Carolina Ballet
Works of visual art have inspired many writers and composers, so why not choreographers? Robert Weiss, artistic director of the Raleigh, North Carolina–based Carolina Ballet, and Lynne Taylor-Corbett, the company’s principal guest choreographer, used paintings by impressionist Claude Monet as inspiration for two substantial ballets, which premiered at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in January. The success of “Monet Impressions” was evident when 2,000 audience members roared as one at the final curtain. The program was a crowd-pleaser in the best sense. These were truly beautiful ballets, visually resplendent and imaginatively conceived.
Taylor-Corbett works in musical theater and ballet, each genre enriching the other. For her 40-minute Picnic on the Grass, she gave Broadway pizzazz to 13 roles created from the sedate grouping in Monet’s 1866 Le déjeuner sur l’herbe. She conjured up a young flirt (vividly pert Jan Burkhard) amorously pursued by two competitive suitors (amusingly athletic Nikolai Smirnov and Zalman Raffael), a bride and groom-to-be (gracefully lyrical Margot Martin and Alain Molina), a married woman and her old flame (erotically charged Hong Yang and Timour Bourtasenkov) and even Monet and his wife (movingly tender Attila Bongar and Melissa Podcasy). Taylor-Corbett intertwined the characters using steps appropriate to each vignette, and made familiar combinations and the accompanying Poulenc music seem newly invented.
Jeff A. R. Jones’s gossamer park setting and Ross Kolman’s subtle, ever-changing lighting added lovely layers, capped by William Ivey Long’s pastel dresses and muted suits. With sudden tableaux throughout and Monet’s appearance with an easel at the end, the combined elements strongly echoed the Broadway production of Steven Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George but took nothing away from the depths Taylor-Corbett’s choreography explored.
Weiss, who danced as a principal with New York City Ballet under Balanchine, gives that master’s dance language a warmth and character all his own. His Gardens at Giverny opened with Cyrille de la Barre as The Artist, a solo figure contemplating his world. His visions were made real with dancers mimicking
elements from a range of Monet works, evoked with eye-seducing backdrops from Jones and Kolman. David Heuvel’s arresting costumes equaled Long’s,
especially the shimmering floor-length men’s tunics representing water.
Weiss kept interest throughout this hour-long work by alternating the lyrical and the intense, using Debussy and Chausson compositions, to build steadily to an ecstatic finale. Long lines and precise mirroring characterized the pas de deux in “Clouds” (Bongar and Yang). “Irises” (Molina and Lilyan Vigo) contrasted with the fiery energy of “Spirits of the Rose Arbor” (Pablo Javier Perez and Margaret Severin-Hansen), the decadent sensuousness of “Water Lilies” (Bourtasenkov and Podcasy) and the aching wistfulness of “Woman with a Parasol” (de la Barre and Lara O’Brien).
“Monet Impressions” is another of Weiss’s many solid successes over the company’s nine seasons. Its sell-out crowds and strong subscription base demonstrate ballet’s continued vitality when in the right hands.
Roy C. Dicks has been writing about classical music, theatre and dance for the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer since 1997.
