog", "The Four Temperaments"
New York City Ballet 
David H. Koch Theater 
Lincoln Center, New York 
June 20, 2010

The weekly Sunday afternoon farewell-fest celebrated Albert Evans, a quirky and interesting dancer.  His farewell sent me back to my SAB programs, and even though it seems that just a few years have passed since he bounded through "Square Dance", he danced Phlegmatic, 

"The Sleeping Beauty"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 14, 2010

Few classical ballets have the impeccable documentation and performing tradition as this most glorious of Petipa's works.  The Royal Ballet based its version on notes smuggled out of Revolutionary Russia, and these notes are now available for anyone in the Harvard Library.  Petipa's impeccable architecture and magnificent musicality are there for the asking, as the monumental 1999 Kirov reconstruction showed. 

"Serenade", "Who Cares?", "Chaconne"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
June 13, 2010

Philip Neal gave his farewell performance at NYCB Sunday afternoon to an appreciative audience, who applauded his every entrance.  These entrances, like his career, were understated, elegant, and devoted to the art.  He had originally been scheduled to perform what looked like a tag-team arrangement of Balanchine's boisterous "Who Cares?", but the final program saw him in "Serenade" and finally

"Birthday Offering", "Thaïs Pas de Deux", "Awakening Pas de Deux", "The Dream"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
June 10, 2010
New York, NY

ABT continued its 70th birthday party with a real bash, dancing Sir Frederick Ashton's 25th birthday homage to company soon to be Royal as well as his "Dream" of a ballet celebrating Shakespeare's 400th birthday.  "Birthday Offering" is a set of classical dances to selections of Glazunov, who apparently was incapable of