There’s a lot of personality onstage in “Jewels” — some sparkling, some flawed. George Balanchine’s setting of three ballets matched to gemstones is the centerpiece of the final week of New York City Ballet’s fall season.
Balanchine occasionally used the delicate first ballet, “Emeralds,” as on-the-job training for virtuoso ballerinas to gain polish and depth. This is just the challenge for Ashley Bouder.
She’s a natural for the honky-tonk “Rubies” that follows, but “Emeralds” forces her to keep her killer instincts in check. She can’t help being vivid: In her solo, moving her arms in elegant poses, she seems as excited as a young girl at the mirror trying on long gloves before her first ball.
Sometimes it’s too much, whereas Jenifer Ringer, in the other female lead, is smooth and pitch-perfect to the mellow Fauré music.
“Rubies,” to a jazzy Stravinsky score, was less of a gem. In his first shot at the male lead, Andrew Veyette overcompensated. Throwing his partner Sterling Hyltin around as he entered, it looked uncomfortably like violent anger. Even at his most charming — when he smiled — it was a messy performance. He bashed through jumps, and his feet flopped around as if he’d forgotten Ballet 101.
All the same, when Hyltin first danced “Rubies” last year, she also looked sketchy, and she’s made tremendous strides in figuring it out. She sliced through her part with a sharp, mischievous attack. In a year, Veyette could look better as well.
In the finale, a girl was a diamond’s best friend as Sara Mearns capped the evening in a larger-than-life performance.
Partnered by Charles Askegard, who makes his retirement bow on Sunday, Mearns started “Diamonds” off cool, but by the finale filled the stage with romance and abandon, her every breath a swoon.
She’s an unpredictable, risky dancer, balancing precariously as Askegard let her loose for an unsupported turn, or spinning off the stage in a blur. But what makes her a ballerina is the fantasy that she finds in Tchaikovsky’s emotional score: She comes to center stage, stands still on her toes and faces us as if this is the only moment — in all of time — that matters.