{"id":3617,"date":"2012-06-18T15:56:37","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T19:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2012-07-23T14:33:05","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T18:33:05","slug":"american-ballet-theatres-onegin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/american-ballet-theatres-onegin.htm","title":{"rendered":"American Ballet Theatre’s Onegin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Julie<\/a><\/p>\n

Onegin
\nAmerican Ballet Theatre<\/a>
\nWednesday, June 6, 2012<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago at American Ballet Theatre’s Works and Process at the Guggenheim<\/a>, I heard Reid Anderson discuss his work with John Cranko.\u00a0 Then he took the audience through the staging of the Book Pas de Deux from Cranko\u2019s Onegin.\u00a0 Before the evening was over, I wanted very much to see ABT\u2019s new production of this ballet.\u00a0 It was wonderful to have been given some insight into the process and into Cranko\u2019s intent beforehand, and to be able to take that along with me into the theatre as I was introduced to the full length ballet.<\/p>\n

Julie Kent personified Tatiana.\u00a0 In Act I, she is the very image of bookish innocence as she approaches the dark exotic stranger Onegin, played by Roberto Bolle.\u00a0 From the moment that the two begin to dance together, my heart ached from the trusting expression of young love that Kent brought to Tatiana, as well as the weary indifference with which it was met by Bolle\u2019s Onegin.<\/p>\n

Bolle is costumed in black, and his movement is every bit as dark, evoking Onegin\u2019s boredom and self absorption.\u00a0 The only moments in which we see a spark of humanity in Onegin are in his own variations, where he seems to be searching for something outside of himself that will relieve him of his jaded view of the world.\u00a0 When Tatiana shows him her book, Bolle turns up the cruelty by sharing a mocking look with the audience that she can\u2019t see.\u00a0 As he dances with Tatiana, there are moments where he is almost dragging his own weight from the heaviness with which Onegin seems to experience life.\u00a0 Bolle was so convincing in the role.\u00a0 Throughout the evening I grew more and more exasperated with Onegin (the character), to the point where I was all but swearing under my breath by the end of Act II.<\/p>\n

Every bit as compelling as the two lead characters, were the two secondary leads, Onegin\u2019s friend Lensky and Tatiana\u2019s sister Olga.\u00a0 Jared Matthews and Maria Riccetto were the very image of happy young carefree lovers.\u00a0 Their exuberance was shown in their sparkling facial expressions, their musicality, and the lilting lyrical way in which they moved together in the pas de deux.\u00a0 The lively dance of the villagers seems to pick up on this carefree love, and winds up with an electrifying series of grand jete lifts along the diagonals.<\/p>\n

Later, among the lovely silvery turquoise sets that make up Tatiana\u2019s moonlit bedroom, Nancy Raffa, as the nurse, was really cute as she checked on Tatiana, moving a few steps away from the girl\u2019s bed, freezing and peering back over her shoulder, then moving forward and peeking again.\u00a0 I half expected her to go to Tatiana\u2019s desk and read the love letter she\u2019d just written to Onegin.<\/p>\n

Again Kent\u2019s Tatiana is all sweetness and innocence as she sweeps through her bedroom, barely able to contain the feelings in her heart.\u00a0 In the lovely Mirror Pas de Deux, as the Onegin of Tatiana\u2019s dream, Bolle transforms into the romantic hero, his focus now trained on the woman in his arms.\u00a0 Julie Kent\u2019s depiction of Tatiana\u2019s innocent love given so freely nearly drove me to tears.\u00a0 She seems feathery and angelic, especially as she stands straight and Bolle lifts her, his arm fully extended overhead, so that she appears like a love struck spirit floating through the room.\u00a0 The partnering is dramatic, with Onegin throwing Tatiana as if she was weightless in her dreaminess, and Tatiana often gliding into a swan-ish landing on one knee with her other leg extended behind her.\u00a0 Kent and Bolle moved together as kindred spirits.<\/p>\n

