Miami City Ballet
Concert programming can be the elephant in the theater—in ballet, granted, one that’s ideally light on its feet and great-looking in tights. Yet, whether with astounding grace or as a trampling threat, how works fit into a bill, though not always acknowledged, puts all the hustling and bustling, poised and apportioned stage action in perspective.
Thus, it was especially revealing that Miami City Ballet chose to offer for its fourth and final program of the season two of Balanchine’s brightest pieces and one of Jerome Robbins’s most shadowy. To notable effect, that extreme chiaroscuro across dances provided contrasting attitudes toward gender roles, the reflection of music in choreography, and even the impact of costume and set design. Ultimately, the show brought to the fore, in significant detail, differences in artistic vision—the complement of ethos through which Balanchine and Robbins variously enriched the repertory of New York City Ballet, where these featured ballets blossomed.
The oldest offering by MCB was Concerto Barocco. To J. S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, this landmark from 1941 already confirmed Balanchine as a master of classicism. In the manner by now so familiar and cherished, it pushed dance phrases in tempo and plasticity, while sustaining clarity, and pared away frivolous ornamentation and story, upholding economy without sacrificing reward. The piece has become a vehicle to show off musicality, a structural logic that rides on layers of translucent orchestral sound. This gives simplicity of moves—a small balance, a slight reshuffling of the eight ensemble ballerinas—a surprising resonance. And the occasional complication—a strenuous lift or, hand to hand, the dancers brushing by and between one another—comes off as unflustered as a natural phenomenon.
The corps of women proved mostly adroit in that legacy, with some individuals such as Andrea Spiridonakos turning up the light. They especially took command in the opening and closing movements, as righteous as they were athletic, true to Baroque music’s gift of muscular support for its top-note divine aspirations. The eddying formations the corps carried out as frames or the undertow it created coursing by the principals could be as eye-catching as the front-rolling waves stirred up for the leads by the twinned violins.
Lead ballerinas Deanna Seay and Tricia Albertson made for a particularly heartfelt pairing. Seay delivered a careful rendition, at times too guarded but always knowing, while Albertson managed the impulse of discovery. And each—respectively as the longest-standing principal in the company and one recently promoted—gave the me-first, you-first playfulness and the thoughtful mirrorings that declared conspiracy an air of tradition to be carried on.
In the ballet’s second movement, Rolando Sarabia joined the ballerinas, looking cleaner-cut than he’s been lately. He plied through not so much as a spiritual partner but as a godly laborer—like an Apollo in overalls who’s pulled up his sleeves in league with the women to promote prosperous community.
If everyone in Concerto Barocco, their plain practice clothes redolent of Arcadia, looked fit to refresh classical ideals, the black-clad men and white-tutued women with their diamond sheen in Symphony in C rallied en masse to celebrate ballet’s 19th-century heritage. This work premiered at the Paris Opera in 1947 as Le Palais de Cristal and uses a lost-and-found score by Georges Bizet. Yet its French perfume merely wafts by female cadres, demisoloist couples, and effusive principals who really share the thoroughbred stock of dancers from Balanchine’s St. Petersburg; here they were exercised with American brio and endurance.
True, the second movement of the ballet, with its adagio to double-reeds, luxuriates in Mediterranean ardor. Yet, in each other’s elite company, Jennifer Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra never let that summery languor stifle alertness. Sure, she could swoon into him, yet he’d pass his hands over her as if charged by an energy field. And when her leg shot out in a side developpé or an arabesque, it might have been a sword about to knight him.
The other movements, too, had the brilliance of an imperial court occasion. Mary Carmen Catoya and Renato Penteado started off the festivity with command. She looked a bit brittle at times, but established her rule with strength and precision. And, he drummed out entrechats as if those beats would lead an army. Quick to show devotion to the ballerina, he fearlessly carried out signature turns finished off with a knee to the floor.
In the third movement, Jeanette Delgado’s trademark smile crowned the mirth in her body. For those upswings, she found a fine partner in Alex Wong, whose jumps reached the heights. The ever-reliable Patricia Delgado and Jeremy Cox held their place in the finale. But here they were just two among a legion rocking the parade.
Sandwiched in the program between all those cavaliers, so worshipful of ladies with regal bearing, and Barocco’s charmed circle of nymphs that might have stepped off a frieze, the couples in Robbins’ In the Night came off as portraits of kin we could recognize. This, despite the trappings of Romanticism, with the tutus flowing, the men buttoned-up, and Nocturnes by Chopin setting the mood (Francisco Rennó at the piano). The women especially were more conflicted than any inhabiting the Balanchine pieces.
In fact, there is a key moment in the third part of In the Night where, after episodes of vigorous physical recrimination followed by mutual abandonment, the ballerina gingerly feels out her partner and sinks in expectation of reconciliation at his feet. She stoops to conquer, we might think and acknowledge her grandeur in appeasement.
Yet, as Deborah Jowitt reports in her biography of Robbins, that submissive gesture made Balanchine cringe. Idealizing females in the glam and glory of his ballerinas, he saw it as unacceptable in a portrayal of woman — never mind the failed relationships in his private life.
Jeanette Delgado colored in that memorable passage of peace-seeking tenderly and, with equally right strokes, mixed erotic ire into the lurch of desire in her encounters with Penteado. Their level of emotion found balance in the opening section, where Tricia Albertson and Didier Bramaz explored each other—here quietly nibbling at contact, there more ravenous in entwinement.
And, at the center of the work, Kronenberg and Guerra brought stability, in arm-in–arm walk or in lifts, unshakeable even when unexpected (at one point he cradles her upside down). In the end, all couples gathered and fleetingly interacted. Like the self reviewing the different phases of attraction? Or lovers wondering how they’d fare with different partners? In any case they concluded by reaffirming their romantic choices.
