One Last Spin
"Swan Lake"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 28, 2012
Angel Corella gave his final performance at ABT last night, and during the curtain calls, amidst the flowers, the wreaths, and applauding company members, showed the cheering audience one last glorious set of turns a la seconde. It was a charming and generous gesture from a dancer who combined warmth, skill, and intelligence to become one of ABT's most, and the word doesn't seem hyperbolic, beloved principals. As a nineteen-year old wunderkind whose turns were sometimes too enthusiastic for gravity to keep straight, but whose open-hearted generosity made the audiences root for him, to the more romantic performer of his later years, he has been one of ABT's most exciting dancers, and the audience got its chance to thank him.
His Siegfried, even in Kevin McKenzie's idiosyncratic production which robs him of many of the theatrical punch lines, was full of fine details. His moments of solitude in the tumultuous first act were delicately pitched--all he had to do to create a character was turn his back and gaze into the distance, isolation and discontent so poignantly suggested by the angle of his head looking over the lake. He was a very gentle, almost tentative Siegfried in the lake scene, as if he were afraid to frighten Odette. His profound, overwhelming joy when he found Odile was even more moving, for me, than the lyrical white act, because he seemed so innocent and so doomed. The final scene had the usual toing and froing, but that magnificent music help supply the emotion that the dancers were working so hard to convey. The final jump stood out for its realistic simplicity, as Corella paused for a moment at the top of the rock, and then just dropped, as if, once his hope of happiness was gone, he didn't even have the heart to jump.
There were other dancers on the stage of course. Paloma Herrera was a lyrical, gentle Odette without extraneous fluttering. Her mime was a bit unclear (no reference to her mother as she left out the cradling bit and just crossed her arms) and she could have given more emphasis to the moment when she tells Siegfried that if he kills von Rothbart, she will stay a swan forever. But she calibrated the drama so beautifully, shy and frightened at first, and dancing with a growing confidence, and her beautiful feet and pure line made her dancing sing.
Her dancing in the black act was also pure and unaffected. She is not the most fire-breathing of Odiles, but her unmannered approach worked perfectly with Corella's simplicity. The fouettes were fast and often doubled, and she ended triumphantly. Gennadi Saveliev, in the pas de trois, was especially smooth and elegant, with low, musical jumps, and Simone Messmer with her smoldering elegance stood out in the czardas . Jared Matthews was the purple von Rothbart, and camped it up with the best of them, even surviving a wardroom malfunction when one of his thigh-high boots tore and drooped to his knees.
But the evening was really all about memories, and what wonderful ones they were. Corella as the gloriously subservient Ali in "The Corsaire", living only to serve his master, yet tossing off some wonderful corkscrew turns. The first sailor in "Fancy Free", joyful, fun-loving, and so endearing. An innocent Albrecht, swept up by love, who made you think that maybe, just maybe, it would work out this time. And an equally passionate Romeo, eager to love. And of course his comedies--Basilio in "Don Quixote", where his warmth and joy made the final act a love story and not a gyroscope demonstration, and his Colas in Ashton's "La Fille", with his cocky strut. But the memory I think I cherish the most is the Corella of Susan Jaffe's farewell "Giselle", where he played the loyal, honest Wilfred. He was honoring her career and her art, but stayed completely in character, in the background, a thorough professional putting the performance first. But I am glad I got to see his last turns on the Metropolitan stage.
copyright 2012 by Mary Cargill
