The Stage

American Ballet Theatre - Programmes I, II and III

Published Thursday 22 February 2007 at 13:20 by John Percival

The biggest hit in American Ballet Theatre’s first London season (Covent Garden, 1946) was Fancy Free, a wonderfully vigorous comedy by a then unknown choreographer and composer, Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein starting their illustrious careers. Its portrait of three sailors on shore leave in New York - adroitly based on Robbins and his friends, who first danced the roles - so brilliantly combined virtuoso display and truthful characterisation that Fancy Free remains the highlight of ABT’s present visit six decades later. To watch them boozing, chewing gum and picking up broads in and around the bar that constitutes Oliver Smith’s convincing design is absolutely exhilarating. Created a lifetime ago, it could have seemed dated but doesn’t - this is true and enduring dance theatre, real Americana, and very well danced by two casts.

There is only one new production in the three programmes and that is a still older work - Kurt Jooss’s celebrated anti-war drama from 1933, The Green Table, adopted by ABT in September 2005. This is certainly the finest example of European modern-dance and still thrills even though Jooss’s own original role as Death really needs more physical and emotional weight than David Hallberg gives it. The ten Gentlemen in Black, whose hypocrisy around their green conference table begins and ends the action, are as uncomfortably amusing as ever - in between comes a powerful dance of Death.

Two of the ballets given show off the neatness of the female ensemble but Symphonie Concertante, a plotless dance display by George Balanchine to Mozart music, is sadly a demonstration that even the best choreographers have their off-moments. It’s proficient but dull, despite Veronika Part’s glamour as one of the soloists. And the much-loved Kingdom of Shades scene from La Bayadere deserves more bravura in its lead roles than it got at its first showing from a Ukrainian cast. Part and Hallberg another time did it better.

On ABT’s last London visit, seventeen years ago, the company was in poor condition, recovering from Mikhail Baryshnikov’s highly uneven period as director, and only two ballets really succeeded - both are here again this time. Twyla Tharp’s rowdy, energetic In the Upper Room, to a screeching, thumping soundtrack by Philip Glass, was lit up by Ethan Stiefel’s joyous performance - he’s only just back from long absence through injury. Mark Morris’s Drink to Me Only, danced to Virgil Thomson piano music, had the whole cast looking good in its playfully casual classicism, with Herman Cornejo bouncing exuberantly through the stand-out solo. It’s one of Morris’, and ABT’s, best ballets.

Too bad that we couldn’t also have one of the less familiar creations of ABT’s first great choreographer, Antony Tudor. Instead, little showpieces most nights showed off the company’s stars, although a so-called bedroom pas de deux from Le Corsaire fell flat, and the production of Le Spectre de la Rose offered a freaky version of Fokine’s choreography, and the vital décor was left at home. The pas de deux from Swan Lake Act III came off best, especially in the stylish performance by Gillian Murphy and Stiefel - her multiple fouettes were totally dazzling. Packed houses despite unavoidably high prices proved ABT’s popularity. Let’s hope for an earlier return next time.