Shining ‘Serenade,’ rapid ‘Rodeo’
With “The Sleeping Beauty” safely awakened for a while, the San Francisco Ballet got down to exalting the major dances of its own time Tuesday, Feb. 13, setting a standard and leaving a glow that may last through the season at the War Memorial Opera House. Yes, there was a problematic entry in the middle, but the formal company premiere of Justin
San Francisco Ballet Program 2: Dances by George Balanchine, Benjamin Millepied, Justin Peck. Through Saturday, Feb. 24. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, San Francisco. (415) 8652000. www.sfballet.org
Justin Peck’s fast-paced “Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes” is featured in the San Francisco Ballet’s Program 2. Peck’s delectable romp, “Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes” (previewed at the 85th season gala last month), and a serenely masterful revival of George Balanchine’s 1935 “Serenade” both satisfied in a way that mixed programs rarely do.
Both raise the matter of narrative ballet and dismiss it. Instead of using the ballet score that Aaron Copland composed for Agnes de Mille in 1942,
Peck, resident choreographer of and part of a team that is running New York City Ballet since the resignation of Peter Martins in 2017, worked with the orchestral suite made later. Yet this 2015 work captures the same mood, one of limitless energy and occasional loneliness, that men might have felt in the Old West. There’s only one woman in this version, and she’s no wilting violet as she confronts her man.
It’s a ballet for guys, 14 of them, and Peck gives them scarcely a moment’s rest as they slip in and out of unison. Dressed in sporting outfits, they link arms, separate, regroup, sweep across the stage. Peck phrases every moment as if he’s testing himself to see how much he can cram into one phrase. You dare not look away for fear of missing something.
Tuesday’s “Rodeo” emerged a lot better than it did on opening night; the cast flew through it. The three men leading the first episode (Esteban Hernandez, Hansuke Yamamoto, Wei Wang) seemed like undergraduates on a spree. Jaime Garcia Castilla, Max Cauthorn, Benjamin Freemantle, Steven Morse and Sean Orza captured the tricky moves of the second part. Sensitively partnered by Ulrik Birkkjaer (an import from the Royal Danish Ballet), Dores André brought both vulnerability and grit to her assignment. Martin West conducted vigorously.
“Serenade” is danced so frequently that, since its creation in 1935, some observers have believed there’s a hidden story. That was impossible to accept in Elyse Borne’s restaging. From the first moments, as the 17 women pose with raised arms in unison and then turn out into first position, right to the final moments, every one of the dancers seemed driven by the Tchaikovsky score, indeed, to quote a wise man, they seemed the vessel through which the music passed. Yuan Yuan Tan and Carlo Di Lanno lent the waltz duet a subdued lyricism, while Mathilde Froustey and Jennifer Stahl radiated star power. This may just be the best “Serenade” performed by the company in 30 years.
There was less reason to cheer Benjamin Millepied’s “The Chairman Dances — Quartet for Two,” previewed at last year’s gala. Millepied is more adept than most choreographers (Lucinda Childs excepted) at meeting minimalist scores on their own terms. Hopes were raised when a contrapuntal moment summoned a traveling couple. But adeptness counts for only so much. Millepied has added a postlude, four duets set to John Adams’ early “Christian Zeal and Activity,” that leave you bewildered, but not particularly bewitched. Allan Ulrich is The San Francisco Chronicle’s dance correspondent.