San Francisco Ballet: Muriel Maffre retires

In a weekend full of dramatic performances, San Francisco Ballet concluded its season at the War Memorial Opera House on Sunday night with a superb gala performance in which Muriel Maffre bid farewell to the company after seventeen years as a principal dancer.

If emotions ran high for the final shows of the company’s 74th season, the atmosphere for Sunday night’s celebration for Maffre--surely San Francisco Ballet’s most respected artist-- was at a fever pitch. Audience members seemed to be conflicted—torn between anticipating the unrivalled feast of seeing Maffre reinvent six of her best-known roles, and dreading the knowledge that her commanding presence will no longer grace the Opera House stage.

The 41-year-old Maffre joined San Francisco Ballet in 1990 as a principal dancer and over her tenure she has danced over 75 ballets, creating 21 of those roles-- more than any other dancer currently in the company. Her range includes everything from classical and Romantic roles like Sleeping Beauty and La Sylphide, to Balanchine works such as Bugaku, or Rubies. Known for her dedication to her artistry, and an inventive approach to her work, she is, unsurprisingly, a favorite with choreographers such as William Forsythe, Mark Morris, Yuri Possokhov, Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon, and unsurprisingly, as she danced many of those choreographers’ works this season, they took on an extra poignancy.

“Boy, this is really going to hurt,” one audience member was heard to mutter as we waited for the show to begin. “Do we have to start?”

Time is inexorable however, and the lights dimmed as conductor Martin West led the orchestra in Philip Glass’s portentous thrum, which heralded the excerpt of Jerome Robbins’ “Glass Pieces.” This adagio duet juxtaposes a faceless line of automaton-like dancers, who gently sway across the back of a dark stage, against the spectacularly alien couple of Maffre, partnered by a steady Pierre-Francois Vilanoba. And as with most of the evening’s pieces, it offered not only a meditative beauty, but also a chance to examine Maffre’s carefully calculated approach to her work.

Maffre falls into the category of what is commonly called a dancer’s dancer, which is to say that the level of her work draws the awe and respect of her fellow professionals. The audience appreciates the seamless appearance, the cool composure and fluidity of her performance, while other artists marvel at how neatly and intelligently the trajectory and momentum of each limb has been plotted out.

If the pauses between ballets might have, under other circumstances, seemed overlong, instead they became moments to reminisce, to process what had just been seen, and to wonder what she would offer next.

Maffre entered next-- stretching a toe forward with each step-- in George Balanchine’s “Agon,” partnered capably by Tiit Helimets. It’s a pas de deux that can have the look of circus-like contortions, but Maffre and Helimets chose instead to press every bit of drama out from each step.

Perhaps unknown about Maffre, however, is that she’s a comedienne with a sharp sense of comic timing. Partnered by a beaming, boyish and utterly charming James Sofranko, she reprised the short-guy-romances-tall-woman duet, “The Alaskan Rag” from Kenneth MacMillan’s “Elite Syncopations,” complete with perfectly timed dodges and near misses, ridiculously froufrou hat and an exhilarated smile.

Maffre’s best roles, however, are her most considered pieces, some of which have been honed over years of reinterpretation. The mood shifted back to the introverted with the second half of the program which began with her unusual ugly-is-beautiful version of Michel Fokine’s “The Dying Swan,” set to Camille Saint-Saens. Her broken flightless bird with sadly faded grandeur created an unforgettable moment marred only by the shouts of an over-eager audience member at the very end. It brought the packed house to its feet-- not for the last time that evening.

Perhaps her greatest gift, however is that, Maffre-- whose degree from St. Mary’s College has fed her interest in arts curating—offers performances that not only challenge herself and her partners, but also invite, even demand, more complex thought from the audience. Though dancers are not always considered to be the “creative force” in a new work, her performance with Damian Smith in an excerpt from Christopher Wheeldon’s “Continuum,” proves otherwise. Inventive in phrasing and execution, Smith and Maffre reconstitute this slow-moving pas de deux to the music of Gyorgy Ligeti as a series of inquiries directed at us.

