|
|
Welcome Back
|
|
Kazimir's Colours.
|
By Don Kolman
It is always a pleasure to welcome into your home again a good friend who has been absent for too long. That is exactly how the audience at the Orange County Performing Arts Center's Segerstrom Hall received the Stuttgart Ballet at their opening night performance Tuesday evening. The Stuttgart Ballet, absent from Southern California for nearly twenty years, was greeted with constant loud and enthusiastic applause at both appropriate and inappropriate times.
The evening program opens with a ballet new to this area. Kazimir's Colours' choreography by Mauro Bigonzetti to the Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Orchestra by Dmitri Shostakovitch is acrobatic, clever, and witty. It is a great audience favorite. At times it does, however, appear just a trifle busy. The lighting by Carlo Cerri is highly imaginative and the costumes by Lucia Socci are just right.
Kazimir's Colours is brilliantly danced by soloist Bridget Breiner and principal dancer Robert Tewsley and the entire Corps de Ballet. Miss Breiner is a wonderful dancer who is both nimble of body and fleet of foot. Mr. Tewsley is not only an outstanding dancer but an extremely strong partner. He is certainly a major factor in making Miss Breiner look as good as she does in this piece.
The second piece, Dos Amores, is not as successful. The choreography by Christian Spuck is cluttered and too busy, and the music by Thierry de Mey and Antonio Vivaldi is an odd hodgepodge of the old and the new. Mr. Spuck has tried to do too many things in too short a time. Some of his choreography is clever, but there is just way too much of it. What, one also wonders, is the purpose of the bodiceless red dress on the men?
The members of this company can dance, and in Dos Amores they do get a workout. Standouts are Mr Tewsley again and Roberta Fernandes.
The evening program comes to a rousing conclusion with an old favorite, Initials R.B.M.E. by John Cranko, choreographed to the Second Piano Concerto in B-flat Major, Op. 83 by Johannes Brahms. Seeing this piece after a long absence, one is reminded of just how brilliantly John Cranko choreographed to music never intended for the dance. Few other choreographers have exhibited this remarkable talent, and we are all the poorer for his early death at forty-five. Initials R.B.M.E. is simply a joy to watch.
In the First Movement Robert Tewsley appears, at times, to be tiring and well he should for he is the obvious male mainstay of the evening. Mr. Tewsley is a highly talented, adaptive danseur who looks good and dances well in everything. Julia Kramer is a lovely dancer who is a standout in the Second Movement. Ivanna Illyenko and Tamas Detrich form an excellent partnership in the Third Movement. Both Miss Illyenko and Mr. Detrich are extremely fast and have great technical skills. The fourth Movement is dominated by Thomas Lempertz, an audience favorite. Mr Lempertz has nice elevation and turns extremely well.
All in all, it is a highly rewarding evening. Let us hope that the Stuttgart Ballet will not ever again absent itself from Southern California for twenty years.
The Stuttgart Ballet, presented at Segerstrom Hall, The Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. (714) 740-7878. Closes February 6.
|
|
|
|
