Give And Take: The National Ballet of Canada’s Mixed Program

Svetlana Lunkina, Peng-Fei Jiang and Artists of the Ballet in Concerto. (Photo:Karolina Kuras, Courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada)

A mixed program is usually a study in contrasts with something new, something old and something breezily entertaining often sharing the same bill. The diversity of styles, frequently representing disparate ballet eras, creates its own sense of drama, making it a winning formula for companies wanting an alternative to the full-length classics that more draw in audiences. Take that variety away and a mixed program can fall flat, despite all good intentions. That’s the conclusion drawn from the National Ballet of Canada’s recent presentation of three works at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre, representing Hope Muir’s first curated program since becoming artistic director a year ago, while Karen Kain was still in charge. Comprising two contemporary ballet premieres and a modernist revival, the program unveiled on November 9 felt disconcertingly monotonous as a season opener. Thematically as well as stylistically, the ballets were more similar than they were different, particularly the contemporary pieces, whose shared fondness for over-busy choreography made them seem like two sides of the same ballet coin. The exception was the still centre of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto, a dazzler of abstract academic dance whose vivacious opening and closing sections bookended a pas de deux so serene it was blissful.

Sensual and Strong: The Return of the Canada All Star Ballet Gala

Maria Kochetkova and Carlo Di Lanno, both of San Francisco Ballet, dancing the pas de deux from Christoper Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour, one of a dozen premieres presented at the Canada All Star Ballet Gala in Toronto. (Photo: Karolina Kuras)

Second time strong. The follow-up edition to last season’s inaugural Canada All Star Ballet Gala gained in power with a sophisticated showcase of classical, neoclassical and contemporary ballet as performed by 17 new-generation ballet luminaries from nine of the world’s leading classical dance companies. Artistic director Svetlana Lunkina, the Bolshoi Ballet star who today is a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, curated the three-hour program whose one-time only performance played to a capacity audience at Toronto’s Sony Centre on Saturday night. She produced the show and also danced in it, raising her own barre high while making way for emerging talents like Anastasia Lukina from the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, and Dmitry Vyskubenko from the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich, both 19 years old. The evening delivered on a promise of new discoveries.

Aiming High: The National Ballet of Canada’s Mixed Program

Jillian Vanstone and Harrison James in After the Rain. (Photo: Karolina Kuras, courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada)

A departure, a beginning, a wobble, a blast from the past. The ebb and flow of life united four works seen on the mixed program that the National Ballet of Canada presented at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts last week. Amid two world premieres – one each by company principal dancer Siphe November and guest choreographer Alysa Pires – was the company debut of Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, and a reprise of Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations as the evening’s frolicsome conclusion. But one at a time.

Stars Through the Rain: Soirée des Étoiles/A Night With the Stars

Naoya Ebe (Photo by Karolina Kuras)

Rain fell heavily on the makeshift stage inside a tent set up outside on the Saint-Sauveur High School parking lot, and for most of the day local volunteers were kept busy sponging up puddles in anticipation of the evening’s highly anticipated international dance gala. It was a scenario that at first seemed to spell disaster for Soirée des Étoiles/A Night With the Stars, a two-hour program featuring leading dancers from The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and The National Ballet of Canada and Quebec intended to conclude the week-long Festival Des Arts de Saint-Sauveur (FASS) with two performances on Aug. 12 and 13. Tickets had been sold out weeks in advance and fears ran high that the star-studded talent, some of whose legs are insured for millions of dollars, could take a spill on the sodden stage. But not even the added burden of soaked-through front-row seats could dampen the spirits of the organizers. The show must go on, and without delay. Mais, oui! "Of course we have our fingers crossed," said executive director Etienne Lavigne anxiously before the curtain rose on the first of the gala’s two nights of performances. "Let's hope the weather cooperates."

It did, the rain letting up for the duration of the Friday night performance, which spelled a huge relief to ballet fans who had travelled great distances to attend the 25th-anniversary edition of the popular Francophone summer arts in the picturesque resort town of Saint-Sauveur, about a 45-minute drive north of Montreal. The lure was the opportunity to experience dance talent rarely seen in Quebec, if not the rest of Canada. The brainchild of Guillaume Côté, the National Ballet principal dancer and associate choreographer who assumed the role of FASS artistic director in the fall of 2014, the gala gathered together dancers from as far as London and New York to perform in close proximity to nature. Not a ballet dancer’s usual gig. Saint-Sauveur is not La Scala. But on this wet summer's night you could easily have confused the two based on dancing flair alone.

Adieu, Sylvie

Sylvie Guillem performing Technê in Life in Progress, at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre. (Photo: Bill Cooper)

As a seasoned dance critic and author of a history of the ballerina, I am often asked who my favourite dancer is. I never hesitate. The answer is Sylvie Guillem. I saw the goddess of the dance perform in a full-length ballet only once, in 1990 when the Paris-born ballerina was at the peak of her powers. But it was the kind of experience I needed to have only once to know that Guillem was the era’s supreme objet d’art.

The ballet in question was Don Quixote which Guillem’s mentor, the great Rudolf Nureyev, had staged for the Paris Opera using original choreography by Marius Petipa. Guillem was Kitri, the feisty female lead whose elegantly assured dancing is peppered with intricate pointe work, lightening quick jumps and whipping wrists that flutter a fan. Guillem danced the role as if she were born to it, sparking thunderous applause and a standing ovation for herself and her partner, Patrick Dupond.

Nureyev had invited me to this performance and insisted I meet him backstage so he could introduce me to his protégée. I remember that the spitfire I had watched in amazement only moments ago looked shy and retiring in Nureyev’s presence. Clasping her willowy arms behind the back of her tutu and shifting her weight back and forth in satin toe shoes scuffed and bruised from almost two hours of non-stop dancing, she waited anxiously behind-the-scenes to hear what Nureyev had to say.

The Russian devilishly bided his time, letting her squirm. After Nureyev had made her France’s top-ranking dancer, raising her to the position of étoile, the Paris Opera Ballet’s highest position, when she was just 19 years old, Guillem had a year earlier decamped to the Royal Ballet in London to become a principal guest artist. While Nureyev had obviously gotten over his feelings of betrayal, inviting Guillem back to dance in his ballet, he still wanted her to know who was boss.

Her fans crowed around her and she smiled at them but was clearly distracted. Her eyes were always on Nureyev. When he finally but slowly walked up to her everyone went silent. Grabbing hold of her pale hands, he looked Guillem in the eyes and declared in a voice that was barely above a whisper that she had been magnifique. You could feel the nervous tension rushing out of her in an exhalation of relief. She had been great, but she would believe it only when said from on top.

Canada All-Star Ballet Gala: From Russia with Love

Svetlana Lunkina and Ruslan Skvortsov in The Pharaoh's Daughter.

There's a lot of talk about Russia right now, about its extraordinary influence on other countries' political structures and growing impact on world affairs. That talk resonates on the front pages of newspapers. And, recently, it could also be heard at the ballet, where a program billed as masterpieces of the classical repertoire – despite also being composed of works from other nations – was Russian to the core. It couldn't help but be. Canada All-Star Ballet Gala, a one-night only performance that took place at Toronto's Sony Centre on February 11, owed its grandeur and impeccable styling to the great choreographers schooled at Russia's Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg more than a century ago. Artistic director Svetlana Lunkina knows that tradition well.