To close the program, Maffre was joined by principals Vilanoba, Pascal Molat and Kristin Long, as well as most of the corps de ballet in the first half of William Forsythe’s “Artifact II.” If the dancers seemed to inject an extra measure of abandon into the piece, Maffre’s charges through space and wild pinwheels of legs in mesmerizing kinetic designs looked as grand they always have, only reinforcing the realization that she has never given a performance of this or any other ballet at less than 110%.

As an artist, Maffre is still undeniably at the peak of her powers. She has hinted that her performing days are not at an end, and if the ten minute standing ovation she received at the final curtain is any indication, there will always be an audience hungering to take part in her next challenge.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

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San Francisco Ballet: Firebird, Artifact, The Dance House

Yuri Possokhov surely has a goofy romantic streak in him. In his first commission for San Francisco Ballet as official Choreographer in Residence, Possokhov’s new version of the old Ballet Russes boy-meets-bird classic, “Firebird,” has a sleek contemporary aesthetic, but the moment when it really takes flight is in the sweetly naïve “first love” pas de deux for the Prince and Princess, danced at the premiere on Thursday night by Tiit Helimets and Rachel Viselli.

Possokhov originally created a version of “Firebird” for the Oregon Ballet Theatre in 2004, although the word is that he made substantial changes for this production. Nevertheless, although it had some standout moments—many of which center on a gleeful Pascal Molat, chewing the scenery as the demon Kaschei—this “Firebird” in the end doesn’t quite satisfy.

It’s not for lack of skillful collaborators. Adding the titular Firebird to her list of exotic creature roles, Yuan Yuan Tan gave the impression less of the mercurial critter we’ve come to expect, but a rather grander more haughty bird, and Helimets brings an doodle-headed charm to the not-too-bright-but-very-lucky Prince Ivan, who wins her allegiance and assistance in defeating the demon so he can win his princess.

Costume designs by Sandra Woodall explicitly call up the ballet’s Russian origins, but seem at odds with Yuri Zhukov’s elegant, rather minimalist sets. Taken separately, the pretty Russian dresses and the airy skeletal masses of the décor would stand up well, but seen together, they leave one with the sense of being half-in and half-out of a fairytale. The orchestra, under the baton of Martin West, also sounded unusually sluggish particularly through the dance of the demons and the final apotheosis, perhaps partly accounting for why the finale of the ballet, a scene usually heart-breaking in its gloriousness, appeared a little underwhelming.

Inevitably, however, one can’t help but compare this version with the original “Firebird,” a lavish work created by Michel Fokine in 1910 to a dazzling score by Igor Stravinsky that was seen locally a few years back when the Kirov Ballet brought a reconstruction to Cal Performances. While Possokhov retains most of the original libretto--conceived by Serge Diaghilev out of several Russian folktales-- his choice of the shorter “Firebird Suite,” devised by Stravinsky in 1945 instead of the full 1910 version of the score, has meant that much of the storytelling has been compressed, making for a good ballet, though not a great one.

On Thursday night, the company also returned to the blood red barre of David Bintley’s “The Dance House.” Created for SFB in 1994 in the maelstrom of the AIDS crisis, “The Dance House” had something of a histrionic feel when it debuted, but the years have softened the edges a little and abstracted the ballet into a better, though still programmatic sketch of doomed lives in the microcosm of a ballet classroom. In the central role of the bringer of death, Gonzalo Garcia unleashed a decidedly earthy, oddly sympathetic take on a problematic character created originally by Anthony Randazzo, while Tina LeBlanc and Kristin Long reprised the roles they created in the first and last movements respectively, joined by Viselli who gave a respectable inner quiet to her adagio pas de deux with Helimets.

More eagerly anticipated though, was the return of “Artifact Suite” William Forsythe’s deconstructed ballet which dazzled audiences last season, and which arrived on Program 1 on Tuesday night. With a lead cast as diverse as Muriel Maffre, Pierre-François Vilanoba, Lorena Feijoo, Pascal Molat and Elana Altman, it was clear that Forsythe’s idiosyncratic work is meant to look vastly different on every body. But just as clearly, it’s Maffre who makes the most of this freedom. Surrounded by ranks of corps members signalling enigmatic semaphores behind her, she traces a long arc with her leg that swoops into a teetering dive for maximum effect.

