Russian ballerina and Uniqlo model Polina Semionova has one of the best smiles in ballet and an unflappable ease as Sylvia, the chaste star of Frederick Ashton’s ballet for ABT. (Mira)
Italy’s Roberto Bolle, even while airborne, is a study in geometry and style — he also works offstage as a Gap model. (MIRA (2))
Russian ballerina and Uniqlo model Polina Semionova has one of the best smiles in ballet and an unflappable ease as Sylvia, the chaste star of Frederick Ashton’s ballet for ABT.
Were we watching American Ballet Theatre or “America’s Next Top Model?”
Russia’s Polina Semionova and Italy’s Roberto Bolle — featured, respectively, in ads for Uniqlo and Gap — are awfully easy on the eyes, especially when clad in skimpy togas for Frederick Ashton’s pastoral “Sylvia.”
Set in a mythical arcadia of nymphs and shepherds, the 1952 ballet revolves around Sylvia, an acolyte of Diana the huntress, goddess of chastity. Bolle plays Aminta, the shepherd who’s smitten with her. With the help of Eros, god of love, he wins her hand.
“Sylvia” was tailored for the legendary — and short — Margot Fonteyn. Though Semionova’s a willowy 5-foot-8, she was unflappable in every tricky balance and turn. In her opening dance with her fellow huntresses, she even gave a victorious fist pump.
It’s no wonder Semionova moonlights as a model — she has one of the best smiles in ballet.
Bolle’s more than just a pretty face, too. His dancing was clean and pure, with his elegant proportions, the perfect right angle of his arabesque looked like a geometry proof.
He was a strong, confident partner, carrying Semionova onstage high overhead with one hand.
In supporting roles, Jared Matthews postured and threw his arms skyward with wicked glee as the hunter who abducts Sylvia. He seemed to relish the chance to be the bad guy, and was a breath of fresh air after all those nymphs and shepherds.
For much of Act 1, Craig Salstein stood motionless as the classical statue of Eros, but came to life with the humor that’s his specialty.
Though Delibes’ luscious score is full of tunes, “Sylvia” has an obscure plot with little dramatic tension, so the ballet stands or falls on the dancing.
Ashton helps by filling the stage with beautifully crafted numbers for the corps in homage to the great 19th-century ballets.
Before Sylvia appears from a ship, the corps rocks across the stage like the waves that carry her home.
This supermodel pairing performs again tomorrow. “Sylvia” is a ballet-lover’s ballet, but if the story is Greek to us, the dancing isn’t.