Photo: Deanna Seay in Concerto Barocco. Credit: Joe Gato.
Thus, it was especially revealing that Miami City Ballet chose to offer for its fourth and final program of the season two of Balanchine’s brightest pieces and one of Jerome Robbins’s most shadowy. To notable effect, that extreme chiaroscuro across dances provided contrasting attitudes toward gender roles, the reflection of music in choreography, and even the impact of costume and set design. Ultimately, the show brought to the fore, in significant detail, differences in artistic vision—the complement of ethos through which Balanchine and Robbins variously enriched the repertory of New York City Ballet, where these featured ballets blossomed.
The oldest offering by MCB was Concerto Barocco. To J. S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, this landmark from 1941 already confirmed Balanchine as a master of classicism. In the manner by now so familiar and cherished, it pushed dance phrases in tempo and plasticity, while sustaining clarity, and pared away frivolous ornamentation and story, upholding economy without sacrificing reward. The piece has become a vehicle to show off musicality, a structural logic that rides on layers of translucent orchestral sound. This gives simplicity of moves—a small balance, a slight reshuffling of the eight ensemble ballerinas—a surprising resonance. And the occasional complication—a strenuous lift or, hand to hand, the dancers brushing by and between one another—comes off as unflustered as a natural phenomenon.
The corps of women proved mostly adroit in that legacy, with some individuals such as Andrea Spiridonakos turning up the light. They especially took command in the opening and closing movements, as righteous as they were athletic, true to Baroque music’s gift of muscular support for its top-note divine aspirations. The eddying formations the corps carried out as frames or the undertow it created coursing by the principals could be as eye-catching as the front-rolling waves stirred up for the leads by the twinned violins.
Lead ballerinas Deanna Seay and Tricia Albertson made for a particularly heartfelt pairing. Seay delivered a careful rendition, at times too guarded but always knowing, while Albertson managed the impulse of discovery. And each—respectively as the longest-standing principal in the company and one recently promoted—gave the me-first, you-first playfulness and the thoughtful mirrorings that declared conspiracy an air of tradition to be carried on.
In the ballet’s second movement, Rolando Sarabia joined the ballerinas, looking cleaner-cut than he’s been lately. He plied through not so much as a spiritual partner but as a godly laborer—like an Apollo in overalls who’s pulled up his sleeves in league with the women to promote prosperous community.
If everyone in Concerto Barocco, their plain practice clothes redolent of Arcadia, looked fit to refresh classical ideals, the black-clad men and white-tutued women with their diamond sheen in Symphony in C rallied en masse to celebrate ballet’s 19th-century heritage. This work premiered at the Paris Opera in 1947 as Le Palais de Cristal and uses a lost-and-found score by Georges Bizet. Yet its French perfume merely wafts by female cadres, demisoloist couples, and effusive principals who really share the thoroughbred stock of dancers from Balanchine’s St. Petersburg; here they were exercised with American brio and endurance.
True, the second movement of the ballet, with its adagio to double-reeds, luxuriates in Mediterranean ardor. Yet, in each other’s elite company, Jennifer Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra never let that summery languor stifle alertness. Sure, she could swoon into him, yet he’d pass his hands over her as if charged by an energy field. And when her leg shot out in a side developpé or an arabesque, it might have been a sword about to knight him.
The other movements, too, had the brilliance of an imperial court occasion. Mary Carmen Catoya and Renato Penteado started off the festivity with command. She looked a bit brittle at times, but established her rule with strength and precision. And, he drummed out entrechats as if those beats would lead an army. Quick to show devotion to the ballerina, he fearlessly carried out signature turns finished off with a knee to the floor.
In the third movement, Jeanette Delgado’s trademark smile crowned the mirth in her body. For those upswings, she found a fine partner in Alex Wong, whose jumps reached the heights. The ever-reliable Patricia Delgado and Jeremy Cox held their place in the finale. But here they were just two among a legion rocking the parade.
Sandwiched in the program between all those cavaliers, so worshipful of ladies with regal bearing, and Barocco’s charmed circle of nymphs that might have stepped off a frieze, the couples in Robbins’ In the Night came off as portraits of kin we could recognize. This, despite the trappings of Romanticism, with the tutus flowing, the men buttoned-up, and Nocturnes by Chopin setting the mood (Francisco Rennó at the piano). The women especially were more conflicted than any inhabiting the Balanchine pieces.
In fact, there is a key moment in the third part of In the Night where, after episodes of vigorous physical recrimination followed by mutual abandonment, the ballerina gingerly feels out her partner and sinks in expectation of reconciliation at his feet. She stoops to conquer, we might think and acknowledge her grandeur in appeasement.
Yet, as Deborah Jowitt reports in her biography of Robbins, that submissive gesture made Balanchine cringe. Idealizing females in the glam and glory of his ballerinas, he saw it as unacceptable in a portrayal of woman — never mind the failed relationships in his private life.
Jeanette Delgado colored in that memorable passage of peace-seeking tenderly and, with equally right strokes, mixed erotic ire into the lurch of desire in her encounters with Penteado. Their level of emotion found balance in the opening section, where Tricia Albertson and Didier Bramaz explored each other—here quietly nibbling at contact, there more ravenous in entwinement.
And, at the center of the work, Kronenberg and Guerra brought stability, in arm-in–arm walk or in lifts, unshakeable even when unexpected (at one point he cradles her upside down). In the end, all couples gathered and fleetingly interacted. Like the self reviewing the different phases of attraction? Or lovers wondering how they’d fare with different partners? In any case they concluded by reaffirming their romantic choices.
Photo: Deanna Seay in Concerto Barocco. Credit: Joe Gato.