Skinny women, handsome men and crazy costumes: American Ballet Theatre’s opening night gala Monday had it all, and that was just the audience. Uma Thurman, Ashlee Simpson and Lucy Liu walked the red carpet, gowns and tuxedos clogged the aisles and, as with most galas, the performances ranged from sluggish to spectacular.
The program was a mix of coming attractions and one-night-only bonbons. In the first of the premieres, the members of the top tier of the company’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School showed off their good manners in “Cortège,” a charming piece by their teacher Raymond Lukens — all gracious partnering and neatly weaving lines.
Another premiere — fashioned by principal dancer Marcelo Gomes — was a dramatic duet for Roberto Bolle and Julie Kent. In “Apothéose,” set to the fateful second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Bolle lifted Kent’s inert body along the floor before she wrapped round him as they headed toward the unknown. The languid partnering made it a solid vehicle for senior ballerina Kent, and a crowd-pleaser, as well.
Almost all the principal dancers were onstage, with the exception of Russian sensation Natalia Osipova, whose minor foot injury set off a domino chain of recasting. This didn’t stop Osipova’s fiancé, Ivan Vasiliev, from giving a jet-propelled performance in “Le Corsaire.” Bare-chested and slathered orange with man-tan, he posed with burning stares, then took off in a circuit of double air turns, going straight up like a rocket out of a silo. It was a mouthwatering mix of epic technique and epic kitsch.
The company hasn’t danced Balanchine’s “Symphony in C” in a decade, and it shows. The dancers performed it as if it were in a foreign language, and for Russian ballerina Veronika Part, it is. She danced a soulful adagio with rapturous swooning movement but not a lot of strength. Among the bright spots: James Whiteside opening with the right go-for-it attack, and Sarah Lane and Jared Matthews dancing the last movement with both scale and precision.
Balanchine’s ever-unfolding finale is like those Ginsu knife ads: “But wait! There’s more!” Still, flooding the stage with women in white and men in black is a surefire way to keep the onstage action as glitzy as it is in the seats.