This week, NYCB is bringing back “Harlequinade,” Balanchine’s 1965 remake of the Petipa ballet “Les Millions d’Arlequin,” with Joaquín de Luz in the title role. Like his “Nutcracker” and “Coppélia,” “Harlequinade” is a nostalgic look at another age, the cozy world of 19th century fantasy ballets. And like those other works, it’s full of children. See my review of last night’s performance here.
American Ballet Theatre is bringing back Twyla Tharp’s “Bach Partita,” this week, at Lincoln Center. For this advance piece, I spoke with Susan Jones (the ballet mistress who is doing the staging), a couple of dancers, and Charles Yang (the violinist) about the revival of what Arlene Croce described as an “enormous, whirling, weightless ballet”
The Nutcracker season has officially begun. At New York City Ballet, the ballet opened its month-long run on Nov. 23. Here is my review of that performance, with Tiler Peck as an exciting Dewdrop, carried by the music.
And here is a short excerpt:
“hen something is beautifully made it never gets old. So it is with Balanchine’s Nutcracker, first performed by New York City Ballet in 1954 and honed to near-perfection over the years. There are good performances, bad ones, and every so often a magical one, but even a middling one will do, because the structure is sound. First, there is Tchaikovsky’s score: imaginative, filled with whimsy, but also, without warning, steeped in drama. Balanchine’s interpolation of the yearning violin cadenza from The Sleeping Beauty into the scene in which Marie falls asleep with the Nutcracker in her arms is so seamless, and feels so appropriate, that one would never guess the music had been smuggled in from another ballet.”
Dancing Around 