At my first performance, Ashley Ellis was a first-rate Odette/Odile, giving a nearly flawless performance. (I’m assuming that flawless performances transpire only in Heaven or some other extraterrestial locale.)
Tag - Jeffrey Cirio
Like the best comedians, Ekman is as facetious as he is profound, leaving the viewer with plenty to ponder post-performance.
To close its 50th anniversary season Boston Ballet mounted a splendid production of Balanchine’s 1967 masterpiece Jewels.
The evening ended with Alexander Ekman’s Cacti, one of the most wildly original, hilarious dances I’ve ever seen. If the Keystone Cops had taken up ballet, this is what they’d have looked like.
Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella is one of the great ballets of the 20th century and a triumph of his career.
As for the whole ballet, it’s a 19th century expression of the racist Orientalist view that says India is a land of groveling slaves and despotic rajahs, unbridled lust and pervasive corruption, abundant opium and yielding odalisques. ...Once past all that, however, it’s a lavish and thrilling spectacle with abundant pleasures for eye and ear.
Boston audiences were very lucky in their first two Swanildas. Opening night, Misa Kuranaga was a vision of loveliness...
The opening night Aurora and Désiré were danced by Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Cirio, a superbly matched couple who have become a standard in the company.
And together, Kuranaga and Cirio make a superb couple, performing with such sensitive musicality and balanced unison that it sometimes seems you’re watching a single composite creature.
And I’ll close with more praise of Maina Gielgud. I’ve never seen a ballet she’s set that hasn’t been absolutely first-rate. Boston Ballet has performed her Giselle for many years now and it’s easily my favorite Giselle, just as this production is now my favorite Don Quixote.
But in Sharper, aggressively awkward movements are kept to a minimum: the ugly is reduced, and the residue now acts like a tonic of wit. And for the first time in Elo’s work, at least in my experience, we find a lyricism and beauty so profound they sometimes took my breath away.