Notable in the masses of humanity that fill the stage was corps member Lily Rogers, whose incised, almost insolent lines brought unexpected clarity to the second movement. Rogers’ debut next week in the role of the Firebird should worth seeing.

A ballet like “Artifact” should always be on the program with a George Balanchine work. On Program 1 it was “Divertimento No. 15,” to the Mozart work of the same name and conducted by George Cleve. Watching the patterned brush of dozens of legs, the push through the hips in a step forward, the wide sweep of an arm, and then seeing it taken to a new extreme by Forsythe was like watching the journey that ballet has taken over the years. Among the five principal women of “Divertimento,” Katita Waldo offered exactly the right delicate pointe placement, turning mere steps into sparkling chains, which is not to detract from Kristin Long, Frances Chung, Vanessa Zahorian and Viselli, who navigated their solos with cheerful aplomb, as did the trio of principal men Gennadi Nedvigin, Jaime Garcia Castilla and Nicolas Blanc.

Also on Program 2 was Helgi Tomasson’s jaunty “Blue Rose,” and rounding out Program 1 was Jacques Garnier’s “Aunis” given a speedy slingshot velocity by Garrett Anderson, James Sofranko, and Rory Hohenstein.

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San Francisco Ballet: 2007 Opening Gala

It’s not often that pieces on a gala program surprise you, but San Francisco Ballet’s Opening Gala at the War Memorial Opera House on Wednesday night went beyond the usual star-studded pieces d’occasion to offer an evening of thoughtful, often provocative dance.

None was more surprising or engrossing than Yuri Possokhov’s “Bitter Tears,” a world premiere unveiled by Muriel Maffre, accompanied by countertenor Mark Crayton singing the famous “Stille Amare” or “Poison Aria” from G.F. Handel's “Tolomeo.” Combining spare modernism with a formality that evoked the court ballets of the 17th and 18th century, this startling work melded theater, opera and dance to explore tantalizing imagery. Even if Possokhov’s intentions were not immediately apparent to anyone unfamiliar with Handel’s tale of betrayal and death in ancient Egypt, the drama playing out onstage was nonetheless compelling. From her stately entrance, clad in a pale flesh colored leotard and a flame gold skirt, to her shedding of the skirt to reveal a diaphanous tutu frame, to her final throes in beautifully ugly sharpened angles, Maffre embodied the wisping vapor of poison itself twining around Crayton as he described his slow descent into death. This was not your usual gala fare.

As devotees of the company know, Maffre has announced her retirement from the company at the end of this season, though clearly she is still at the height of her artistic powers. Maffre has never seemed to worry much about going out on a limb in any performance, as if somehow she respects her audience enough to know they’ll appreciate the challenge of even the most esoteric interpretations, and the audience responds in equal measure.

An enigmatic air also surrounded Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith, who floated through dreamy, peripatetic acrobatics in a duet from Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain,” set to the music of Arvo Part. No less impressive, if more violent in its undertones was the Armenian-born Davit Karapetyan’s “Last Breath,” an impressively caustic solo to music from the film “Matrix Revolutions.”

The program also included several revivals of works from the 1970s-- among the most successful, Jacques Garnier’s 1979 ballet “Aunis,” which kicked off the entire program. Aunis is the old name for the area of France on the Atlantic coast around La Rochelle, and appropriately enough it was up to the trio of Frenchmen -- Nicolas Blanc, Pierre-François Vilanoba and Pascal Molat – to put their own stamp on the winged contractions and flights across the stage to Maurice Pacher’s arrangements of folktunes on accordion.

Tina LeBlanc and Gennadi Nedvigin gave their own wholly convincing spin to Gerald Arpino’s “L’Air d’Esprit,” a Romantic-tinged tribute to the great ballerina Olga Spessivtseva set to the music of the “Giselle” composer Adolph Adam. Nedvigin was more than suitably airy, but it was bravura precision and speed from LeBlanc – who surely has the fastest feet in the West -- that dazzled with its unexpected edginess.

