Greatness Derailed
"Nijinsky"
National Ballet of Canada
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
April 3, 2018
John Neumeier’s 2000 “Nijinsky”, excellently performed by the National Ballet of Canada, is certainly a sui generis extravaganza – a mixture of psychodrama and Cecil B. DeMille. Neumeier is a brilliant designer. His costumes veered from the Edwardian for the hotel guests to modernist flapper ones and reconstructions from Ballets Russes ballets. The two-part set –- secessionist touches for the Suvretta Hotel and an abstract, brilliantly lit circle that opens into a black abyss – functions excellently. Yet too often during this meandering show, you wondered why this experienced choreographer didn’t realize that piling more and more onto an idea, which might have been perfectly viable on its own, pulling it out like chewing gum strips it of its punch. While this second viewing – Hamburg Ballet performed “Nijinsky” in San Francisco in 2003 – did not offer a better understanding of the ballet’s low points, except perhaps, that Neumeier attempted to reflect Nijinsky’s own distorted sense time.
Still individual moments were theatrically effective, some even moving.
“Nijinsky” started with touches of a comedy of manners with an antic Nijinsky (Guillaume Coté) offering his bourgeois audience the ballet “tricks” they wanted. It was a moment where he seemed perfectly lucid. It ended with a frantic Nijinsky screaming at the top of his voice the counts for the “The Rite of Spring.” It felt like witnessing an apocalypse, both social and personal. Here Neumeier’s Nijinsky seemed like a God-like figure — he repeatedly presented himself as a Christ-on-the-cross -- except that now he had lost the battle with hell.
Coté is almost too handsome for the racked Nijinsky but he combines strong athleticism with a refined sensibility. The role is filled with fragments from Nijinsky ballets or the ones in which he had performed. Sometimes the gestures are wispy, maybe a bit of “Les Sylphides,” taking Zobeide's scarf, or the Faun’s two-dimensionality but also substantial ones such as the “The Rite’s” stomping scene, or “Scheherazade’s” courting adagio. He slumps like Petruschka (Jonathan Renna); he is the dreamer, in love with himself as the Spirit of the Rose. (Naoya Ebe who also dances a fine Harlequin). We see deeply human moments; tenderness (and anger) towards Romola, and the profound grief over his brother’s body. Coté incorporates all of those fragments into a complex patchwork of this iconic artist.
Subtlety is not one of Neumeier’s strength. The passionate limb-embracing duet with a silver-clad Diaghilev (Evan McKie) often became a love/hate wrestling match. However, when Diaghilev, in the arms of Massine (Skylar Campbell), rejects his protégé in a gesture that mimics God’s hand on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Neumeier stepped into bathos even though it, probably, gave some credence to the fact that Nijinsky, as Neumeier seems to suggests, was ultimately broken by the catastrophic loss of his mentor and lover.
Neumeier’s Romola (Heather Ogden), in life a rather controversial character, became a fascinating figure. A groupie on the boat, an unfaithful but ultimately steadfast wife, a ménage a trois courtship with the Faun (a compact excellent Francesco Gabriele Frola) spelled out effectively of how she wanted the kind of love that the slave but not the man Nijinsky could offer. Her solo of being torn hither and thither showed her as a beautifully nuanced performer. At the end we see her still pulling the now middle aged Nijinsky on a sled. In the past I called her a Mother Courage figure; with Neumeier I still think she is.
The excerpt from “Jeux” by the double and triple making duty artists Campbell (also a self-involved Massine), Sonia Rodriguez (also Tamara Karsavina) and Jenna Savella (a fine Bronislava and Chosen Virgin) highlighted Nijinsky's forward-looking choreography. Unfortunately, the ensemble choreography – even the sections from "Scheherazade" with the lovely Rimsky-Korsakov score and Frola and Felix Paquet’s sensual but strong slaves –- got paler as it went on. The retrospective at the Mariinsky school seemed muddled and, certainly, unnecessary. The parades, the folk dancing – an attempt at youthful levity before the catastrophe? – and the regimented dying of everyone simply went beyond the point of effectiveness on stage. The dancers gave their all; hélas, it was not enough. So did the musicians, SFB’s under the baton of David Briskin. The audience on opening night seemed to agree. A good portion left the minute the curtain went down; the rest gave the company a standing ovation.
copyright © 2018 by Rita Felciano
