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It has been a great experience to see the two programmes the Boston Ballet presented in Spain. I would like to thank Ada Casanovas and Lienz Chang for organizing this tour to many places so that a wide range of Spaniards have had the possibility to appreciate the quality of this company. And of course thanks also to Peralada who always includes good ballets in its summer festival programme.
Even if outdoors stages are not the best locations to see ballet, for both the audience and mainly for the dancers because of the wet, the presentation and set had been impeccable.
On Tuesday 14, in Peralada, La Sylphide was performed in its main roles by Lorna Feijoo and Carlos Molina. This is a jewel that I had never attended live and I only had seen in TV the P. Lacotte version by Paris Opera dancers Aurélie Dupont and Mathieu Ganio. The work as it was presented by the Boston Ballet follows the original created by August Bournonville in 1836 adapted by Sorella Englund.
A precious jewel that I appreciated and enjoyed very much, with a lot of pantomime but that never looked stale or old-fashioned and with an exquisite Lorna, ethereal, flying on stage. Although her physical aspect does not correspond to a Nordic, she definitely was a Shylphide. Carlos Molina a perfect James up to the standard of that performance as well as all the company.
The only thing it happened to me is that maybe as I knew the other version, I found this one, very short, too short, the ballet was so beautiful and they danced so well!
I remembered that in Lacotte version there was less pantomime and that in the ball where the poor James dances with both his fiancée and the Sylphide that he is the sole to see, his trouble was more evident there and there was more dancing.
I assume that what I’m saying can be politically incorrect but this is what I felt. Anyway I left completely charmed by the performance and by Lorna, what a great artist! I remembered her from several performances, Cinderella, Coppélia, D.Q., somewhat 6 years ago in Barcelona with the BNC and I already thought she was a very good dancer.
And we were lucky as the day after we were going to see them again in a Balanchine programme and then we finished being astonished.
Serenade opened the show. Do they say that Mr. B. said ballet is woman? Well according to this piece this is really true! In Serenade the beauty of the ballet and the beauty of the woman, music in movement, carry us to a world where choreography and music meet each other in the most perfect way, creating breathtaking and precise scenes in which men are only appearing in few occasions to the service of the ballerinas and also with an elegance of movement that never breaks the harmony and finesse of the piece. The beautiful Tchaikovsky’ serenade for strings -I adore it!- is slightly changed, adapted to the choreography.
Who Cares? music by Georges Gershwin was the following work, we already know it as Ángel Corella has included it many times in his tours with ABT dancers in Spain. This Balanchine’s tribute to New York city and to the composer mixex ballet and jazz and has a great USA scent.
And to close, another masterpiece, The Four Temperaments, music by Paul Hidemith, “cold” work when compared with the previous ones and this is where its beauty resides. Dancers perform with high precision. We observe a fusion between ballet and modernity in the way they dance that make it to be the most “contemporary” of the three. Very beautiful piece, high level performance.
The two days the audience largely applauded the artists, maybe a little more in the Balanchine’s programme, it can be because it was the farewell the typical stamping with feed in the stands to show enthusiasm were longer and audible.
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To know more about ballet and dance in Spain you can visit "http://balletymas.com/" web page with some articles also in English
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