The Standouts of 2017: Simone Messmer in Miami City Ballet's "The Fairy's Kiss"

January 10, 2018

An ambiguous figure—does she bless or curse an orphaned boy?—but clear-cut in the beauty of her steps, the title character of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Fairy’s Kiss gained dimension, thanks to Simone Messmer’s bold portrayal. In this history-steeped premiere for Miami City Ballet, the principal dancer—then in her second year with the company—flashed through as an obstinate spirit, a mysterious gypsy and a shrewd seductress: all manifestations of a beguiling dealer in destiny. Whether leading her supernatural posse or intruding upon human affairs, Messmer’s fairy stayed aloft on Stravinsky’s music to follow the dictates of drama, which Ratmansky distilled from a Hans Christian Andersen story and its earlier ballet productions. Messmer has praised the renowned Russian choreographer for the humanity he shows through the logic of his classicism. That sentiment—really a recognition of a practitioner’s reverence for the art form—must certainly be mutual.

Messmer in “The Fairy’s Kiss.” Photo by Gene Schiavone, Courtesy MCB.