\u201cConcerto for Two Pianos,\u201d<\/a> which debuted in 2024, was accomplished right out of the gate \u2014 sparklingly classical, uncommonly musical. It was no fluke. Her new piece, \u201cSymphonie Espagnole,\u201d is bigger and better.<\/p>\nWith a cast of 40, the ballet is big in a particular way. Classical in style, it has a structure favored by City Ballet\u2019s founding choreographer, George Balanchine. Each of the first four movements of \u00c9douard Lalo\u2019s \u201cSymphonie Espagnole\u201d\u2014 a concerto-like work requiring a virtuoso violinist (Hahn at select performances) \u2014 features different lead dancers, and then the whole cast comes together for the stage-filling finale.<\/p>\n
Peck knows how this works. She opens with a frisky lead couple (Emma Von Enck and Joseph Gordon), and gives the next two movements to a woman (Kloe Walker) backed by women and then a man (Roman Mejia) backed by men, before sinking into a pas de deux (Mira Nadon and Ryan Tomash) accompanied by three couples.<\/p>\n
Deploying the conventions adeptly, Peck adds her own touches. The costumes by Robert Perdziola put one group of women in tutus and another in flowing dresses, where most classical ballets chose one mode. Peck borrows formations from Balanchine as Balanchine did from Marius Petipa, but she selects some unusual ones, like putting a lead dancer on one side of the stage and the corps dancers on the other. And she develops her own ideas, often having the corps echo the lead\u2019s steps, sometimes in a domino succession that can usher the lead right off the stage.<\/p>\n
For all its exciting scale, what\u2019s most remarkable about the ballet is actually its restraint. Peck uses Spanish spice sparingly \u2014 a few finger snaps, some tasteful stamping \u2014 and the style flows from the music through the limbs, giving a swoony accent to the torso, a full-body snap to sudden twists. The details shimmer. Brandon Stirling Baker\u2019s characteristically sensitive lighting helps all this stay clear but subtle.<\/p>\n
And that subtlety is in exciting tension with a continual push toward density and difficulty. Peck is clearly trying to showcase the company\u2019s classical technique, and the steps for everyone are hard. To the leads, she gives aspects of her own dancing prowess. Von Enck gets her speed, matching the fleetness of the solo violin. Walker, a corps member in a breakout role, gets her upper body amplitude and plush.<\/p>\n
Nadon, already a major ballerina in her own right, takes Peck\u2019s continuity of impulse into her own deepening elegance. That\u2019s lovely to see, but what\u2019s more surprising is how Mejia, Peck\u2019s husband, is given qualities that are traditionally seen as more feminine. Even in bravura steps, he and the men around him move with pastel softness and delicate, beautiful ease.<\/p>\n
The finale is a thrill, but just as its final pose takes a moment to settle into place, so \u201cSymphonie Espagnole\u201d is a portrait of a choreographer still adjusting, still learning. She\u2019s working out proportions, where to follow her impulses and where to resist them; there\u2019s too much in some spots, not enough in others. But something that Hahn said about the violin part \u2014 that it\u2019s virtuosic but so well written that you can just run with it \u2014 is true of Peck\u2019s choreography. She can push the envelope without losing the flow.<\/p>\n
Hahn\u2019s comment came during one of City Ballet\u2019s \u201cSee the Music\u201d segments, in which the orchestra is raised and the music director, Andrew Litton, talks about one of the evening\u2019s scores. In this case, the score was \u201cSymphonie Espagnole,\u201d and Hahn was a terrific addition, illuminating and casually eloquent.<\/p>\n
Then came Fallon and Jagger and a video connecting \u201cSymphonie Espagnole\u201d to the program\u2019s other ballet, Balanchine\u2019s \u201cDiamonds.\u201d While the performance of \u201cDiamonds\u201d wasn\u2019t brilliant \u2014 Chun Wai Chan was great, but Isabella LaFreniere was lacking in mystery \u2014 it was a reminder that Balanchine sets the high bar against which all works at City Ballet must ultimately be judged. What \u201cDiamonds\u201d has that \u201cSymphonie Espagnole\u201d doesn\u2019t isn\u2019t just a surer sense of proportions. It\u2019s poetic suggestion and resonance. \u201cDiamonds\u201d evokes not only the steps, structures and musical acuity of ballet tradition but the whole culture behind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSymphonie Espagnole\u201d isn\u2019t art of that caliber, but it\u2019s nevertheless an achievement worth applauding and seeing again. It\u2019s a keeper.<\/p>\n
New York City Ballet<\/p>\n
Through May 31 at the David H. Koch Theater; nycballet.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Ballet\u2019s spring gala was a little different this year. At the David H. Koch Theater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[86688,88585,13531,88595,88586,88587,85549,88588,88590,88591,88589,36360,88593,9,24,11451,55,54,56,88067,88592,88596,88068,88594],"class_list":["post-225392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chan","tag-chun-wai","tag-dancing","tag-emma","tag-hahn","tag-hilary","tag-isabella","tag-jagger","tag-lafreniere","tag-mejia","tag-mick","tag-mira","tag-nadon","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-ballet","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-peck","tag-roman","tag-symphonie-espagnole-ballet","tag-tiler","tag-von-enck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}