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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » The New York City Ballet leaps into its second halfcentury at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center July 5-15, bringing dancers and dances second to none. Bold new works by Alexei Ratmansky and dynamic resident choreographer Justin Peck will join nine classic creations of company co-founder George Balanchine and two of Jerome Robbins’ best-loved ballets.
Six entirely different programs, each performed twice, equal an 18-ballet season ideal for both dance lovers and newcomers to the art.
Opening night’s “AllAmerican” program (July 5, repeated July 7) promises fireworks, beginning with ballet master in chief Peter Martins’ 1990 “Fearful Symmetries,” which displays NYCB’s amazing agility to John Adams’ kinetic score. In Justin Peck’s new “The Times Are Racing,” the company laces up sneakers to dance—and sometimes tapdance—to electronic minimalist Dan Deacon. The evening climaxes with a big, brassy blast, “Stars and Stripes,” Russian-born Balanchine’s loving 1958 tribute to his adopted country. Sousa marches set the dancers leaping, spinning, and strutting in a great American ballet.
“All Balanchine” (July 6, 8 matinee) shows how Balanchine transformed traditional ballet into something modern and American. It includes two Russian-flavored Tschaikovsky works. He called his 1956 “Allegro Brillante” “everything I know about classical ballet in 13 minutes.” His 1951 one-act “Swan Lake,” with Odette, the swan-queen, reigning over black swans, presents the great classic minus the boring bits. The gorgeously sleek 1972 “Stravinsky Violin Concerto,” one of his purest modernist cre-
ations, shows how Balanchine’s American dancers inspired a radically new classicism. “Tarantella,” from 1960, a delirious canyou-top-this pas de deux to Gottschalk, adds a dash of Italian-American spice.
Though famous for stripping ballet to essentials, eliminating narrative and fancy sets and costumes, Balanchine told stories all his life, and “Balanchine Short Stories” (July 14, 15) offers three great ones. In “La Sonnambula,” a 1946 Romantic tragedy, a poet loves a mysterious sleepwalker; Vittorio Rieti’s music interweaves themes from Bellini operas. “Prodigal Son,” to Prokofiev, fleshes out the biblical parable of sin and redemption, dramatizing the Son’s seduction by a Siren and his heartbreaking journey home. The production preserves the expressionistic 1929 Ballets Russes production. And in Balanchine’s grand 1949 fairytale, “Firebird,” the mythical bird helps Prince Ivan defeat a sorcerer and rescue his princess. Stravinsky’s famous score, Marc Chagall’s fantastical sets and costumes, and Jerome Robbins’ comically grotesque monster dances enhance the magic. The finale includes several local dance students.
Another Balanchine story highlights the “All Richard Rodgers” Ballet Gala (July 8, 15m). In his jazzy, sexy “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” from the 1936 musical “On Your Toes,” a Hoofer romances a Striptease Girl attached to a gangster. Both appear doomed, until the ballet pulls a surprising twist. The Gala pays homage to Rodgers’ two major collaborations. Martins’ 2003 “Thou Swell” is truly a guilty pleasure, chocked with lush, flashy dancing for four couples to 16 great Rodgers and Hart numbers, while Christopher Wheeldon’s “Carousel (A Dance),” from 2002, evokes the dreamy atmosphere of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
That Broadway-ballet man, Jerome Robbins, gets an evening devoted to his loveliest ballet and his funniest, both to Chopin music (July 11, 13). His sublime 1969 “Dances at a Gathering” presents five men and five women in solos, duets, and larger ensembles to Chopin piano pieces, an hour of endless invention and beauty. His hilarious “The Concert,” from 1956, exposes the secret desires of a recital audience, particularly a husband’s fantasy of ditching his nagging wife for an emotional young woman addicted to floppy hats. “The Concert” is LOL dance, especially the section justly nicknamed “The Mistake Ballet.”
This summer also shows NYCB extending its remarkable choreographic tradition with a “21st-Century” program (July 12, 13m). In Martins’ 1992 “Jeu de Cartes,” a balletic poker game to Stravinsky, two kings and a knave wittily compete for the queen of hearts, and two new ballets show two of today’s most celebrated young choreographers at top form. Peck’s “The Decalogue,” to ten piano pieces by Sufjan Stevens, his collaborator on two previous ballets, and Ratmansky’s “Odessa,” to Leonid Desyatnikov, his composer for “Russian Seasons,” take both dance makers into uncharted territory, inspired by NYCB’s extraordinary dancers.
SPAC offers family incentives for NYCB performances. Amphitheater seats for children 15 and under cost only $20; kids’ lawn tickets remain free. Fulltime students with school ID can buy evening amphitheater seats an hour before curtain for $15. Preperformance programs with dance experts or NYCB dancers at the Hall of Springs are now free but require online reservations.
Evening performances begin 8 p.m., with Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2 p.m.. For further information, visit www.spac. org, or call the box office at (518) 584-9330.