BALLET CHICAGO
Circumstances conspire to make our time a critical and exciting one for ballet in America. The death of George Balanchine spurred a dance diaspora: Peter Martins assumed direction of the New York City Ballet, and Balanchine dancers–notably Kent Stowell, Francia Russell, Edward Villella, and Daniel Duell–left New York and established companies in the hinterlands. Balanchine never considered his ballets museum pieces–he suppressed some, revised some, tinkered with others–and he never exercised a choreographic monopoly over his company. To create a ballet company “in the Balanchine tradition” must be to create a company not only of Balanchine works, fine dancers, and beautiful productions, but also of vital, varied repertory bearing an unmistakable stamp of its own.
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Ballet Chicago’s first seasons quashed any fear that Duell sought to clone NYCB or to establish himself as Balanchine’s sole legitimate heir. Most of Ballet Chicago’s dancers were already competent technicians. Performing Balanchine’s and Duell’s works established a characteristic company style in surprisingly little time: that style is musical, genteel, unaffected, and ostensibly democratic on the Balanchine model but with more youthful openness and typically midwestern warmth. Productions were generally well designed, only occasionally too clever. The company performed with accomplished musicians and conductors, and used taped scores only when absolutely necessary (sonic collages, historic recordings, etc). Until this year, the repertoire was problematic.
Set to ten songs by Hugo Wolf performed onstage by soprano Patrice Michaels-Bedi, baritone Richard Cohn, and pianist Kimberly Schmidt, Scenes From an Italian Songbook suggests the tempestuousness of young love, dawning sensuality, and emotional excess. Chris Phillips’s soft lighting and Birgit Rattenborg Wise’s jewel-toned costumes evoke a time simpler and more elegant than our own.
Ruth Page’s Die Fledermaus does not suit the Blackstone’s stage: Andre Delfau’s extravagant costumes, set pieces, and painted drops are simply overwhelming there, and the dancers seem to be engaged in a constant struggle to squeeze in all their steps and still avoid each other, the set, and the edge of the orchestra pit.
