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 San
Francisco Ballet
'Don Quixote'
by Art
Priromprintr
October 8, 2003
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles
What a difference
a single night makes. The San Francisco Ballet's second performance of
"Don Quixote" on Wednesday night was quite a marked difference
over Tuesday night's opening performance. And Tuesday night wasn't a bad
performance. Wednesday's just upped it one more level, even though some
of the flaws of the Tomasson/Possokhov production made themselves a bit
more evident on second viewing.
Kristin Long was the highlight of the evening. She has an easy, exuberant
style that catches the audience immediately when she steps onto the stage.
Her stage presence is strong and very clear once she was on stage, the
audience knew that THE ballerina was there. Long was engaging as a character;
she made Kitri funny, cute and saucy all at once the audience simply
ate it up. And, her ability to pull technical tricks fouettes and otherwise
was quite impressive. Despite an unfortunate slip during the final variation
of the Act 3 Grand Pas de Deux, Long was a definite audience favorite,
coming back in the coda to make her final seduction with those fantastic
fouettes. She did a pretty interesting thing in those fouettes after
doing a fairly standard set of them, she suddenly changed her spot point,
and changed it several more times, having them go around in a large circle
before finishing towards the audience.
Another remarkable
thing about her performance was that she looked stunning in both the flashy
"Kitri" scenes as well as the very classical Dream scene. Feijoo,
the night before, was fantastic in the "Kitri" scenes and good
in the Dream scene, but Long was fantastic in the "Kitri" scenes
and positively glittering in the Dream scene. Personally, I fell in love
with Long's performance during Tomasson & Possokhov's new pas de deux
for Kitri and Basilio in the Act 2 gypsy camp scene. She takes a pretty
standard dance and turns it into something very relevant for the ballet
as a whole, and it is performed beautifully. She's a very versatile dancer
who never seemed to stop for the entire ballet.
Unfortunately, as Basilio, Gonzalo Garcia did not live up to Long's standard.
There were some perilous moments of partnering (some odd lifts, and some
awkwardness in the Grand Pas de Deux fish dive), and Garcia seemed too
self-conscious at times to really let himself have fun with the role.
Garcia impressed in his solos, however, with flashy jumps and endless
series of turns. He will probably grow into the role eventually it's
a technically demanding role, and Garcia is still a relatively young dancer.
In general, the corps de ballet was much more energized Wednesday night
though the opening scene was still somewhat problematic in that it took
them some time to warm up.
The biggest improvement on Wednesday was the Act 2 Dream scene. It was
actually a good dream Wednesday a fantastic dream, in fact with especially
strong dancing from each of the soloists: Julie Diana as the Queen of
the Driads, Elizabeth Miner as Cupid, and Long as Dulcinea/dream Kitri.
Diana wowed with her virtuosity, Miner induced smiles with her bounciness,
and Long continued to impress all the more with additional rock-solid
technique.
Stepping back to look at the production as a whole now, I realize that
while the production is good it lacks something in comparison to other
performances of "Don Quixote" that I have seen. Much of the
musical orchestration in the opening scene is problematic, and that seems
to be the issue: it doesn't help to make the ballet any more interesting
than it is without dancing trick after trick. I seem to remember the music
in other productions being much more fun and having a much fuller sound.
This perhaps added to the fun experienced in those performances. With
the musical element somewhat lacking in San Francisco's production, the
opening suffers, and the company can only try its best to make "Don
Q" leap off the stage.
Edited by Holly Messitt
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