Act II opens with another merry dance performed by the villagers, which includes a series of festive cabriole lifts.\u00a0 Those who danced the character roles, including Martine van Hamel as Tatiana\u2019s mother, provided some good humored comic relief.\u00a0 Bolle\u2019s Onegin, no longer the imaginary hero of Tatiana\u2019s dream, now seems darker still, heartless, annoyed and ultimately cruel.\u00a0 He has no interest in Tatiana and he doesn\u2019t even want to look at her as they dance together.\u00a0 While all the villagers are dressed in earthy country prints and seem to pulse with life, the conflict between Onegin and Tatiana provides a stark contrast, as she is costumed in white and he in black.\u00a0 Onegin has broken Tatiana\u2019s heart and done nothing to spare her feelings.\u00a0 As Tatiana\u2019s mother spirits her away and guides her to dance with the Prince, played by Roman Zhurbin, Julie Kent casts one last heart rending look at the bored Onegin.<\/p>\n

Jared Matthews so beautifully descends into hurt and outrage as Onegin and Olga set to teasing Lensky.\u00a0 He brought such strong heartbreaking emotion to the role.\u00a0 Throughout the scene, tension builds and builds, ultimately exploding as Lensky challenges Onegin to a duel.\u00a0 In his last variation, Matthews\u2019 dancing gave clear voice to Lensky\u2019s introspection, anguish, resolve and desperation.\u00a0 He created movement that seemed every bit as searching and bleak as the haunting sets of bare trees of the winter forest.<\/p>\n

\"Hee<\/a>
\nAs an older man in Act III, Onegin returns to St. Petersburg years later, where the prince is hosting a ball.\u00a0 Onegin is still the same bored, jaded individual and Bolle moves with a distinct lack of purpose, his focus never on the woman with whom he\u2019s dancing.\u00a0 His movement really captures the futility that has worn on Onegin, not only through his youth but now weighing even more heavily on him as he settles into middle age.\u00a0 Julie Kent\u2019s Tatiana is now regal and self assured as she dances with the Prince, never even knowing of Onegin\u2019s presence or of the fact that he\u2019s become smitten with her and has begun to figure out that she\u2019s the young woman whose heart he\u2019d broken years earlier.\u00a0 They are introduced for a brief moment, and Tatiana is cordial, but then she goes on her way with the prince, but not before casting one last look of disbelief at Onegin.\u00a0 I felt that throughout the ballet, these subtle looks either cast over the shoulder from one character to another, or shared with the audience, formed crisp clear snapshots which spoke volumes of that moment of the story.\u00a0 In a chilling scene, Onegin stands before the scrim and watches as his time with Tatiana passes before his eyes, culminating with his assassination of Lensky.\u00a0 Bolle, still dressed in black under a harsh white spotlight, moves stiffly.\u00a0 His Onegin seems to struggle for balance on flat feet, looking haunted and stunned with regret over the people and times whom he\u2019d never appreciated before.<\/p>\n

The closing pas de deux is especially moving, giving voice to complex emotions that we don\u2019t often see in classical ballet.\u00a0 Julie Kent\u2019s dancing alternately brings out the enduring hurt and anguish that Tatiana had suffered from Onegin\u2019s rejection, as well as her determination to send him away, as well as the little bit of aching love that remained for him in her heart.\u00a0 Kent moves seamlessly from one expression to the next, conjuring a gamut of conflicting feelings. Bolle partners her effortlessly, portraying Onegin\u2019s regret and his new passion, making him seem as human and alive as he had been in the Mirror Pas de Deux.\u00a0 In terms of the story, it made me wonder how he\u2019d conduct his life after that moment.\u00a0 Would Tatiana\u2019s rejection toughen his hide and make him even more jaded, or, having seen what he lost with her, would he set out to try to find it again elsewhere?<\/p>\n

Everything about this new production is very well done.\u00a0 The atmospheric sets are lovely and haunting.\u00a0 The ensemble dances are so lively and joyous and the beautiful work of the four dancers who played the lead characters took us through such a wide sweep of intense complicated emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Onegin American Ballet Theatre Wednesday, June 6, 2012 A few weeks ago at American Ballet Theatre’s Works and Process at the Guggenheim, I heard Reid Anderson discuss his work with John Cranko.\u00a0 Then he took the audience through the staging … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[134,412,402,413],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-american-ballet-theatre","tag-julie-kent","tag-onegin","tag-roberto-bolle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3689,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions\/3689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}