Rudy Candia and Alexsandra Meijer in Dennis Nahat's The Firebird. Photo by Robert Shomler.
Consider the poor Firebird. In our time on the ballet stage, she has been infantilized (by Yuri Possokhov), tropicalized (by John Taras) and politicized by (Maurice Béjart). The classic dance by Mikhail Fokine wasn’t looking so hot either the last time we saw her cavorting at the Kirov Ballet, thanks to the tampering by the choreographer’s granddaughter, Isabella.
So, there was room still for Ballet San Jose’s artistic director Dennis Nahat to do right by the feathery creature. That company’s version of Firebird concluded the 2007-08 season at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts over the weekend and it can certainly stand comparison with several of the others. Nahat, who originally choreographed the work in 2005, takes a chance that his predecessors forego. He doesn’t settle for one of the several suites from Firebird but uses Stravinsky’s entire 1910 score (heard, with much regret, on a shrill recording). The 44-minute length permits Nahat the time to construct a narrative of considerable amplitude.
The details pretty much hew to the line of the standard material. Prince Vladimir (an unnecessary change from the original’s Ivan) finds the fiery creature in the forest. She saves him from the clutches of the evil sorcerer Kastchei and enables him to rescue the Princess Irina and her captured maidens and to restore life to a dying land.
Assorted subplots and villains keep the pot boiling. I miss the smashing of the giant egg in other versions. And somehow, all the skirmishes don’t quite fill the time. But Nahat’s apotheosis is dandy: peasants clothed like those nesting dolls sold to tourists break out in a folk dance, arms linked, traipsing across the stage. I can’t say that the choreographer has found a movement solution to every note of a score containing some less than inspired pages (this was Stravinsky’s first Diaghilev commission, and there was still much for him to learn) but what Nahat has devised compels the interest.
Narratives often energize the 38 dancers of Ballet San Jose, and this Firebird was no exception. The performance Saturday (May 3) abounded in vital characterizations. Rudy Candia contributed a stalwart, not too bright Vladimir ("a L’il Abner type," as the great comedian Anna Russell once described Wagner’s Siegfried). Maximo Califano grimaced and clawed the air to convincing effect as Kastchei. Karen Gabay’s princess added a bit of spunk to what could have been a thanklessly recessive assignment. Alexsandra Meijer’s orangey bird fluttered convincingly, but Nahat might have given her more varied choreography.
Thanks to designer Ian Falconer, the look of this Firebird is glorious. The forest décor and portcullis of Kastchei’s castle want nothing in visual allure. The costuming is notable for its detail, while all of the villain’s minions drew the best from the artist. I was struck by the extent to which the warthog guards resembled the society matrons featured in Falconer’s marvelous New Yorker covers. Kenneth Keith’s lighting was suitably evocative.
Ballet San Jose in Dennis Nahat's The Firebird. Photo by Robert Shomler.
The program’s opening work, the abstract Mendelssohn Symphony, summoned fewer compliments. Created for American Ballet Theatre in 1971, when Nahat was on the roster, the work is another of several ballets that have deployed the "Italian" Symphony to less than memorable ends. There seems no emotional center to the choreography here. The second movement pas de deux is perfunctory, to say the least, and the pyrotechnics one expects from the final "Saltarello" just sputter on the stage, or at least they did in Le Mai Linh’s effortful display on Saturday.
The corps unisons rarely add up; patterns never acquire much architectural grandeur and the music is followed scrupulously but sound and sight never fuse in a distinctive manner. Mendelssohn Symphony may be the most generic dance Nahat has ever created. The women soloists, Gabay and Meijer, managed it all better than their male counterparts. But Mendelssohn Symphony is essentially about showing off your technique and there were too many wobbly pointe promenades and skewed balances to make one feel comfortable. Still, Nahat has brought along the male corps strikingly the past few years. Saturday, Preston Dugger impressed with a newly revealed refinement of attack.
In an earlier review, I noted that not a single work entered Ballet San Jose’s repertory this year, a fact my colleagues seemed unwilling to acknowledge. Nahat will make amends during the 2008-09 season. An evening of premieres choreographed by members of the company is on the schedule, as is an enticing triple bill of Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs, Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies and Nilas Martins’ Puccini Songs. Revivals of Flemming Flindt’s speculative resetting of Bournonville’s The Toreador and Nahat’s Midsummer Night’s Dream complete the programming. It all begins Nov 20.
