When my mother and her brother were little, their aunt and uncle would give each of them 50 cents for an ice-cream cone\u2014two scoops. The cost was 25 cents per scoop. As I understand it, my uncle would then slip them each another quarter, saying, \u201cMake it a triple.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought of this, so help me, at the American Ballet Theatre last night. ABT<\/span> has begun its season at the Metropolitan Opera House. The offering was Ratmansky Trio<\/i>, which consists of three one-act ballets choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, the Russian-American wonder. He is ABT<\/span>\u2019s artist-in-residence. You could also call Ratmansky Trio<\/i> a Ratmansky sampler.<\/p>\n The first of the three ballets was Songs of Bukovina<\/i>. Bukovina? Yes, a region now divided between Romania and Ukraine. The music is by Leonid Desyatnikov, a Russian born in 1955. He has composed many film scores, and he is a frequent collaborator with Ratmansky.<\/p>\n Songs of Bukovina<\/i> uses, not songs exactly, but piano preludes by Desyatnikov. They are an eclectic bunch: jazzy and bluesy; a touch minimalistic; rustically dancing; dissonant and forbidding; songful and Chopinesque; and so on. One prelude features ghostly trills, \u00e0 la Scriabin.<\/p>\n For piano preludes, you need a pianist, of course, and he was Jacek Mysinski, a graduate of the Juilliard School. The first line of his bio tells us that he \u201cis considered to be one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation.\u201d Hyperbole aside\u2014and this is the norm, for bios\u2014Mysinski is the genuine article, a real pianist.<\/p>\n When you heard the music, and watched the dancers, you thought the choreography was almost inevitable. It could almost be no other way.<\/p>\n Where was the piano, by the way? I\u2019m not entirely sure. In the orchestra pit, on the left? Another question: Is the Metropolitan Opera House congenial to a piano? Horowitz played a few recitals there, but he was on the stage. At any rate, I think a piano in the house works (even from the pit). But you had better listen intently. You can\u2019t talk, cough, or rustle too much, as you might when an orchestra is playing.<\/p>\n Obviously, Alexei Ratmansky has a rare, rare gift for choreography. He knows how to match movement and music. Let me expand: When you heard the music, and watched the dancers, you thought the choreography was almost inevitable. It could almost be no other way.<\/p>\n One of the leading dancers was Isabella Boylston, who, in any number of ballets, is girlish and elegant at the same time. I don\u2019t think she aims for this combination. I suspect it is natural to her, and it is a lucky combo.<\/p>\n At some point during Songs of Bukovina<\/i>, a baby started crying, loudly. He (or she) was hustled out. I had to smile. I appreciated the baby\u2019s interruption, in a way. It was very human. You were not watching a video\u2014you were in public. Also, you never<\/i> hear a baby crying at the opera (or at least I don\u2019t). Maybe there\u2019s enough crying onstage?<\/p>\n Jacek Mysinski, the pianist, duly joined the dancers for bows. He rather looks like a dancer himself, with a lean frame. Enjoyably unshy, he thrust his arms out at the audience and blew kisses.<\/p>\n The second of the evening\u2019s ballets was On the Dnieper<\/i>, by Prokofiev. I was just writing about Prokofiev ballets\u2014but not this one. In Carnegie Hall, Yuja Wang had played Prokofiev\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 5, which is virtually never performed. Describing the work, I said, \u201cYou can hear in these movements the coming ballets, namely Romeo and Juliet<\/i> and, especially, Cinderella<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n Prokofiev wrote this concerto in 1932; On the Dnieper<\/i> came two years before. It is not on the level of Romeo and Juliet<\/i> or Cinderella<\/i>\u2014what is?\u2014but it is pure Prokofiev: sassy, rude, modernist, folkloric, edgy, romantic, martial, mournful, tragic . . .<\/p>\n The ballet tells a story\u2014star-crossed lovers and all that\u2014and ABT<\/span>\u2019s dancers put on a clinic of storytelling through dance. (They weren\u2019t hurt by Ratmansky\u2019s choreography, of course.) To single out but one of the dancers, James Whiteside demonstrated what it is to explode in fury (balletically).<\/p>\n James Whiteside demonstrated what it is to explode in fury (balletically).<\/p>\n Third in Ratmansky Trio<\/i> was The Seasons<\/i>\u2014not by Tchaikovsky. That\u2019s a piano work. Not by Vivaldi, either. We are talking about the ballet by Glazunov, a ballet that might be dubbed \u201cThe People\u2019s Idea of a Ballet.\u201d It is what many expect from a ballet, a pleasing, heart-lifting classic.<\/p>\n Ignoring the dancers, let me speak of the orchestra. I have now and then knocked the ABT<\/span> orchestra, saying it was too far below the standards of the dancers onstage. In The Seasons<\/i>, the orchestra sounded like\u2014forgive an insulting expression\u2014a real orchestra. The soloists were worthy of the soloists onstage. I mean the flutist, the oboist, the clarinetist\u2014and yet others.<\/p>\n Among the dancers were children, which brought \u201caww\u201ds from the audience. (The aww-dience?) Is there anything more aww-inducing than kids dancing ballet?<\/p>\n A final word, concerning music: Sometimes, people ask me what the music I use on my Q&A<\/i><\/small> podcast is\u2014the music that opens and closes the show. It is the last movement of Glazunov\u2019s Symphony No. 5, \u201cHeroic.\u201d Why this symphony does not get more airtime\u2014why it lies under a bushel\u2014I really don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Ratmansky trio from American Ballet Theatre<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1258,"featured_media":120097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[1478,1073,884,637],"dispatch-city":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fb0bff29d65","label":"Participants","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"object","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"featured_image_credits":{"simple_value_formatted":"A scene from <\/i>The Seasons. Photo: Rosalie O\u2019Connor.<\/i>","value_formatted":"A scene from <\/i>The Seasons. Photo: Rosalie O\u2019Connor.<\/i>","value":"A scene from <\/i>The Seasons. 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