In a different vein, San Francisco Ballet’s newest principal Molly Smolen offered a solo, “Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan,” accompanied on the piano by Roy Bogas. Smolen was coached in the role by Lynn Seymour -- for whom Sir Frederick Ashton originally created the piece in 1975 -- and she evinces something of Seymour’s wildness as she throws herself almost instinctively into the pure sensation and feeling of the arches and twining arms. If the deceptively simple-looking “Five Dances” seems a touch dated, it is nevertheless a credit to Smolen’s expressive powers that she kept it interesting to the end.

In a more classical vein, Lorena Feijoo and Tiit Helimets worked hard to infuse the duet from the second act of “Giselle” with a Romantic glow. Vanessa Zahorian gave her Aurora a bit of American attack in the grand pas de deux from “The Sleeping Beauty,” which SFB will perform in its entirety later in the season. Partnered by Gonzalo Garcia, who whipped through his solos with panache, Zahorian looks like the details of the role are still in development, even as the dancing hits a solid note technically.

Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun and Vilanoba unfurled a quiet air of composure and the intensity from the inside out to Helgi Tomasson’s contemplative “7 for Eight,” while Kristin Long and Joan Boada put the champagne fizz into Tomasson’s “Soirees Musicales,” a frothy display of virtuoso sauciness to the music of Benjamin Britten.

The evening, under the baton of Martin West, ended with the buoyant finale from George Balanchine’s “Symphony in C,” led by a sunny Frances Chung and Garrett Anderson.

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San Francisco Ballet: 2006 Gala and Swan Lake

San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House, Van Ness Avenue at Grove, San Francisco
through February 4

San Francisco Ballet Opening Gala: Wednesday January 25, 2006

A light drizzle didn’t at all dim the spirits of the happy souls promenading in all their finery at San Francisco Ballet’s Opening Gala last Wednesday night at the War Memorial Opera House. Indeed, the mood in the lobby was still so giddy at ten minutes after eight that most of the audience members were barely close to their seats when the lights went down.

That’s business as usual for the annual ballet gala, but the program Helgi Tomasson cooked up for the opening of the company’s 73rd season offered more than the usual finger-food. This year’s selection ventured from the classical to the contemporary in what could have been a statement on the range and diversity requisite for a 21st century ballet company.

There’s a reason why San Francisco Ballet, recently named company of the year by Dance Europe Magazine, not only remains in the top tier of classically-based companies in the world, but also has run in the black financially for fourteen years. How many troupes can field twenty nine dancers in an evening that calls for the exacting classicism of “Paquita,” the asperity of William Forsythe, the Romantic softness of “Chopiniana” and everything in between?

It was the dynamic trio of Katita Waldo, Kristin Long and Vanessa Zahorian who opened the program with a deliciously breezy rendering of Forsythe’s “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude,” partnered with agile precision by Nicolas Blanc and Pierre-François Vilanoba.

Muriel Maffre and Damian Smith, dancing a pas de deux from Yuri Possokhov’s “Reflections” offered a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a modernist enigma. In one long seamless moment that left behind a sense of longing and loss, Maffre and Smith managed to conjure far more of a Romantic essence than did Claire Pascal and Ruben Martin, whose duet from “Chopiniana” – also known as “Les Sylphides”—was curiously lacking in Romantic style.

In the “Black Swan” Pas de Deux, Lorena Feijoo ably demonstrated how to give an account of a character within the first minute of an entrance. The evil glint in her eye was perhaps a trifle dismissive of partner Davit Karapetyan -- the Armenian-born principal who joined the company this season from the Zurich Ballet -- but her caprices could not cloud the high spirits which emerged in his spectacular jumps.

Among the many other standouts of the evening were Pascal Molat, making a sharply specific and percolating debut in Hans van Manen’s “Solo,” Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun, who produced gasp-worthy articulation partnered by new principal Tiit Helimets in David Bintley’s “The Dance House,” and a brightly magnetic Gonzalo Garcia in fire engine red for Lar Lubovitch’s “Elemental Brubeck.”

SFB's: Swan Lake
San Francisco Ballet’s spring season got off to thoroughly satisfying start with Gonzalo Garcia making an impressive debut opposite Tina LeBlanc in Helgi Tomasson’s “Swan Lake,” which opened on Saturday night at the War Memorial Opera House.

