★★★★✰ I had missed SFB’s London season at Sadler’s Wells in 2019, so was pleased to catch up with ballets brought together for this digital triple bill.
Tag - Gennadi Nedvigin
★★★✰✰ This summer's showcase of English National Ballet School's students was the first under its new director, Carlos Valcarcel... The Wimbledon programme consisted of two creations by him, two by students, and excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty as a conclusion.
★★★★✰ The company’s first regular-season commission from Czech choreographer Jiří Bubeníček, "Fragile Vessels", is a 40-minute meditation on love, loss and reconciliation.
★★★★✰ San Francisco Ballet (SFB) saved the best for its last mixed bill of the 2016 season.
★★★✰✰ "But despite his high concept, Scarlett seemed to lose the thread halfway through, resorting to lascivious theatrics to complete the work..."
★★★✰✰ By way of a défilé, the evening opened with the “Waltz of the Hours” from Balanchine and Danilova’s Coppélia ...Soloist Jennifer Stahl led two dozen girls from the SFB School, adorable in cotton-candy tutus.
Fall For Dance is a genuine feast, a display of unparalleled variety and plenty. When well-balanced, nothing is sweeter... but occasionally the flavors clash, and the abundance overwhelms.
Program 3 features Hans van Manen's Variations for Two Couples, William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Manifesto by Myles Thatcher and “The Kingdom of the Shades” from La Bayadère.
The SF Ballet premiere of choreographer-in-residence Yuri Possokhov's pas de deux from Bells is my all-round favorite of the evening. Sublime dancing from Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan...
Audience applause during the evening recognised that Scarlett’s Hummingbird was the starry centrepiece of the three Paris premieres.
The best all-round piece of the evening is Hans van Manen’s Variations for Two Couples, from the exquisitely concise choreography by this still-relevant master...
San Francisco Ballet – From Foreign Lands, Beaux, Classical Symphony and Symphonic Dances – New York
In its second mixed bill here in New York, San Francisco Ballet once again impressed with its vitality and the depth of its bench, as well as with its pleasantly unified look.
San Francisco Ballet is in town for two weeks, and on the evidence of opening night, this should be an invigorating visit. The company looks to be in top form.
From Foreign Lands: "This amusing, yet subtle send-up of classical ballet is rewarding in its expertly-shaped choreography, and made all the more appealing by the slight wackiness of the costumes and visual jokes."
Perhaps the best pas de deux of the evening, judging by the audience reaction, is one from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain.
The mixed bill proved once again that San Francisco Ballet is a dedicated promoter of new work...
San Francisco’s second programme was better balanced than the first, with contrasting works created for the company within the past two years.
The sixty-five-year-old The Four Temperaments is now a senior citizen, but not even close to retiring...
Kochetkova and Boada were so transcendent that even this microscope-eyed critic could soar with them beyond the less than ideal frame of Tomasson’s version.