Friday, February 25, 2011

Opera music provides lush backdrop for New Jersey Ballet program

Published: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 1:53 PM

Grand Opera seems to demand elaborate scenery. And for ?Opera on Pointe,? a program playfully set to opera music, New Jersey Ballet enthusiastically accessorized the action with painted backdrops, props and visual effects, Saturday at the Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts in Morristown.

Yet for some of the marvelous ballets, the stage remained unadorned and colored light supplied the only frame.

High production values are always welcome, and the lush orchestral scores of opera composers such as Bizet, Gounod, Massenet, Ponchielli and Puccini are a gold mine. Most important, New Jersey Ballet never skimps on the essential elements of fine dancing. The dancers? artistry was primarily responsible for this concert?s stirring effects.

?Opera on Pointe? adapted a gala program that the company first offered in 2007, so all the ballets on the program were familiar. Choreographer Nai-Ni Chen?s ?The Three Riddles of Turandot,? an operatic distillation created in 2009, still excites with its novelty, however, and it is always a pleasure when New Jersey Ballet revives some of the durable successes of its late resident choreographer, George Tomal.

In addition to Tomal?s buoyant staging of ?Dance of the Hours? from ?La Gioconda,? and excerpts from ?Carmen,? Saturday?s program featured pas de deux from ?El Cid? and ?Thais,? and a rousing program-closer, the bacchanal ?Walpurgisnacht? from ?Faust.? Although opera can be grisly (in its original setting, the ?Dance of the Hours? takes place outside a torture chamber of the Inquisition), the specter of tragedy was banished and replaced by an atmosphere of fantasy and romantic indulgence.

True, one unfortunate suitor loses his life in ?Turandot,? but after this character?s perfunctory beheading (they could hardly do without it), Kerry Mara Cox, as Turandot, and guest artist Konstantin Kolotov, as Calaf, get down to the main business of seduction.

The whole multi-layered production, with its symbolic ensembles, banners and other fabric props used for spectacular effect, is a kind of striptease in which the heroine is gradually unveiled, her facade melting in the heat of Calaf?s importunate desire.

Similarly ?Carmen,? minus its final, deadly act, focuses on rapture. Ekaterina Smurova?s Carmen is still willing to break the rules, standing impudently with her feet in parallel positions ? but she is not a femme fatale. This Carmen does not yet demand her freedom, so Smurova and her partner, Sergio Amarante, can frolic like innocents.

Another duet, ?El Cid,? is more flirtatious, although the relationship between two Spanish dandies is complicated by their competition for the spotlight.

Originally a showcase for Bolshoi stars Leonid Kozlov and Valentina Kozlova, this is a bravura pas de deux in which the ballerina?s frivolous temperament and the suspense of her partner?s drawn-out preparations are part of the fun. New Jersey Ballet?s stylish Mari Sugawa and Albert Davydov, the ballet?s aerial stuntman, made the most of it.

Still, the highlight of the evening was Tomal?s staging of the ever popular ?Dance of the Hours.? While its boisterous episodes reward New Jersey Ballet?s newest members ? notably Kit Nemecek ? with opportunities, the choreographer also creates an exquisite frame for the principal couple in the ?Midnight? section, separating them at their entrance to create suspense, then uniting them in lyrical promenades.

Ballerina Gabriella Noa-Pierson displayed an elegant line, and a dramatic diagonal of traveling ?fouett�? turns made her the black diamond in this classical setting.

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