Tomasson’s “Swan Lake” – first produced some 18 years ago -- is among the more succinct versions of the sprawling classic though in essence, it is unchanged from the famous version choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. His is also a visually pretty production.

Although the original story is set in Germany, the inspiration for the scenery and costumes, designed by Jens-Jacob Worsaae, is the floral French Rococo landscapes made famous by 18th century painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. Conceptually this doesn’t interfere with the basic story – boy meets swan, boy falls in love with swan, boy betrays swan, boy and swan plunge to their deaths -- although the court scenes in the first and third act can look a little overly fussy, which is in contrast with the streamlined dancing onstage.

Among the chief pleasures of the evening, though, was seeing Garcia tackle the sometimes problematic role of Siegfried. From the start, Garcia has always had the tools -- easy multiple turns, a lofty jump and an exuberant love of being on stage. But as he moves through the classical canon, he constantly adds nuance to his dancing, and never more satisfyingly so than in his Siegfried, where every movement becomes a part and parcel to his expressiveness. A double assemblé turn – tossed off with disarming ease – is no longer just a tricky step, but seems to echo the turmoil in a troubled prince’s thoughts. He acknowledges relationships with the other dancers onstage as he passes them during his variations, and in his partnering work, he is more sensitive to how his line not only complements, but completes his partner’s, and often adjusts accordingly.

In the dual role of Odette and Odile, LeBlanc displayed her customary security and the swift dagger-like pointe work which speaks volumes about her strength. Even so, though, she imbued her White Swan with a forlorn desperation, shaping the character in a simple arabesque that sank down to earth with both a melancholy plushness and a keenly accurate instinct for the music. When Garcia enfolded her in his arms, the small nuzzle into his neck could have melted an ice block.

By contrast her Black Swan had the feeling of a caricature of Odette rather than a shadowy alter ego, and in this, LeBlanc’s technical accomplishments seemed a hindrance that made her Odile a distant figure. So solidly invulnerable was her performance that the sparks never really flew between her and Garcia the way they did in the second act.

A casual observer might assume that LeBlanc -- who joined the company in 1992 and has done this role many times – was cast secondarily in the role of mentor to Garcia, who is a younger principal. It may well be the case, but to say that is to deny Garcia full credit for the intelligence with which he approaches every role. In fact it looks more like this pairing works --as it did so well in “Giselle” last season -- because there is a meeting of two astute minds. LeBlanc and Garcia have peppered their interpretation with details -- the way she barely touches his shoulder before falling into his arms, a quick understated glance under the arm – so that it looks like a partnership, rather than just two dancers moving in close proximity. Even if certain aspects didn’t work completely, their performance as a whole had coherence.

If the devil is in the details for the Swan Queen and her Siegfried, it is doubly true for the corps de ballet. This flock of sixteen swans, augmented by eight soloists, boasts fine dancers, but sadly, small things – heads tilted at different angles, arms raised to varying levels – betrayed a lack of attention to what is, to many people, a key part of the appeal of the lakeside scene. Some of the more meaningful aspects of the corps’ steps have been forgotten or distilled away. Gone, for instance, is the lovely twining motion of the arms that used to signify swans preening. The dancers now do a simplified classroom-style arm movement that conveys little of the supernatural quality of their swan-maiden duality.

The owlish Damian Smith made the most of his predatory, scenery-chewing role as the evil von Rothbart and the pas de trois in the first act got a lift from the girlish and light Vanessa Zahorian, who danced opposite a nervous looking but very pretty Rachel Viselli. Sergio Torrado, whose bravado is impressive but whose technique has just enough sloppiness to mar the effects, partnered them both. Possibly the two dancers having the most fun at the ball in the third act, however, were Elizabeth Miner and Pascal Molat, who danced a fast and furious Neapolitan.

Newly appointed music director Martin West wrung every bit of drama from the Tchaikovsky score, particularly in the ebb and flow of the second act. His leadership is a welcome relief, and if the orchestra seemed to flag at the end of the ballet, still they sound livelier than ever under his baton.

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